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IMPROVING THE INTRINSIC MOTIVATION TO LEARN OF
FOURTH AND FIFTH GRADERS: A MOTIVATIONAL
ENHANCEMENT DELIVERED THROUGH A SOCIAL

LEARNING MODEL OF PARENT TRAINING

presented by

John Mark Froiland

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IMPROVING THE INTRINSIC MOTIVATION TO LEARN OF FOURTH AND
FIFTH GRADERS: A MOTIVATIONAL ENHANCEMENT DELIVERED
THROUGH A SOCIAL LEARNING MODEL OF PARENT TRAINING
By

John Mark Froiland

A DISSERTATION
Submitted to
Michigan State University
in partial fulﬁllment of the requirements for the degree of
DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY

Department of Counseling, Educational Psychology and Special Education

2003

ABSTRACT
IMPROVING THE INTRINSIC MOTIVATION TO LEARN OF FOURTH AND
FIFTH GRADERS: A MOTIVATIONAL ENHANCEMENT DELIVERED
THROUGH A SOCIAL LEARNING MODEL OF PARENT TRAINING
By

John Mark Froiland

This study introduced and provided an initial test for the effectiveness of a
motivational enhancement package (i.e., The Love for Learning Project) for fourth and
ﬁfth graders. Designed to elevate children’s intrinsic motivation to learn, the
enhancement package entailed teaching parents to use an autonomy supportive .
motivating style (i.e., the Inspirational Motivational Style) when interacting with their
children about learning. Moreover, parents learned how to help their children set their
own learning goals before engaging in homework assignments. In the families’ homes,
the consultant taught an autonomy supportive motivating style through the following:
providing information about the motivating style; scripted modeling of the style in
germane hypothetical learning-related scenarios; parental practice of the style in role-
plays related to the scripted scenarios; and parental practice of the inspirational style with
their children during educational games designed for parents and children. Parents also
Ieamed what learning goals are, practiced making some themselves, then learned how to
teach their children how to set learning goals in an autonomy supportive way. The
consultant used the collected learning goals sheets to provide feedback to the parents
about the extent to which the written goals were actual learning goals. A parent booklet

provided quick reference sheets for parents about the components of autonomy support,

the signs of intrinsic motivation to learn, and learning goals. The booklet also provided
examples Of each construct and differentiated them from related constructs (e. g.,
performance avoidance goals).

This study used a treatment versus control x pre-treatment versus post-treatment
comparison. 15 families participated in the treatment group and another 15 families
participated in the control group. The following measures were used in pre- versus post-
treatment comparisons: the Relative Autonomy Index of the Academic Self-Regulation
Questionnaire (SRQ-A); Children’s Academic Intrinsic Motivation Inventory (CAIMI)-
18-item general scale only; and the new Parent Questionnaire of Child Motivation to
Learn (PQCML), which demonstrated excellent reliability and concurrent validity in this
study. In addition, the Froiland Inventory of Homework Feelings (FIHF), a measure of
child homework emotions (i.e., positive emotions, including sense of vigor; and
symptoms of depression and anxiety, including somatic complaints) traced the
development of self-reported emotional health from pre- to post-treatment. The FIHF
also demonstrated excellent reliability and criterion-related validity in this study. As
predicted, a MANOVA revealed that the treatment group grew significantly (F(4, 25) =
5.10, p<.01, ES = .45) in terms of motivational health relative to the control group. One-
way ANOVAs then indicated that children in the treatment group showed marked
improvement on the PQCML, FIHF, and the Relative Autonomy Index of the SRQ-A.
Also, parents’ high post-treatment satisfaction survey scores were corroborated by a 0%
attrition rate. Overall, the Love for Learning Project showed Si gns of promise as a

motivational and emotional wellness enhancement for fourth and fifth grade children.

Copyright by
JOHN MARK FROILAND
2003

To my son Elijah John and my wife Denice. Also, to Dr. John Lee Froiland, M.D., who
taught me how to love learning. Above all to my gracious Saviour, Jesus Christ, who

gave me the strength to heartily complete this dissertation.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I would like to thank my dissertation director Dr. Jere Brophy for sharing his
expertise in motivation and for providing sound and pragmatic advice. I would also like
to thank Dr. Evelyn Oka for her continued support as my advisor.

Thanks to Dr. Eugene Pemell for encouraging me to assiduously work on this
dissertation and mentoring me as a teacher. Also, thanks to Dr. Mark Reckase for

providing sound measurement advice.

vi

TABLE OF CONTENTS

LIST OF TABLES ................................................................................... ix
LIST OF FIGURES .................................................................................. x
LIST OF NEW ABBREVIATIONS ............................................................... xi
CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTION TO THE STUDY .............................................................. 1
CHAPTER H

METHOD ............................................................................................ 12
CHAPTER HI

FINDINGS ........................................................................................... 30
CHAPTER IV

CONCLUSIONS AND DISCUSSION .......................................................... 47
APPENDICES

APPENDIX A

The Love for Leaming Project Flyer ............................................................. 70
APPENDIX B

The Love for Learning Project: Reference Booklet for Parents .............................. 72
APPENDIX C

Role-Play Sheets for Family Sessions in the Love for Learning Project ..................... 88
APPENDIX D

Inspirational Motivational Style Vignettes and Record of Parent-Child Play ............... 93
APPENDIX E

Treatment Manual: Family Session Plans for the Love for Learning Project ............... 94
APPENDIX F

The Parent Questionnaire Of Child Motivation to Learn ..................................... 123
APPENDIX G

Froiland’s Inventory of Homework Feelings ................................................... 128

vii

APPENDIX H

Parent Satisfaction Form for Motivational Consultation ..................................... 131
APPENDIX I

My Inspirational Learning Goals for Today ................................................... 132
LIST OF REFERENCES ......................................................................... 133

viii

LIST OF TABLES

Table 1:

My New Learning Goals for Tonight: the original learning goals sheet used in
most of the study .................................................................................... 21
Table 2:

Internal Consistency Reliability Coefﬁcients (Alpha) for each of the Major
Instruments in the Love for Learning Project .................................................... 31
Table 3:

Concurrent Validity of the Parent Questionnaire of Child Motivation to Learn:
correlations with other motivation instruments ................................................. 31
Table 4:

Criterion-Related Validity of Froiland’s Inventory Of Homework Feelings:
correlations with measures of intrinsic motivation ............................................. 32
Table 5:

Pre-Treatment Means and Standard Deviations of Instrument Scores for the
Treatment and Control Groups .................................................................... 33
Table 6:

Test-Retest Reliability Coefﬁcients for the Control Group ........................... 34
Table 7:

Means and Standard Deviations for Treatment and Control Groups on all
Measures at Pro-Treatment and Post-Treatment ................................................. 38

ix

LIST OF FIGURES

Figure 1:

Mean Changes in Parent Questionnaire of Child Motivation to Learn Scores from
Pro-Treatment to Post-Treatment for the Treatment and Control Groups ................... 40
Figure 2:

Mean Changes on Froiland’s Inventory of Homework Feelings Scores from Pre-
Treatment to Post-Treatment for the Treatment and Control Groups ........................ 41
Figure 3:

Mean Pre-Treatment to Post-Treatment Changes on the New Relative Autonomy
Index for the Treatment versus Control Group .................................................. 45
Figure 4:

Mean Changes in the Treatment and Control Group from Pro-Treatment to Post-
Treatment, in Comparison with the Developmental Trend for Fourth-Graders. . .- ......... 58

LIST OF NEW ABBREVIATIONS

IMS Inspirational Motivational Style
PQCML Parent Questionnaire of Child Motivation to Learn

FIHF Froiland’s Inventory of Homework Feelings

xi

CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTION

Improving the Intrinsic Motivation to Learn of Fourth and Fifth Graders: A Motivational

Enhancement Delivered Through a Social Learning Model of Parent Training

Intrinsic motivation involves ﬁnding an activity rewarding in and of itself
(Gottfried, Fleming, & Gottfried, 2001; Grolnick, Kurowski, & Gurland, 1999; Rigby,
Deci, Patrick, & Ryan, 1992). Put another way, the process of performing the activity
(e.g., reading; doing aerobics) helps meet inner psychological needs such as increasing
perceived competence (or mastery), sense of relatedness to others, or perceived autonomy
(Rigby et al., 1992). The intrinsically motivated individual may also engage in an
activity for the satisfaction of curiosity or interest (Amabile, 1997; Gottfried
et al., 2001).

Regarding intrinsic motivation to learn in particular, Gottfried et al. (2001) deﬁne
academic intrinsic motivation as “the enjoyment of school learning characterized by a
mastery orientation, curiosity, persistence, task endogeny; and the learning of
challenging, difficult, and novel tasks.” (p.4). However, Brophy (1999) warns that an
overemphasis on the enjoyment of learning may lead to inappropriate motivational
recommendations. Namely, he points out that teachers should not feel pressured to make
learning activities fun in the same sense as video games and carnival rides, since learning
is a much different type of task. In accordance, the current author takes the position that

intrinsic motivation to learn involves cherishing learning (i.e., holding a deep

appreciation for learning or cognitively delighting in the process of gaining knowledge
and understanding), even though it may not always be affectively pleasing. Nonetheless,
students who are intrinsically motivated to learn usually experience more positive affect
toward school and learning than other learners (e.g., Cordova & Lepper, 1996; Stipek,
Salmon, Givvin, & Kazemi, 1998). In fact, one study found that students who were
intrinsically motivated to learn often had the perception that time ﬂies by during class and
homework (Conti, 2001).

