ARE THE LINKS BETWEEN ACADEMIC ACHIEVEMENT AND LEARNING MOTIVATION SIMILAR IN FIVE NEIGHBOURING COUNTRIES?
ARE THE LINKS BETWEEN ACADEMIC ACHIEVEMENT AND LEARNING MOTIVATION SIMILAR IN FIVE NEIGHBOURING COUNTRIES?

Summary/Abstract: The model for relationships between general educational performance (GEP) and non-cognitive characteristics (e.g. students’ self-evaluation and motivation in science), was worked out previously on Estonian data (Täht and Must 2009). The aim of this paper was to fit the model on the data of four neighbouring countries. The analyses showed that Estonian model fits the Finnish, Latvian, Russian and Swedish data. Students’ self-evaluation in science (SE) has a relatively strong and stable relationship (.55–.64) with their GEP in all five countries. Students’ science learning motivation (SM) has moderate or even no relationship with their general educational performance (.05–.42). Five neighbouring countries are ordered by the size of the last relationship as follows: Russia, Latvia, Estonia, Sweden and Finland. These variations may result from differences in cultural influences on personality or from national educational and social policies. The differences have developed during the course of history, cultural and political development.

• Details
• Contents