Reliability and Validity of the Assessment of Motivational Outcomes

Abstract

There seem to be a variety of intrinsic and extrinsic classroom motivational outcomes. That is, there seem to be a variety of classroom events and students' perceptions of such events that serve to motivate students' behavior in various ways. Two such important motivational outcomes that are associated with different patterns of students' behavior are students' perceptions of success and of failure. The present study sought to identify the classroom events, or outcomes, that students perceived as evidence of success and the outcomes that students perceived as evidence of failure. A scale was devised to measure the relative importance given each of these outcomes by students. The Assessment of Motivational Outcomes showed excellent content validity. Across-groups reliabilities of .59 and .62 were higher than the test-retest reliabilities of .49 and .35. Such results appear likely given the nature of the instrument.

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