Self-deterrnination theory adds further complexity and insight to the construct of
intrinsic motivation by positing that intrinsic motivation is the highest or purest form of
autonomous self-regulation (Grolnick et al., 1999; Rigby et al., 1992). The theory
provides a framework for conceptualizing the developmental level of self-regulation that
a child experiences for important behaviors (e.g., doing schoolwork) that the child is not
initially intrinsically motivated to perform. The major idea is that a child can come to
freely choose to do a task (without the impetus of external rewards or negative internal
states such as guilt or anxiety) that he or she originally found detestable, boring, or
uninteresting. More speciﬁcally, the lowest form of self-regulation is external regulation,
wherein the child feels that he or she is controlled by parents and teachers (and the
reward structures they create). External regulation is associated with the least
psychological health of all the levels of self-regulation (Ryan & Connell, 1989).
Introjected regulation, the second level of self-regulation, is an improvement over
external regulation in that the child engages in desirable behaviors with or without
rewards, punishments, or commands. However, the child still feels somewhat controlled,

albeit from within. Namely, the introjected child will often do her homework without her

parents coercing her into doing it, yet she will do it to avoid feeling guilty or ashamed.
Interestingly, introjected children are more likely to worry about school or make self-
deprecating statements than extrinsically regulated children (Ryan & Connell, 1989). It
is as if the pressure from adults has now been internalized (Rigby et al., 1992).

The development of identiﬁed regulation (i.e., seeing the value or usefulness of an
activity) is considered a form of autonomous regulation (e.g., Grolnick et al., 1999) and is
likely to occur when adults help the child see the task (or domain) as germane,
meaningful, or valuable (Brophy, 1999). In the identiﬁed regulation stage, children study
because they see the usefulness of learning the material. For instance, a child may begin
to freely choose to do his math homework because he is now convinced that math skills
will help him function effectively in society.

Interestingly, when the child begins to develop identiﬁed self-regulation of
originally extrinsically regulated behaviors, she experiences many of the beneﬁts of
intrinsic motivation (Grolnick et al., 1999; Rigby et al., 1992). Moreover, many of the
same factors associated with the development of identiﬁed self-regulation are also
associated with intrinsic motivation, such as autonomy supportive communication and
provision for a sense of relatedness (Rigby et al., 1992).

According to self-determination theory, integrated regulation is the highest form
of autonomous self-regulation below pure intrinsic motivation (Rigby etal., 1992).
Integrated regulation involves engaging in activities because they ﬂow out of one’s sense
of self (Rigby et al., 1992). A teacher, for instance, might enjoy going the “extra mile” to
prepare a spectacular lesson plan because teaching has become a deep part of her.

However, in the realm of children’s motivation for scholastic learning, integrated

regulation is not emphasized as a part of the continuum. Rather, after identiﬁed
regulation, the next highest phase of academic self-regulation is intrinsic motivation
(Reeve, 1996; Ryan & Connell, 1989). This is due to the fact that child interviews
revealed that external, introjected, identiﬁed, and intrinsic reasons were the main reasons
that children engaged in scholastic activities (Ryan & Connell, 1989). Thus, Ryan &
Connell’s measure of academic self-regulation uses intrinsic as the highest subscale (see
Data Sources and Treatment Evaluation within the Methods section).

Self-determination theory informs the motivational assessment process by
suggesting that the child may begin to manifest growth in autonomy (e.g., move from
writing the book report to avoid guilt, to writing the book report because it helps the child
to reach personal goals) before she begins to actually Show remarkable increments on
measures of pure intrinsic motivation (e.g., before she would say in an interview that she
actually cherishes learning through reading books). Indeed, Froiland (2003) found that
children usually responded immediately with overt signs of autonomy and intrinsic
motivation in response to parental autonomy support (chi-square analysis revealed the
relationship was signiﬁcant, p<.001). However, the autonomous behaviors and
verbalizations were slightly more frequent than purely intrinsically motivated behaviors.
This suggests that, despite the theoretical and empirical association between autonomy
and intrinsic motivation, it may be necessary to trace the development of both when
conducting assessments of children’s response to an intrinsic motivational intervention.
Problem

One longitudinal and two cross-sectional studies have shown that most children

experience a gradual decline in intrinsic motivation as they progress from kindergarten to

12th grade (Gottfried et al., 2001; Lepper, Sethi, Dialdin, 1997; Sansone & Morgan,
1992). This is quite alarming, especially considering the numerous educational beneﬁts
of intrinsic motivation. For example, intrinsic motivation to learn is positively associated
with various measures of academic growth, such as creativity (Grolnick, Gurland,
DeCourcey, Jacob, 2002), long-term recall, deeper understanding (Conti, Amabile, &
Pollack, 1995) and reduced drop-out rates (Vallerland & Bissonnette, 1992). Children
with higher levels of academic intrinsic motivation also tend to get higher grades
(Gottfried, 1990).

Moreover, intrinsic motivation is considered a psychological protective or
resilience factor (Wyman, Sandler, Wolchik, & Nelson, 2000). Indeed, children and
adolescents who have an intrinsic motivational orientation have fewer depressive
symptoms (Boggiano & Barret, 1992; McClure, Rogeness, & Thompson, 1997).
Furthermore, college-aged students with an intrinsic goal orientation tend to have higher
levels of psychological well-being, a greater sense of vitality, fewer reported physical
symptoms, fewer narcissistic tendencies, and less Machiavellianism (Kasser & Ryan,
1996; McHoskey, 1999; Schmuck, Kasser, & Ryan, 2000).

In addition, there is some evidence that children who develop autonomous self-
regulation or intrinsic motivation are less likely to engage in delinquent behavior at
school (e.g., Battistich, Schaps, Watson, & Solomon, 1996; Grolnick & Ryan, 1989). An
even more clear example of the protective strength of intrinsic motivation is provided by
Grolnick, Kurowski, Dunlap, & Hevey (2000). They found that children from autonomy
supportive homes experienced fewer increases in learning problems and acting-out when

making the notoriously tough transition to junior high. Thus, interventions that foster

intrinsic motivation must be developed, in order to promote children’s psychological and
academic health both now and in the future.
Rationale for Target Selection

This study focused on fourth and ﬁfth graders for three reasons. First of all,
academic intrinsic motivation becomes increasingly stable, in terms of individual stability
within the group (i.e., rank-order consistency), as the school years progress. Thus, much
like intelligence and personality, academic intrinsic motivation may become less pliable
or responsive to interventions as the child approaches adolescence (Gottfried, 2001).
Furthermore, intrinsic motivation to learn and autonomous self-regulation are preventive
of middle school adjustment problems (Grolnick et al., 2000). Also, by fourth grade,
children are probably capable of learning how to set and implement learning goals, since
children become better at using learning strategies as elementary school progresses (Paris
& Cunningham, 1996).

The primary consultees in this study were parents. This is due to the belief that
parents are usually the most inﬂuential over a child’s attitude toward school (Christenson,
1995). Indeed, quite a few studies have shown that parental autonomy support is related
to higher intrinsic motivation and has many other psychological and educational beneﬁts
(e.g., Deci, Driver, Hotchkiss, & Wilson, 1993; Gottfried, Fleming, & Gottfried, 1994;
Grolnick et al., 2002). Moreover, one study suggested a connection between an
autonomy supportive style and an authoritative style, which is known to have many long-
term developmental beneﬁts. Ginsburg & Bronstein (1993) found that under-controlling
(deﬁned by the qualities of permissive parents) and over-controlling (deﬁned by the

qualities of authoritarian parents) parents had children who had an extrinsic motivational

orientation. On the other hand, children of autonomy supportive (deﬁned chiefly by
much of the responsive aspect of authoritative parenting) parents were more intrinsically
motivated. This study suggests a notable link between these vast, yet separated,
literatures showing the plethora of beneﬁts of autonomy supportive and authoritative
parenting styles (Baumrind, 1993; Ginsburg & Bronstein, 1993). Baumrind (1993) found
that the children of authoritative parents have much better outcomes than children of
“good-enough” parents (i.e., parents who showed average levels of responsivity to their
children), suggesting the appropriateness of an enhancement approach. Moreover,
Baumrind (1993) also suggested that even authoritative parents could become more
effective through a boost in their perceived ability to parent effectively (what could be
called parental self-efﬁcacy). Because of the use of a social learning model of parent
training/consultation, it is likely that the Love for Learning Project will enhance the self-
efﬁcacy of the parents (Brown, Przywansky, & Shulte,2001), thereby increasing the
effectiveness of parents who already have a “good-enough” autonomy supportive or an
authoritative style.

In terms of the preventive nature of this intervention, there is an additional beneﬁt
to seeking to enhance family autonomy support. The results from various studies suggest
that the parents of anxious and depressed children and adolescents are highly controlling,
failing to grant acceptable levels of autonomy support (Kendall, Chu, Pimentel, &
Choudhury, 2000). Moreover, Williams, Frankel, Campbell, & Deci (2000) have argued
that autonomy support is antithetical to the type of negative and critical family

interactions that are associated with worse outcomes for those with various psychological

and physical disorders. Thus, the family may provide the ideal target for a preventive
intervention that teaches an autonomy supportive style.
Rationale for Choice of Intervention

Although the rationale for promoting parental autonomy support and elevating
intrinsic motivation is described above, this section will briefly describe the rationale for
teaching the use of learning goals. Then, the rationale for using the social learning model
(SLM) of parent training will be explained.

Children with teaming goals (also referred to as task-involvement or mastery
goals) are oriented toward increasing their knowledge and skill (Brophy, 1998; Dweck &
Leggett, 1988). In contrast, children with performance goals are concerned with
acquiring a good evaluation of their ability (Brophy, 1998; Dweck & Leggett, 1988).
Children with learning goals tend to enjoy the following cognitive, affective, and
behavioral beneﬁts (Dweck & Leggett, 1988): they View high effort as a strategy for
pursuing mastery, rather than viewing the need for exerting high effort as a sign of low
ability; they are buffered against learned helplessness because failure is perceived as
feedback about a need to revise one’s strategy; emotional energy is channeled into the
learning process, rather than distracting one from learning; children experience ongoing
intrinsic rewards for facing challenges with effort; and challenging tasks are sought, as
opposed to being avoided due to a risk of a bad evaluation. It is the author’s position that
learning goals are a speciﬁc type of intrinsic goals, which all orient one to finding value
in an activity or area of activity, independent of evaluation concerns. (Kasser & Ryan,
1996). For example, physical ﬁtness goals (another subtype of intrinsic goals), like

learning goals, lead to greater persistence, less anxiety, and higher intrinsic interest

(Kasser & Ryan, 1996; Schmuck et al., 2000). Conversely, exercising in order to impress
others is an extrinsic goal, which brings the same type of negative consequences that
performance goals often bring in the academic domain.

