The purpose of this study was to identify the changing patterns of students'' academic amotivation in relation to personal and environmental factors during the school year. I examined the students’patterns of amotivation changed longitudinally from 6th grade to 7th as their academic burden increased.
In this study, I used 3rd(6th grade) and 4th(7th grade) wave data from the Gyeonggi Education Panel Study(GEPS). Participants were 1,495 males(51%) and 1,439 females(49%). First of all, I analyzed the latent profiles of 6th and 7th grade students using five regulation types of self-determination motivation. The results showed that students were classified into five potential profile groups in both grades. ''Group 1'' was the amotivated group which showed the higher level of amotivation, ''Group 2'' had a higher level of autonomous motivation, and ''Group 3'' showed an average level of motivation. Although Group3''s amotivation value was higher than that of Group 1, the value of motivation types other than intrinsic motivation were higher, so it was difficult to define Group3 as ''Amotivated''. ''Group 4'' had more autonomous motivation with lower controlled motivation and amotivation than the average (Group3). ''Group5'' was similar to Group2 and Group4 in terms of high autonomous motivation but had more controlled motivation.
After analyzing the potential profile of each grade, I focused on amotivation change, I classified 3 groups. In this analysis, I found that amotivation changes longitudinally. The first group is the ''Amotivation In'' group, which did not belong to the amotivated group in 6th grade but entered it in 7th grade. Second group is the ‘Amotivation Stay'' group belonging to the ''Amotivation Group'' both 6th and 7th grade. Third one is the‘Amotivation Out’group. Which belonged to the amotivated group at 6th grade, but deviated from the amotivated group in 7th grade. 127 students were classified as the ''Amotivation Out'' group and 109 students were classified as the '' Amotivation Stay'' group. Of the 236 students that were classified as the ''Amotivation group'' in 6th grade, 53.8% of students left and 46.2% maintained amotivation. Among 2,693 students who were not classified as the ''Amotivation group'' at 6th grade, 11.6% students entered the ''Amotivation group''.
I used repeated measures ANOVA to analyze how personal (academic self-efficacy) and environmental factors (rational explanation of parents, teacher-student relationship, and peer relationship) changes affect ''Amotivation''. There were significant differences in academic self-efficacy, rational explanations of parents, and the teacher-student relationship according to the type of amotivational change.
First, the difference of personal and environmental factors according to the type of amotivation change is as follows: Academic self-efficacy and rational explanations of parents are lower in ''Amotivation Stay'' group than in ''Amotivation Out'' and ''Amotivation In'' groups . The learner who deviated from amotivation had higher academic self - efficacy and felt parents used more rational explanation than the ''Amotivation Stay'' group.
Meanwhile, the personal and environmental factors of the students who entered the amotivation group were higher than the students who kept amotivation for a year. This means that even students who are classified as the same amotivational group in the 7th grade, they may have different psychological states. It suggest that learners'' can be amotivated when they feel self-efficacy and parental rational explanations are less than before.
The variables which had interaction effect with the type of amotivational change were academic self - efficacy, rational explanation of parents, and teacher - student relationship. The ''Amotivation In'' group had lower academic self - efficacy and teacher - student relationship than the 6th grade, and ''Amotivation Out'' group showed better self - efficacy and teacher - student relationship in 7th grade. In the case of parental rational explanations, both the ''Amotivation Stay'' group and the ''Amotivation Out'' group recognized that parental explanations increased at 7th grade. In the case of peer relationships, there was no interaction effect, which may be due to the characteristics of peer relationships. The difference in peer relationship values in all groups and periods was not large compared with other factors. Peer relations had a higher value than other factors in all groups and periods, and the difference between the minimum value and the maximum was only 0.14. This means that learners in the 6th grade and the 7th grade perceived the peer relations positively than the other factors. In order to find out whether the change in peer relations affects the amotivation of the learner, needs to extract the learner who felt a big change in the peer relationship for the follow-up study.
In order to prevent learners from being amotivated, it will be helpful to increase the students’ achievement experience and increase academic self-efficacy by presenting tasks in which learners can feel value and interest. Also parents'' rational explanation may influence the learner''s motivation by nurturing their autonomy.
Base on some limitation of this study, I suggests some implication for the next studies as follows. First, this study utilized the data restricted to students in Gyeonggi-do. Using data from national units is needed to ensure the representativeness of all students in Korea. Second, it is necessary to confirm whether amotivation of 6th grade and 7th is higher than those of junior high and high school students. Through longitudinal research, it is necessary to confirm the changes in amotivation of elementary, middle, and high school students. Third, it is necessary to explore various personal and environmental factors related to motivation and amotivation of learners. Although this study examined the effects of academic self-efficacy in terms of personal factor, academic achievement and self-concept could be another plausible factors influencing learner''s motivation. Regarding environmental factors, future study could explore the effect of autonomy support and control of parents and teachers to help amotivated students to be motivated.