Intrinsic Motivation Among Regular, Special, And Alternative Education High School Students - Statistical Data Included

Adolescence, Spring, 2001 by Dudley J. Wiest, Eugene H. Wong, Joseph M. Cervantes, LuAnn Craik, Dennis A. Kreil

A clear finding was the perception by alternative education students that their parents were less involved in their lives and less supportive. These students rated their parents as less likely to listen, understand problems, ask about school, or talk to teachers. Their parents were also considered to be more punitive and authoritarian. In short, these parents were characterized as relating to their children in extremes, being either unavailable or controlling.

Among the three groups, special education students perceived their parents as the most helpful, positive, and involved in problem solving. (Regular education students also rated parents as significantly higher with regard to involvement than did alternative education students.) Thus, special education students perceived parents as supportive of learning. Because learning disabilities diminish the ability to succeed academically, these students may require such

support--to a greater degree than regular education students--to survive in school.

All three groups perceived similar levels of teacher warmth and autonomy support. This was a surprising finding, and it may suggest that parents are more crucial for attaining school success and academic competence. However, the students were not asked to differentiate between teachers, and it is unclear whether special education students were referencing resource specialists or mainstream teachers, and whether alternative education students were referencing their former mainstream teachers or current alternative education teachers.

All students equally endorsed peers as supportive of individual autonomy. This outcome was hypothesized, and the high levels of autonomy support reported by the students were not surprising. The students, regardless of achievement and competence levels, saw their friends as supportive, encouraging, likely to listen, and flexible.

Coping skills were more varied than predicted. It was hypothesized that regular education students would have more positive coping skills, while the other students, who have endured poorer educational outcomes, would be more defensive, with scores indicative of extrinsic motivation. It was found that both denial and projection of blame were not significantly different among the three groups. Surprisingly, regular education students had significantly higher anxiety relative to special and alternative education students. However, their mean score of 2.3, which falls closer to "sometimes" than "most of the time" on the Likert-scale continuum, indicates a moderate level of anxiety, not one that is extreme (i.e., dysfunctional). Further, regular education students scored significantly higher on positive coping than did alternative education students, as well as higher relative to special education students, although not to a statistically significant degree. Thus, school achievement may come at the price of moder ate anxiety, but those who succeed appear to have adequate coping skills to compensate for this type of stress.