Recent research has brought into question the Simple contrast between learning
and performance goals (e.g., Hidi & Harackiewicz, 2000; Pintrich, 2000). Although the
issue is not completely resolved, ﬁndings are converging to suggest that performance
goals and learning goals are somewhat independent of each other (Hidi & Harackiewicz,
2000), much like intrinsic and extrinsic motivation (Lepper et al., 1997). Furthermore,
one study suggested that children who have high levels of both Ieaming goals and
performance goals may experience the same motivational and affective beneﬁts as those
who are only high in Ieaming goals (Pintrich, 2000). On the other hand, children with
high levels of performance and low Ieaming goals show the motivational and affective
deﬁcits that were originally summarized by Dweck & Leggett (1988). This suggests that
it is the presence of Ieaming goals that should be strived for in the Love for Learning
Project, not the eradication of performance goals. However, there is mounting evidence
that performance goals can be divided into performance-avoidance/self—defeating goals
(i.e., focused on avoiding a negative judgment of competence) and performance-approach
or self-enhancing goals, which are focused on reaching a positive evaluation of
competence (Rawsthome & Elliot, 1999; Skaalvik, 1997). Not surprisingly, a meta-
analytic review suggested that most or all of the negative effects of “performance goals”
are accounted for by performance-avoidance goals (Rawsthome & Elliot, 1999). Thus,
although the consultant taught the parents how to teach their children to set Ieaming

goals, he also mentioned that it is okay for the child to also have a secondary goal of

getting good scores on homework and tests. The key is that the child does not let the
performance-approach goal turn into apprehension or a distraction from the process of
pursuing the learning goal.

The Love for Learning Project taught parents how to use an autonomy supportive
style of communication, particularly when talking about Ieaming or homework. Parents
also learned how to teach their children to set Ieaming goals related to school. This study
can be considered a child motivational wellness enhancement and parent motivating style
enhancement. This is because parents and children were not selected for treatment based
on any identiﬁed motivational orientation or motivating style deﬁciency; rather, it was
hoped that the preventive intervention would enhance parenting style and child.
motivation, regardless of their starting points. As mentioned earlier (see Problem
section), intrinsic motivation to learn is a precious resource that enhances important
aspects of children’s academic and psychological health, while protecting children from
upcoming stressors.

This study sought to foster child intrinsic motivation through a SLM of parent
training that teaches parents how to become more autonomy supportive. SLM
training/consultation involves effective teaching techniques, such as verbal persuasion,
modeling, role—playing and corrective feedback (Brown et al., 2001). SLM training is
highly effective for teaching new skills in a way that enhances the self-efﬁcacy and the
performance of the trainee (Schunk, 1999; Sterling-Tumer, Watson, Wildmon, Watkins,
& Little, 2001). In fact, SLM leads to greater gains in self-efﬁcacy and treatment
integrity than more traditional/didactic forms of instruction (Schunk, 1999, Sterling-

Tumer et al., 2001). In particular, one study found that an SLM form Of parent training

10

was especially effective in raising treatment integrity with mothers Of a lower socio-
economic status (Knapp & Deluty, 1989). A model Of parent training that enhances
parental self-efﬁcacy seems especially suitable to the current study, since enhanced self-
efﬁcacy will sustain the parent’s motivation (Schunk, 1999) to support the child’s
motivation.

This study was designed to make an initial determination of the Love for Learning
Project’s effectiveness. In particular, the following predictions were examined: 1) the
Love for Learning Project would lead to signiﬁcantly enhanced intrinsic motivation, as
measured by the Relative Autonomy Index, the Parent Questionnaire of Child Motivation
to Learn, and the Children’s Academic Intrinsic Motivation Inventory; 2) the Love for
Learning Project would lead to signiﬁcantly enhanced emotional health surrounding
homework, as measured by Froiland’s Inventory of Homework Feelings; 3) the Love for
Learning Project would be satisfying to parents as measured by the Parent Satisfaction

Form for Motivational Consultation and the attrition rate.

11

CHAPTER II

METHOD

Participants and Setting

The participants in this study were fourth and ﬁfth-grade children, along with
their parents. The families were recruited primarily from three private elementary
schools in or near a mid-sized Midwestern city. Parents were primarily of middle socio-
economic status, while their children were from general education classrooms. Data on
race and ethnicity were not formally collected, however, the treatment group consisted of
11 white children, one N ative-American/white child, one African-American child, one
African-American/white child, and one Hispanic child. Since the control group was
drawn from the same population (a predominantly white student body), it is likely that
it’s racial and ethnic composition was similar.

15 parents and children (11 boys and 4 girls) participated in the treatment group
and another 15 families (with 11 girls and 4 boys) participated in the control group.
Eight fourth graders and seven ﬁfth graders participated in the treatment group, while six
fourth graders and nine ﬁfth graders participated in the control group.

Parents were recruited primarily through schools in which the teacher sent the
Love for Learning Project ﬂyer (see Appendix A) home with all of the fourth and ﬁfth
grade children in the classroom. This ﬂyer let parents know of the opportunity to either
ﬁll out motivational surveys at the beginning and end of the study or to participate in the

sessions, in addition to ﬁlling out the surveys.

12

The control group consisted of families that returned the fl yer and indicated that
they would be willing to only ﬁll out surveys. The author sent these families the four
surveys during the week that the treatment group’s sessions began. The author never met
with the control group families in person. When most of the treatment group ﬁnished the
seven sessions (about seven weeks later), the same surveys were sent to the control group
families again.

A total of seven parent training sessions were conducted, once a week. If
necessary due to individual family scheduling problems, the sessions were stretched out
over as long as nine weeks (10 weeks was the preset limit). Each session lasted
approximately 30 minutes in each family’s home, which increased the likelihood that a
variety of families was able to participate (Wood & Baker, 1999).

Procedure

This intervention taught parents to develop an autonomy supportive style and help
their children set Ieaming goals through modeling, role-playing, and feedback. Some of
the autonomy supportive modeling involved directly encouraging an intrinsic
motivational orientation in the child, which is a method that autonomy supportive
teachers commonly use during instruction (Reeve & Cai, 1999). The autonomy
supportive style was ﬁrst introduced with a clear explanation of the construct, along with
the associated beneﬁts for child Ieaming and well being. Because many people conflate
autonomy support with providing unlimited choice, the term inspirational motivational
style was used as the general label for the construct. This is warranted since numerous
studies show that autonomy support is associated with high levels of intrinsically

motivated (or inspired) learning. Moreover, an autonomy supportive motivating style

13

involves components such as acknowledging the child’s feelings that have nothing to do
with choice. Also, autonomy support is given in a developmentally appropriate fashion,
so that choice is only given to the extent appropriate.

In addition to an autonomy supportive style, a controlling style of motivating was
described, along with the negative outcomes associated with it. Also, an under-involved
or permissive style of parenting was brieﬂy explained and contrasted with autonomy
support, so that parents were able to clearly differentiate autonomy support from less
salubrious motivational styles.

Once the autonomy supportive style was clearly explained and any questions were
answered, the parents were provided with The Love for Learning Project: Reference
Booklet for Parents (see Appendix B), which reiterated what was already explained and
also provided some hypothetical examples of parental autonomy support and likely child
reactions. Within the booklet, quick reference sheets were pointed out which break the
inspirational motivational style into rather concrete components (see Appendix B).

Next, the consultant assured the parents that the training sessions would help them
to learn and apply autonomy support in a sound and interesting way. This is called verbal
persuasion in Bandura’s social Ieaming model and likely increased the parents’ self-
efﬁcacy for Ieaming the motivating style. A positive expectation for a good outcome is
important in SLM consultation and in therapeutic outcomes in general. Likewise, a
relationship marked by warmth, empathy, and trust leads to greater consultee satisfaction,
consultee imitation of the model (Brown et al., 2001), and better therapeutic outcomes in
general (Template Implementation Work Group of the Board of Professional Affairs,

Board of Scientiﬁc Affairs, and the Committee for the Advancement of Professional

14

Psychology of the American Psychological Association, 1999). Thus, a non-speciﬁc part
of this motivational enhancement involved the consultant conveying that he shared the
parents’ interest in the childrens’ motivational growth and well being.

Once the parents said that they understood the autonomy supportive style, the
consultant modeled a component of autonomy support in a hypothetical education-related
scenario the parents were likely to encounter regularly. One of the parents played the
role of the child and responded rather favorably (i.e., with signs of intrinsic motivation or
autonomy as described in the Reference Booklet for Parents, Appendix B). While it was
explained that the child will not always show overt positive responses, the parent learned
about the general relationship between an autonomy supportive style and child responses.
Also, the parents likely gained a sense of the superiority of autonomy support as they
experienced the way in which the autonomy supportive style is much more pleasing to
receive than the controlling or under-involved style. Before demonstrating an autonomy
supportive style in a particular scenario, the consultant modeled what not to do in an
isomorphic situation. Namely, the consultant either used an over-controlling or an under-
involved style, often in an exaggerated way to spark levity. After each particular pair of
scenarios was displayed, the parents were invited to discuss their Observations and point
out the components of autonomy support in the positive scenario and control or under-
involvement in the negative scenario. The consultant introduced each new set of
scenarios (i.e., the opposing negative and positive models) with a brief explanation of the
particular component of autonomy support being featured. Also, the consultant handed
out a role-play sheet for each session which described the scenarios and the scripts for

roles the parents played (see Appendix C).

15

The following are examples of scenarios that involved modeling and role-playing:
la) Warm listening- the positive model involves a parent warmly and attentively
watching and listening as the child describes how her math test went; 1b) Contrast- the
parent pretends to listen to her child, saying, “uh-huh” frequently but failing to make eye-
contact; 1c) Contrast- as the child is describing her feelings about the test, the parent
interrupts and says “bottom line, what did you score?” 2a) Providing an explanation when
the parent has to ask the child to do something related to school- the parent clearly
explains why he wants his son to start working on his social studies project soon, also
reminding the child Of the features of the project that are interesting or the skill that he
might develop; Contrast- the parent says that he better see his son sitting at his desk in 10
seconds, “or else!” 3) Alternate version of #2- the child has procrastinated excessively
and still refuses to return to his study place, even after the parent makes the
aforementioned explanation and calmly waits momentarily. After taking a deep breath,
the parent clearly explains the consequence that will be administered if the child does not
begin doing his work, in a calm and concise manner. Before beginning the scenario, the
consultant pointed out that he would model appropriately adjusting the level of autonomy
support to the situation and in response to the child’s initial reaction. It was also
explained that autonomy support is quite different from “permissive parenting”, which
leads to a child lack of self-control, rather than autonomous self-regulation. In addition,
it was explained that there is a tendency to become excessively controlling when the
parent senses pressure or frustration (Grolnick, et al., 2002), thus the model would

regulate his anger by taking a deep breath and remain optimally autonomy supportive.

l6

In addition to the above examples, some of the following components of
autonomy support were highlighted through scenarios: empathic statements; autonomy
supportive response to a good grade (“Wow, that’s great, I noticed how much effort you
put into it; I’m interested to hear what you’ve learned”); autonomy supportive and
Ieaming oriented response to a bad grade; mastery-oriented feedback; subtly point to the
intrinsic value of the task; and a few instances in which the model recognizes and shows
appreciation for child displays of intrinsic motivation or autonomy. Basically, the parents
had an opportunity to practice most of the components of the inspirational style listed in
the two quick reference sheets at the back of the Love for Learning Project: Reference
Booklet for Parents (see Appendix B).

During the modeling, the parents often saw the positive models receive relational
rewards related to the child’s immediate display of intrinsic motivation (e.g., a smile),
while the negative models received negative responses (e.g., negative facial expression or
sighs of boredom). This increased the likelihood that the parents would imitate the
positive model, since people are more likely to imitate a model who experiences success
or receives rewards (Schunk, 1999; Webster-Stratton, 1981).

Parents also received a sheet that highlights the observable features of intrinsic
motivation and autonomy adapted from coding sheets used in previous studies (Froiland,
2003; Gutman & Sulzby, 2000). The parents began to recognize the signs of intrinsic
motivation and autonomy as the consultant played the role of the child during role-plays.
This likely was especially useful when both parents were present, so that the parent who
was not in the role-play could watch the consultant display signs of autonomy and

intrinsic motivation. It is possible that the parents were more likely to adhere to an

17

autonomy supportive style when they began to notice the child responding with
autonomy or intrinsic motivation. Moreover, the parent who is aware of the signs of
intrinsic motivation may react positively when the child is responsive to autonomy
support, which could encourage the child to further display autonomy and intrinsic
motivation.

In order to provide levity, the ﬁrst role-play asked the parent to act like an
absurdly controlling or laissez-faire parent (e. g., “I see, you did not turn in your
homework, drop and do 79 push-ups”; or, “you want to stay home from school tomorrow,
sure, let’s watch Gilligan’s island at 9 am). This was intended to case any sense of
performance pressure (W ebster—Stratton & Herbert, 1993). During and after the
autonomy supportive role-plays, the consultant provided informational feedback and
encouragement, especially when it was requested. In order to facilitate generalization,
every parent (or couple) received a weekly homework assignment, which asked the
parents to come back with at least one written instance in which they were able to
successfully use an autonomy supportive style. After the family brieﬂy shared a few of
these instances at the next meeting, the consultant collected the written story, noting how
it would be exciting to read.

The Ieaming goals training began in the second half of the second session.
Family therapists and parent trainers alike have found that the entire family responds to
signiﬁcant change in one member, and sometimes a great deal of sudden change can
elicit resistance from the child, the parent, or the family as a whole (e.g., Minuchin &

Fishman, 1981; Webster-Stratton & Herbert, 1993). Introducing the learning goals after

18

the parent and the child became adapted to the new communication style may have
prevented unnecessary resistance or a sheer cognitive overload on the part of the parents.

During the last 5-10 minutes of each session, the parents had an opportunity to
practice the autonomy supportive motivational style in a non-threatening and fun way.
The consultant introduced one or two new educational games each session and
highlighted for the parents which inspirational components were especially germane.
The relevant inspirational components for each game were highlighted on the weekly
Inspirational Motivational Style Vignettes and Record of Parent-Child Play (see
Appendix D), which was handed out each week right before initiating the educational
game. After about 5 minutes of playing the game in front of the consultant, he departed
while expressing eagerness to hear about how the game(s) went. Often, the consultant
would ask the families to create puzzles for him to solve the next week (see the
Treatment Manual: Family Session Plans in Appendix E for a description of the different
educational games that were played and how they were introduced within the context of
particular sessions).

Just as with the autonomy supportive style, the consultant introduced Ieaming
goals by clearly and plainly deﬁning the concept and the associated beneﬁts. Again, the
concepts were reiterated in the parent booklet for later reference. Also, performance-
avoidance goals were clearly described, along with their negative effects. The key hand-
out was the leaming goals sheet (see Table 1), which is the form the child later used to
ﬁll out his/her Ieaming goals. The ﬁrst copy of this handout provided the parents with
examples of Ieaming goals for different subjects (see last page of Appendix B). Next,

each parent received a Ieaming goals sheet with three assignments already written in, but

19

no goals. The parents were asked to create Ieaming goals, based on the simple reminder
which was bold-faced at the bottom of the learning goals sheet (see Table 1). The
consultant helped the parents determine if their Ieaming goals followed the prototype
closely enough. At the end of the session, the consultant handed out 4 copies of the
Ieaming goals sheets (one for each school night). These goals were collected the
following week and reviewed for a rough measure of treatment integrity (described in the
next section). Also, the consultant brieﬂy reviewed the Ieaming goals during a quick
break. When any of the goals turned out to be performance goals (especially
performance avoidance goals), the consultant gave informational feedback to the
particular parent. Parents were asked to teach the child how to set Ieaming goals in an
autonomy supportive way. One modeling and role—playing sequence was devoted to
helping the child set Ieaming goals in an autonomy supportive way (instead of a
controlling way).
Standardization of Treatment

Each family system is unique. For instance, each family may ask the consultant
different questions about particular components of the autonomy supportive style
practiced in role-plays. Nonetheless, the motivational enhancement package was
standardized to a large degree by the use of a clear and speciﬁc plan for each session (see
Appendix E). Minor adaptations to the session plans for parents who had limited reading
or writing skills were also noted in the Family Session Plans (Appendix E), although no

such adaptations were required with the parents in treatment group.

20

Table l
The original learning goals sheet used in the study

My New Learning Goals For Tonight

Homework assignments (ﬁll in each assiggment) What I Hope to Lem
1)

2)

3)

How many homework assignments did you have today?
Progress Toward New Learning Goals (for each goal you made above, briefly write

about one thing you became a little better at, one thing that you learned, or one
thing you thought was interesting)

1)
2)

3)

Remember, a learning goal means that you try to understand
something better, or become a little better at doing something.
Your own learning goals will help you learn more and like
learning more!

21

Families in the treatment group underwent Sessions 1 thru 7 in order, even if they
missed a session. For example, if a family could not schedule a meeting during week 3,
they received session 3 during the fourth week.

Only families that participated in at least 5 sessions over a ten-week period were
to be included in the data analysis for the treatment group.

Data Sources and Treatment Evaluation

The treatment was evaluated in terms of a 2 (treatment versus control) x 2 (pre-
treatment versus post-treatment) multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) for scores
on four instruments. Because intrinsic motivation is primarily an internal experience, it
seemed wise to use self-report measures of children’s intrinsic motivation before and
after treatment. Ryan and Connell’s (1989) Academic Self-Regulation Questionnaire
(SRQ-A) was used as a measure of children’s growth in intrinsic motivation and
autonomous self-regulation. The SRQ-A has the following four subscales, which
correspond to the four levels of regulation in self-determination theory: external
regulation scale (feeling that they engage in academic behaviors because they have to,
want to obtain an extrinsic reward, or want to stay out of trouble); introjected regulation
scale (engaging in academic behaviors to avoid guilt, impress Others, or avoid feeling bad
about oneself); identiﬁed regulation scale (participating in academic activities because
one sees the value or has a Ieaming goal, such as to understand the material); and ﬁnally,
intrinsic regulation scale, which entails engaging in learning activities because one ﬁnds
them enjoyable (or loves Ieaming). In order to succinctly trace the growth of the
children’s autonomous self-regulation, this study measured changes in the Relative

Autonomy Index (RAI) of the SRQ-A at pre- and post-treatment.

22

The Relative Autonomy Index is calculated with the following formula: (2 x
Intrinsic) + (Identiﬁed) — (Introjected) — (2 x Extrinsic). In accordance with self-
determination theory, the RAI rewards progressively more points to healthier forms of
self-regulation. This order has been validated in a series of studies involving hundreds Of
third through sixth graders. For instance, Ryan and Connell (1989) found that the four
variables are ordered in perfect simplex model: intrinsic items correlate positively and
moderately with identified items, while showing no correlation with introjected items and
a negative correlation with extrinsic items. Moreover, concurrent validity for the RAI
has been demonstrated, with the following correlations with Harter’s mastery motivation
scale: -.41 (p<.01) with the extrinsic scale; .04 with the introjected scale; .50 (p<.01)
with the identiﬁed scale; and .54 (p<.01) with the intrinsic scale. Likewise, teacher
ratings of 403 students’ motivation showed a negative correlation with the extrinsic scale,
no correlation with the introjected scale, and a greater positive correlation with the
intrinsic scale than the identiﬁed scale. A similar discovery was made when correlating
Tero & Connell’s Children’s Academic Coping Inventory with the SRQ-A, such that
denial was positively associated with the extrinsic scale and less positively associated
with the introjected scale.

The developer of the Love for Learning Project also traced children’s
development with the Children’s Academic Intrinsic Motivation Inventory (CAIMI),
developed by Gottfried (1990). The CAIMI is adequately reliable with an alpha
coefﬁcient of .83 for the general scale. Test-retest reliability over a 2-month interval
ranges from .69 to .75. In terms Of criterion-related validity, general academic intrinsic

motivation based on CAIMI scores is negatively correlated with academic anxiety in all

23

academic subjects (as measured by the Children’s Academic Anxiety Inventory, the
CAAI). CAIMI scores also showed moderate correlations with the following germane
parts of Harter’s intrinsic versus extrinsic orientation scale: general academic intrinsic
motivation showed a strong relation with preference for challenge versus easy work (r =
.62, at p < .001), a moderate relation with curiosity versus grades (i.e., an overemphasis
on grades as a motivating factor) and mastery versus teacher dependence (r = .41 and .35,
respectively, both at p < .001). In addition, the CAIMI general scale is associated with
better school achievement and better grades.

There are two reasons for using a second measure of intrinsic motivation. First of
all, the SRQ-A may be more sensitive to treatment because it includes autonomous forms
of self-regulation that do not appear on the CAIMI. As mentioned earlier, children may
show more autonomy before they display increments in pure intrinsic motivation.
Secondly, although the SRQ-A may be more sensitive to change, the validity of the
CAIMI is better established. The enhanced validity of the CAIMI may be especially
useful in checking the concurrent validity of the Parent Questionnaire of Child
Motivation to Learn (PQCML).

The PQCML (see Appendix F) was designed in order to see whether the current
motivational package would improve parents’ perception of children’s intrinsic
motivation to Ieam (including autonomous self-regulation and Ieaming orientation). This
scale was constructed according to the Likert method of attitude scale construction
described in Mehrens & Lehman (1991). The items were inﬂuenced by the following:
Deci & Ryan’s theory of self-determination (in particular, identiﬁed and autonomous

self-regulation), deﬁnitions of Ieaming goals/mastery goals (e.g., Dweck 1988); the

24

author’s conception of Ieaming goal orientation as a subtype of an intrinsic goal/intrinsic
motivational orientation; Gottfried’s (2001) deﬁnition of academic intrinsic motivation;
and Brophy’s (1999) article which asks for more than a simply affective emphasis in the
construct of motivation to Ieam. A synthesis of all of this leads to the author’s deﬁnition
Of intrinsic motivation to Ieam, “cherishing Ieaming”. This deﬁnition focuses on a
cognitive delight for Ieaming. It also acknowledges that children may be at different
levels of cherishing Ieaming or may have a more similar experience to one who cherishes
Ieaming as they become more autonomous. One who cherishes Ieaming is likely to have
a Ieaming orientation and set Ieaming goals. Also, one who cherishes Ieaming is more
inclined to enjoy school Ieaming, seek challenging and novel tasks, and have a mastery
orientation as Gottfried (2001) theorizes. It is recognized that this scale is not a measure
of the child’s intrinsic motivation, but rather the parent’s perception of the child’s
intrinsic motivation and statements or behaviors that are associated with intrinsic
motivation.

The PQCML began with 41 items. All parents in both groups of the current study
ﬁlled out the entire questionnaire. However, after the questionnaires were ﬁlled out at
pre-treatment, the researcher calculated item-total correlations for the whole sample, and
technically eliminated all items with less than a .30 correlation with the total score. After
deciding which items made the cut, internal consistency reliability (i.e., Cronbach’s
coefﬁcient alpha) was computed. Concurrent validity was tested by correlating the
PQCML scores with the children’s general scale scores on the CAIMI and SRQ-A. A
mild correlation was expected, since children’s CAIMI scores show a .25 correlation with

teacher perception of child academic intrinsic motivation (Gottfried, 1990). On the other

25

hand, it is possible that the correlation between the PQCML and the SRQ-A would be
slightly higher since both include autonomous self-regulation and intrinsic motivation to
Ieam. Although only the reliable version of the scale was used for all further analyses,
the entire scale was still administered at post-treatment for the sake of standardized
protocol. Items that were discarded from analyses were simply ignored during score
computations.

In order to assess the effects of the current motivational enhancement on students’
homework anxiety and other emotions, Froiland’s Inventory of Homework Feelings
(FIHF) was administered to all treatment and control students before and after treatment
(see Appendix G). The scale was reﬁned and the reliability was established in the same
way as the PQCML. The 21 scale items relate to symptoms and associated features of
anxiety and depression in children, but are speciﬁc to homework. The reason for
including some items that relate to depressive symptoms is twofold: 1) anxious and
depressive symptoms cluster together in children (Achenbach, 1991); 2) many symptoms
of anxiety in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 4‘h edition
(American Psychiatric Association, 2000) are also symptoms of depression in children
(e.g., irritability, loss of concentration, fatigue). The reason for including items related to
positive feelings about homework is due to the fact that Likert construction requires a
mixture of positive and negative items, in order to avoid inducing a response set. The
concurrent validity of this scale was measured by correlating pre-treatment scores with
the CAIMI. A mild correlation was expected, since CAIMI scores are negatively related
to academic anxiety and an intrinsic orientation in general is negatively related to anxiety

and depressive symptoms (Gottfried, 1990; Kasser & Ryan, 1996).

26

Within the FIHF are four items that relate to perceived vigor (i.e., a strong sense
of mental and physical vitality). Two of the items deal with somatic complaints (i.e.,
“my muscles get tight or I get headaches when I do my homewor ”; “my stomach hurts
when I do my homework”). These items are included because children often convey
emotional distress through somatic complaints (House, 1999). Moreover, the author is
interested in the potential of reducing psychosomatic complaints through fostering
intrinsic motivation, since one study found a signiﬁcant negative relationship between
intrinsic goals and somatic complaints in college students (Kasser & Ryan, 1996).
Likewise, Kasser & Ryan (1996) also found that perceived vitality is positively correlated
with intrinsic motivation. In order to assess the effects of the inspirational motivational
style and Ieaming goals (a subtype of intrinsic goals) on somatic complaints and vitality,
a separate one-way AN OVA was conducted on the pre- to post-treatment difference
scores for the four item Vigor subscale. The Vigor scale includes the two somatic items
and two items related to perceived vitality (i.e., “I get tired while doing my homework”,
and “I feel strong when I do my homework”). The Vigor scale ﬁts well within the overall
FIHF because muscle tension is a symptom of anxiety and an associated feature of
depression (A.P.A., 2000). Likewise, headaches and stomach pain are associated features
of both depression and anxiety disorders (A.P.A., 2000). The item dealing with getting
tired addresses fatigue, which is a symptom of both depression and anxiety. Conversely,
feeling strong is antithetical to fatigue.

Parent satisfaction with the motivational enhancement package was evaluated
through a short consultation evaluation survey (see Appendix H) that measures the

family’s perception of the effectiveness of the motivational enhancement, appreciation

27

for the sessions, and perceived consultant expertise and communication style. As in other
home-based consultation studies (e.g., Greene, Kamps, Wyble, & Ellis, 1999), the
satisfaction survey involves Likert scale questions that are speciﬁc to the particular
treatment.

The treatment integrity/dosage for autonomy support involved a rough gauge.
The consultant kept track of the number of sessions participated in, along with the weekly
example of a positive implementation of autonomy support (see Appendix C). Also, at
the top of the sheet which records the positive example of autonomy support, the parents
had a space for ﬁlling in the time and day they played a related game with their child (see
Appendix C). A space for a brief note about how the game went in terms of autonomy
support and intrinsic motivation was also provided. For each week, attendance counted
as two points, a positive example of autonomy support counted as one point, and a
completed 10-minute game counted as one point (when the description of how the
parents used the autonomy supportive components during the game was absent, only a
half point was recorded). Thus, if one of the parents participated in 7 sessions, brought in
6 sheets (each with an example of how they used the autonomy supportive style), and
played the educational game with their child during 5 out of 6 weeks, their treatment
integrity/dosage (for the autonomy supportive treatment component) was 25/26 or 96%.
Percentages were aggregated for all students in order to gain an idea of the degree to
which the treatment group parents implemented the autonomy supportive style. The
sessions were calculated as part of the dosage for the autonomy supportive style since the
sessions focused on the autonomy supportive style much more than the Ieaming goals. .

Also, even when the learning goals were taught, the focus was on teaching the parents to

28

use an autonomy supportive style when teaching their children the goal orientation. Such
a rough measure was used not only to save time, but because it is known that modeling,
role-playing, and corrective feedback tend to lead to relatively high levels of treatment
implementation (e.g., Sterling-Turner, et al., 2001).

Treatment integrity/dosage for Ieaming goals were measured by collecting the
Ieaming goals sheets weekly and determining whether each goal was a true Ieaming goal.
If a sheet for a particular day involved at least two pure Ieaming goals and no
performance-avoidance goals, it was considered properly completed and one point was
recorded for that day’s learning goals sheet. If the child only had one assignment for a
particular day and he/she created one pure Ieaming goal, a half point was recorded. In
this way, children only received a full point for having both treatment integrity and at
least a minimal dosage (i .e., two Ieaming goals). The intended dosage was 4 Ieaming
goals sheets per week in the last 5 sessions, thus the denominator in the treatment
integrity/dosage calculations was 20.

During the ﬁrst few weeks, parents received informational feedback about the
extent to which their children’s goals sheets contained pure Ieaming goals. Moreover, a
positive model for a parent encouraging a child to create his or her own Ieaming goal was
provided in the 2'“I and 3rd week, which likely enhanced treatment integrity. In addition,
the Ieaming goal treatment integrity/dosage percentages were aggregated for all of the
students in the treatment group weekly and eventually for the whole study. These rough,
yet efﬁcient, measures of treatment integrity/dosage helped the consultant to determine if
the two major treatment components were implemented faithfully and as often as

intended by the consultant.

29

CHAPTER III

FINDINGS

Scale Construction of the PQCML and FIHF

Item total correlations on the 41-item PQCML at pre-treatment revealed that 6 of
the items (items 5, 16, 22, 23, 27, and 31) had a correlation of less than .3 with the total
score (see Appendix F to view the original instrument). The original alpha reliability was
.9520 (n=30). After purifying the instrument by dropping the weak items, the new
internal consistency reliability is .9599. This strong internal consistency is in contrast to
the CAIMI, which yielded an alpha of .8019 at pre-treatment (and between .80 and .83 in
previous correlational studies). See Table 2 for the internal consistency reliabilities of
each of the major instruments used in this study. The internal consistency scores for the
SRQ-A scales were as follows: .7461 for the Extrinsic scale; .7130 for the Introjected
scale; .6047 for the Identiﬁed scale; and .7878 for the Intrinsic scale. These internal
consistency levels for the SRQ-A are consistent with the range of .62 to .82 in previous
studies (Ryan & Connell, 1989). The overall internal consistency for the Relative
Autonomy Index of the SRQ-A in the present study was .7322.

The PQCML demonstrated concurrent validity with the well established CAIMI,
in that the correlation between the two scales was .485 (p<.01). Likewise, the PQCML
showed a moderately positive correlation with Relative Autonomy Index of the SRQ-A
(r: .586, p<.01). In addition, the modest correlation between the PQCML and the FIHF

(r = .462, p<.05) suggests that children with high PQCML scores are more likely than

30

others tO experience emotional health in the realm of homework. Overall, the PQCML
showed moderate concurrent validity with the other scales (see Table 3).
Table 2

Internal Consistency Reliability Coefﬁcients (Alpha) for each of the Major Instruments in
the Love for Learning Project

 

Instruments

 

N PQCML FIHF CAIMI RAI
30 .96 .90 .80 .73

 

Note. PQCML = Parent Questionnaire of Child Motivation to Learn. FIHF = Froiland’s
Inventory of Homework Feelings. CAIMI = Children’s Academic Intrinsic Motivation
Inventory. RAI = Relative Autonomy Index.

The 21-item FIHF originally had 4 items with item-total correlations below .3
(i.e., items 6, 14, 15, and 21). See Appendix G in order to view these items. Once these
items were eliminated, alpha reliability rose from .8683 to .8967. Thus, both of the

instruments constructed during this study showed very strong internal consistency

reliability (see Table 2).

 

 

szlcemirent Validity of the PQCML: correlations with other motivation instruments.
Instrument
CAIMI RAI
PQCML .49** .59**

 

Note. N’s =30 for each correlation. PQCML 2 Parent Questionnaire of Child Motivation
to Learn. CAIMI = Children’s Academic Intrinsic Motivation Inventory. RAI = Relative

Autonomy Index of Academic Self-Regulation Questionnaire.
**p<.01

31

As shown in Table 4, the FIHF demonstrated criterion related validity, in that it
showed a signiﬁcant positive correlation with CAIMI scores (r = .504, p<.01). Likewise,
the FIHF and the Relative Autonomy index of the SRQ-A showed a positive correlation
(r = .677, p<.01). Whereas the CAIMI and SRQ-A have previously shown negative
correlations with measures of academic anxiety (Gottfried, 1990; Ryan & Connell, 1989),
here they show a moderate positive correlation with a broader measure of emotional
health related to homework.

Table 4

Criterion-Related Validity of the FIHF: correlations with measures of intrinsic
motivation.

 

 

Instrument
CAIMI RAI PQCML
FIHF .50** .68** .46*

 

Note. N’s = 30 for each correlation. FIHF = Froiland’s Inventory of Homework Feelings.
CAIMI = Children’s Academic Intrinsic Motivation Inventory. RAI = Relative
Autonomy Index. PQCML = Parent Questionnaire of Child Motivation to Learn.
*p<.05. **p<.01

A multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) of pre-treatment scores on the
four instruments revealed no signiﬁcant differences between the treatment and control
groups at baseline (F (4,25) = 1.867; p = .148). In Table 5, one can see that the two
groups had quite similar mean scores on the FIHF, CAIMI, and RAI. On the other hand,
the PQCML score was notably higher for the control group. In accordance, a one-way
ANOVA subsequent to the MANOVA indicated a signiﬁcant difference between the two
groups on pre-treatment PQCML scores (F(1,28) = 5.22; p<.05). But, since the overall

MANOVA was not signiﬁcant it is likely that this apparent difference is due to chance.

32

 

Nonetheless, one might conjecture that the parents in the control group had a slightly
inﬂated View of their children’s motivation to Ieam (i.e., although the control children
had the same level of intrinsic motivation and emotional health as the treatment children,
the control parents may have felt their children’s motivation was higher), which could
have predisposed them toward choosing to be in the control group. Namely, their higher
estimate of their children’s motivation may have convinced them that their children did
not need the motivational enhancement program.
Stability

The PQCML and FIHF both showed good two-month stability (1' = .844, p<.01; r
= .825, p<.01). Stability reliability was measured by correlating the pre- and post-
treatment scores on each instrument for the control group only. Although the n is small,
the control group provided an appropriate test of stability because it did not receive any
intervention. In addition, both of these new instruments demonstrated greater test-retest
reliability than the RAI of the SRQ or the CAIMI (see Table 6).
Table 5

Pre-Treatment Means and Standard Deviations of Instrument Scores for the Treatment
and Control Groups

 

 

 

Treatment Group Control Group
Instrument Mean SD Mean SD
FIHF 52.40 13.72 52.47 12.41
CAIMI 63.27 9.38 64.40 9.40
PQCML 100.13 27.20 1 19.40 18.07
RAI -21.40 15.17 -20.37 15.68

 

Note. FIHF = Froiland’s Inventory of Homework Feelings. CAIMI = Children’s
Academic Intrinsic Motivation Inventory. PQCML = Parent Questionnaire of Child
Motivation to Learn. RAI = Relative Autonomy Index. N = 30 (15 in each group).

33

Table 6
Test-Retest Reliability Coefﬁcients for the Control Group

 

Instruments

 

N PQCML FIHF CAIMI RAI
15 .844** .825** .803** .792**

 

Note. PQCML = Parent Questionnaire of Child Motivation to Learn. FIHF = Froiland’s
Inventory of Homework Feelings. CAIMI = Children’s Academic Intrinsic Motivation
Inventory. RAI = Relative Autonomy Index.

**p<.01

Treatment Integrity/Dosage

The aggregated treatment integrity/dosage for both treatments combined is 56.9%.
This suggests that the families received a moderate dosage and carried out the treatment
with moderate ﬁdelity. However, it is interesting to note that the treatment
integrity/dosage for the autonomy supportive style was 76%. In contrast, the treatment
integrity/dosage for the Ieaming goals was 31.2%. This suggests that the children
received a greater dose of the autonomy supportive style than the Ieaming goals.

At the beginning of each session, the consultant collected the Ieaming goal sheets
and the inspirational motivational style in action sheets. Quite a few of the parents
assertively mentioned a time during the week in which they used the inspirational style,
yet they felt they did not have time to write down the scenario. Thus, in future studies it
may be wise to ask the families for such instances, especially if none are listed on their
sheet. Likewise, families often reported that they continued the educational game for
well over half an hour. Also, they often invited other family members to play after the

first 10 minutes or so. Moreover, many parents reported that they were using the

inspirational style with their Older and younger children as well. Thus, it is likely that

34

most of the children in the treatment group received a fairly strong dosage of the
inspirational style.

Every parent demonstrated an understanding of the Ieaming goals during session
2, in which the consultant asked the parents to create three Ieaming goals based on a
chimerical assignment sheet. In fact, most of the parents wrote three pure learning goals
on the ﬁrst try. Likewise, all of the parents successfully identiﬁed the performance
approach goal and the two pure Ieaming goals, when the consultant (playing the child)
pretended to hand in a Ieaming goals sheet to the parents. In addition, every parent in the
treatment group either agreed or strongly agreed that they found the information about
learning goals useful and that they would continue to encourage their child to use
Ieaming goals.

Why was a low treatment integrity/dosage obtained for Ieaming goals? Many of
the parents explained that their children found it easier to verbalize their Ieaming goals,
due to the fact that they were not ﬂuent writers. In fact, one parent explained that it
would take his child an hour to write out a full Ieaming goals sheet (i.e., three
assignments, three Ieaming goals, and three evaluations of progress toward those goals).
Three or four parents actually wrote many of the Ieaming goals for the child after they
verbalized them. Thus, the task was more labor intensive for most of the families than
the consultant envisioned it (i.e., it was thought that one could jot down the assignments
and goals within 3-5 minutes, and that the parents would only need to closely supervise
the goal sheets on the ﬁrst couple nights).

Another problem with the Ieaming goal dosage was that many Of the children did

not receive two or more assignments, four nights per week. Thus, there were a number of

35

times that the consultant received Ieaming goal sheets with one assignment and one
Ieaming goal. Likewise, families often turned in one or two sheets explaining that the
child only had homework on two nights. Thus, families’ treatment integrity/dosage
scores were somewhat inhibited by the low frequency of homework assignments.

The treatment integrity data helped the consultant to see a ﬂaw in his deﬁnition of
Ieaming goals. On the Ieaming goals sheets, part of the reminder deﬁnition involved
getting better at doing something. Thus, many of the children were writing that they
wanted to get better at spelling, for instance. When the consultant asked children why
they wanted to get better at spelling, some had trouble answering and some said so that
they would do well and get a good grade. This meant that some of the children were
inadvertently writing a performance-approach goal. The consultant then realized that this
part of the deﬁnition needed to be improved, in order to help the children to create more
pure Ieaming goals or what the consultant coined inspirational learning goals. In
reviewing the research on intrinsic goals, the consultant re-discovered the fact that Ryan
& Koestner (1996) deﬁned helping others as an intrinsic goal and found that this goal
was associated with psychological health. Thus, the consultant revised this part of the
learning goal reminder deﬁnition by saying “become better at doing something so that
you can help others someday”. In the sessions this reﬁnement was qualiﬁed by pointing
out that helping Others could be as simple as Ieaming to spell better so that others can
better understand your short stories. Since this new deﬁnition would require printing an
improved version of the Ieaming goals sheets, the consultant also took this as an
Opportunity to improve the Ieaming goals sheet in the following ways (see Appendix I):

improved attractiveness of the sheets by placing a knight in the upper right hand corner

36

for boys and an airplane with a space to ﬁll in one’s name streaming behind for girls;
copying the Ieaming goals sheet on blue paper; changing the title to “My Inspirational
Leaming Goals For Today”; and further expanding the deﬁnition of inspirational Ieaming
goals to include discovering something interesting.
Consultee Satisfaction and Attrition

Consultee satisfaction was measured with the lO-item Parent Satisfaction Form
for Motivational Consultation, which uses a one-tO-ﬁve Likert scale (one indicating
“strongly disagree” to ﬁve representing “strongly agree”). Total satisfaction scores
ranged from 41 to 50 with an average of 46.2 (50 points possible). This suggests the
following: parents considered the consultant to be warm and understanding of families;
parents plan to continue to use both the inspirational style and the Ieaming goals; parents
found the role plays, Reference Booklet for Parents, and educational games to be helpful.

Although post-treatment only satisfaction surveys are rather subjective measures,
the satisfaction of the parents is corroborated by the fact that the attrition rate for the
treatment group was 0%. 12 of the 15 families completed 7 sessions in 7-8 weeks, while
3 of the families completed 6 sessions (in 6-9 weeks). This result is striking since
reviews of the parent training literature have found that the average reported drop-out rate
for parent training is around 30% (Assemany & McIntosh, 2002). Furthermore, Webster-
Stratton’s videotape modeling is known for the lowest dropout rates (Assemany &
McIntosh), yet her studies only consider a client as a drop-out if they miss more than half
of the sessions in 10 weeks of parent training (Webster-Stratton, 1990). Thus, the drop-

out rate and the attendance rate were remarkable in the current study.

37

Major Findings

A repeated measure multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) was conducted
in order to compare the treatment and control groups. There was a signiﬁcant main effect
for Time (pro-treatment versus post-treatment), F (4,25) = 4.84, p<.01, but no Group
(treatment versus control) effect, P (4, 25) = .78, p =.548. As predicted, the interaction
between Group and Time was signiﬁcant F(4,25) = 5.10, p<.01, effect size (ES) 2 .45.
The effect size describes the proportion of the difference in the standard deviation
between the treatment and control means. Thus, the treatment group out-gained the
control group by roughly one-half of a standard deviation. Table 7 displays the means
and standard deviations on all measures at pre- and post-treatment, which indicate that
the treatment group out-gained the control group on all four measures.

Table 7

Means and Standard Deviations for Treatment and Control Groups on all Measures at
Pre-Treatment and Post-Treatment.

 

 

 

Treatment Group Control Group
Instrument Pretest Posttest Pretest Posttest
FIHF 52.4 (13.7) 59.8 (11.7) 52.5 (12.4) 51.4 (12.9)
CAIMI 63.3 (9.4) 65.7 (6.4) 64.4 (9.4) 63.8 (7.6)
PQCML 100.1 (27.2) 123.3 (24.3) 119.4 (18.1) 116.2 (20.7)
RAI -21.4 (15.2) -8.0 (18.4) -2o.4 (15.7) -17.7 (20.3)

 

Note. Means are followed by standard deviations in parentheses. FIHF = Froiland’s
Inventory of Homework Feelings. CAIMI = Children’s Academic Intrinsic Motivation
Inventory. PQCML = Parent Questionnaire of Child Motivation to Learn. RAI = Relative
Autonomy Index. N = 30 (15 in each group).

38

Subsequent univariate tests revealed the dependent variables which accounted for
the overall difference between the two groups. Time X Group interactions were
signiﬁcant on the following dependent variables: the PQCML, F (1,28) = 15.52, p<.001;
FIHF, F(1,28) = 8.639, p<.01; and RAI, F (1,28) = 3.47, p = .07. There was no
signiﬁcant Time X Group interaction for the CAIMI scores, F (1,28) = 1.5, p =.23. See
Figures 1 and 2 for a visual representation of the impressive gains on the PQCML and the
FIHF, respectively.

In order to determine more precisely the ways in which the treatment group and
control groups changed over time, the data ﬁle was split so that separate MANOVAS
could be conducted. The MANOVA for the treatment group’s pre- to post-treatment
change was signiﬁcant, F (4,11) = 7.4, p<.004, ES = .729. On the other hand, the control
group did not change signiﬁcantly from pre- to post-treatment, F(4,11) = .42, p = .794.
Subsequent univariate analyses (tantamount to conducting paired sample t-tests for the
treatment group only) revealed that the treatment group signiﬁcantly improved on the
RAI, F(l,l4) = 7.92, p = .014, ES = .361. Likewise, the treatment group signiﬁcantly
improved on the FIHF over time, F(l,l4) = 12.03, p = .004, ES = .462. The most
impressive gain was on the PQCML, F(l,l4) = 14.71, p = .002, ES =.512. On the other
hand, the gain on the CAIMI was not signiﬁcant, F(l,l4) = 1.45, p = .248, ES 2 .094.
These results indicate that the control group basically remained the same from pre- to
post-treatment, while the treatment group made signiﬁcant gains on three out of four

measures .

39

 

PQCML

125

 

120 -

1154

 

+ control
— - -— — treatment

110—

 

 

 

Mean Scores

105 -

100 ~

 

 

 

95
Pre Post

Time

 

 

 

Figure 1. Mean Changes in Parent Questionnaire of Child Motivation to Learn (PQCML)
Scores from Pre-Treatment to Post-Treatment for the Treatment and Control Groups.

40

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

FIHF

60 ‘j [I
a) 58 7
2
o
5?, 56 7 +control
g , ’ ----- treatment
a) 54 7
E

52 . '\

50

Pre Post
Time

 

 

 

Figure 2. Mean Changes on Froiland’s Inventory of Homework Feelings (FIHF) Scores
from Pre-Treatment to Post-Treatment for the Treatment and Control Groups.

41

Relative Autonomy Index for Homework only: specific eﬂect

Although the treatment group versus control group comparison for the RAI
revealed marginal signiﬁcance (p =.07), the author considered that the treatment may
have had a more signiﬁcant and potent effect on the homework portion of the SRQ-A.
The SRQ-A is a four page instrument, which asks children why they do the following:
homework (page one); classwork (page two); answer hard questions in class (page 3); try
to do well in school (page 4). Since the Love for Leaming Project focused on the home
and homework, the most speciﬁc effect would be on children’s autonomy related to
homework. In order to test this possibility, a one-way ANOVA was conducted on the
difference scores for the Homework Relative Autonomy Index (HRAI) of the SRQ-A
(alpha reliability was .6112 at pre-treatment; test-retest reliability for control group was
r = .921, p<.001). The ANOVA was signiﬁcant, F (1,28) = 5.07, p=.032, ES = .153.
This suggests that the home-based wellness enhancement had a more signiﬁcant and
potent (ES =. 153, as opposed to .110) effect on children’s autonomous self-regulation
regarding homework than in the general academic domain.
Generalization to Other Domains on the SRQ-A

The author further analyzed the Relative Autonomy Index by computing it for the
other three domains (i.e., “Why do I work on my classwork?”, “Why do I try to answer
hard questions in class?”, “Why do I try do well in school?”). One-way ANOVAS for the
difference scores revealed that children in the treatment group gained more sense of
autonomy related to classwork than the control group, F(l,28) = 6.43, p = .017. The

treatment group gained 5.2 points on average, while the control group lost .467 points.

42

The internal consistency reliability for this subscale was fairly low, however (alpha =
.4070).

Unexpectedly, children in the treatment group had marginally signiﬁcant smaller
difference scores than the control group in the domain of answering hard questions in
class, F(l,28) = 3.98, p =.056. The treatment group lost an average of 1.47 points, while
the control group gained 2.47. This ﬁnding may well be spurious, since the internal
consistency for this 8-item subscale was terribly low (alpha = .1844). It is also worth
pointing out that the treatment group alone did not show a signiﬁcant reduction from pre-
treatment, F(l,l4) = 1.05, p 2.32. Also, the control group’s gain was marginally
signiﬁcant, F (1,14) = 3.31, p =.09. On the other hand, the control group clearly stayed
the same from pre- to post-treatment on the remaining three domains (p-values between
.480 and .878), while the treatment group showed the following signiﬁcant gains: “Why
do I do my homework?”, F (1,14) = 7.74, p =.015; “Why do I work on my classwork?”,
F(l,l4) = 10.4, p<.006; and “Why do I try to do well in school?”, F(l,l4) = 5.79, p<.03.

With regard to “Why do I try do well in school?”, the treatment group marginally
signiﬁcantly out-gained the control group, F(l,28) = 4.02, p =.055. The internal
consistency for this subscale was .57 at pre-treatment.

A New and Improved Relative Autonomy Index?

Because the “Why do I try to answer hard questions in class?” subscale was so
unreliable, the author created a new RAI by simply subtracting the hard questions
component. This new scale showed improved overall scale internal consistency (i.e.,
alpha = .7520, as opposed to .7320). This new scale called, NewRAI was then entered

into a new overall treatment versus control group MANOVA for the difference scores on

43

each of the four instruments. The overall MANOVA was signiﬁcant, F(4,25) = 6.31, p
=.001, ES: .50. Of course, subsequent univariate tests were the same for the FIHF,
CAIMI, and PQCML. However, NewRAI showed an impressive level of signiﬁcance,
F(l,28) = 9.25, p = .005. The treatment group gained 14.9 points on the NewRAI, while
the control group gained an average of .23 points. See Figure 3 for a visual
representation of the treatment group’s superior improvement.
MANC OVA with Gender as the Covariate

An independent samples t-test revealed that there were signiﬁcantly more boys in
the treatment group than in the control group I (28) = -2.8, p<.01. Thus, a multivariate
analysis of covariance was conducted (MANCOVA) in order to determine if gender (the
covariate) signiﬁcantly accounted for variance in the treatment outcome. The overall
MANCOVA suggested that gender did not signiﬁcantly affect the overall treatment
outcome, F (4,24) = .688, p = .61. Also, the overall effect of the motivational treatment
remained moderate, F (4,24) = 5.43, p<.01, ES = .48. However, with gender statistically
controlled for the effects of the treatment on the CAIMI approached marginal
significance, F (1,27) = 2.8, p = .10. A paired samples t—test for the four girls in the
treatment group suggests that the girls made a marginally signiﬁcant improvement on the
CAIMI, t (3) = 2.52, p :09, while a similar t-test showed that boys in the treatment
group made non—significant gains, t(10) = .60, p =.56. A one—way ANOVA comparing
the difference scores of the treatment and control girls indicated that there was no
signiﬁcant difference between groups F (1,13) = 2.75, p =. 12. In sum, gender did not

significantly moderate the treatment outcome.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

NEW RAI
-5
-10 - ,-
a ,,
3 -15 —
(Ii I, —-—control
5 _20 g H ﬂ -—--- treatment
a, .
E
-25 _ Ix
-30
Pre Post
Time

 

 

 

Figure 3. Mean Pre-Treatment to Post-treatment Changes on the New Relative
Autonomy Index for the Treatment versus Control Group.

45

MANCOVA with Grade as the Covariate

In order to see if the treatment effect differed by grade level (4‘h versus 5‘“), a
MANCOVA was conducted with grade as the covariate. The Time X Grade interaction
was not signiﬁcant, F (4,24) = 1.3, p =.3l, suggesting that grade did not signiﬁcantly
account for variance in treatment response. When analyzing the treatment group only, a
MANOVA indicated that 4th and 5‘h graders did not have signiﬁcantly differential
improvement on the four measures, F (4,10) = .40, p =.8l. Also, with the entire data ﬁle
split by grade, the treatment effect size was moderate for both fourth (ES = .56) and ﬁfth
graders (ES = .46).
Vigor

Within the FIHF are four items that are particularly related to perceived vigor
(i.e., feeling full of mental and bodily strength). Due to the potential importance of a
psychological wellness enhancement that improves perceived physical health and vitality,
the Vigor subscale was created. A One-way ANOVA on the pre- to post-treatment
difference scores for Vigor was signiﬁcant, F (l, 28) = 4.60, p<.04. Thus, the treatment
group (relative to the control) experienced a reduction in self-reported muscle
tension/headaches, feeling tired during homework, and abdominal pain. On the other
hand, the treatment group became more likely to say that they felt strong while doing
their homework. The internal consistency reliability for the Vigor scale at pre-treatment

was .6214.

46

CHAPTER IV

CONCLUSIONS AND DISCUSSION

This study provided an initial test for the effectiveness of the Love for Learning
Project, which is a motivational wellness enhancement delivered through the social
Ieaming model of parent training. Parents were taught how to implement an autonomy
supportive style of communication and how to help their children set learning goals. As
predicted, children in the treatment group improved signiﬁcantly more than those in the
control group on two measures of intrinsic motivation (i.e., the RAI and the PQCML) and
one measure of homework emotions (i.e., the FIHF). However, the treatment group did
not signiﬁcantly out-gain the control group on the CAIMI. As expected, the parents in
the treatment group expressed high levels of satisfaction with the Love for Learning
Project.

Before making speciﬁc conclusions, it is important to consider the limitations of
the current study.

Limitations

The most notable limitation Of this study was the failure to obtain enough
participants interested in the treatment so that at least 30 families could be randomly
assigned to either the treatment group or a wait-list control. The use of random
assignment helps rule out threats to internal validity by increasing the likelihood that the
two groups will not differ on any important variable besides the planned independent
variable (Shavelson, 1996). When random assignment is not used, the treatment group

and control group often differ signiﬁcantly on pre-treatment measures. However, in the

47

current study a MANOVA at pre-treatment revealed that there was no signiﬁcant
difference between the two groups. Thus, it cannot be argued that a regression to the
mean (i.e., high scores in a control group reducing and low scores in a treatment group
rising spontaneously) accounted for the improvement of the treatment group and decline
of the control group.

Because the groups were not randomly assigned, there is also a possibility that the
control group may have experienced differential treatment outside of the study for
reasons other than due to chance. For example, parents in the control group may have
chosen not to join the control group because an after school activity started around the
same time as the study. There is the possibility that such an activity could have impeded
the development of the children’s intrinsic motivation. However, developmental research
suggests that the control group’s slight decline in intrinsic motivation is normal when no
intervention is used.

It is also worth noting that this study may be more sound than some published
parent training studies that employed random assignment with less than 15 in each group.
For instance, Eyberg (well-respected within clinical research), Boggs, & Algina (1995)
published a clinical trial suggesting the efﬁcacy of Parent-Child Interaction Therapy.
Although participants were randomly assigned to either treatment or wait-list control,
they ended up running the post-treatment comparisons with 10-13 in the treatment group
(depending on the measure) and 6 in the control group. Although they found signiﬁcance
on most of their measures, the typical claims of pre-treatment equivalence based on
randomization in this case are unfounded. Randomization is only thought to balance out

differences after the number of participants is 30 or more. This is because the Central

48

Limit Theorem of probability suggests that the number Of participants must be greater
than 30 before one can assume that the distribution will approximate the normal curve
(Devore, 1995). Nonetheless, one can argue that a selection effect may have inﬂuenced
the results of the current study, whereas that argument cannot be made in studies that
employ randomized assignment (J aeger, 1993). For instance, it is possible that the
parents in the treatment group felt their children needed more help and were thus more
willing to practice and employ the inspirational style than the control parents would have
been (although the pro-treatment MANOVA suggested that any differences between
parents’ views of their children’s pre-existing motivation were due to chance). A future
larger study of the Love for Learning Project’s efﬁcacy could better overcome the threat
of selection effects by using randomized assignment, Since any differences between
groups would be due to chance rather than choice (J aeger, 1993).

Another limitation of this study involves the measurement of treatment integrity.
As mentioned in the results section, the overall aggregated treatment integrity/dosage was
56.9%. This moderate treatment integrity/dosage appears to ﬁt fairly well with the
moderate treatment effect size in this study (ES = .45, or .5 with the reﬁned RAI). Yet,
the gauge of treatment integrity in this study is rough. For instance, the treatment
integrity/dosage for the inspirational motivational style was 76%. This means that most
of families did the following most of the weeks: I) participated in the IMS role plays
each session, after witnessing a model of an IMS component (role-plays included either
successfully displaying the use of the IMS component on the ﬁrst try or successfully
using the IMS component in a replay after corrective feedback); 2) articulated a time

during the week in which they implemented the inspirational style successfully; 3)

49

described how they used the inspirational style during the educational game, which lasted
at least 10 minutes outside of the session. However, this does not mean that the parents
actually used the IMS on 76% of the occasions during the week in which they had an
Opportunity.

Other parent consultation studies have more diligently sought out treatment
integrity data. For instance, Greene, Kamps, Wyble, & Ellis (1999) actually conducted
50-minute partial interval observations of the families in the home each visit; the only
place off limits was the bathroom (Greene et al., 1999). This enabled them to trace the
parents’ direct implementation of the very skills they taught in the same sessions (e.g.,
contingent praise), while also witnessing declines in children’s inappropriate behavior.
Although this level of observation was brieﬂy considered prior to the current study, it
was deemed overly intrusive and time consuming. First of all, the families in the Greene
et al. (1999) study were likely more desperate for help since their children presented with
behavior problems (recall that the current study entailed a wellness enhancement, rather
than selective intervention). Also, their study only involved four participating families
(Greene et al., 1999), which may explain how they were able to devote so much time to
observations. Nonetheless, as the Love for Learning Project further develops, it may be
worthwhile to conduct ongoing observations in the home with a few families, which
would provide a more in-depth and ecologically valid measure of treatment integrity.

A less drastic addition in treatment integrity measures can be gleaned from the
work of Eyberg et al. (1995). In the ﬁrst session, the therapist teaches parents how to use
behavioral and non-directive play therapist skills. In subsequent sessions, the parent

practices those skills in the playroom, while observations (5 minutes) of parent

50

implementation and key child behaviors are made through a one-way mirror. Then, the
observations cease and the therapist begins to coach the parent through a bug-in-the ear
microphone. As with the Greene et al. (1999) study, these observations help to insure
and document that the parent is able to implement the skills taught in the sessions. While
the consultant in the current study felt that the parents displayed a good grasp of the IMS
during the role plays, the parents’ live use of the skills was not scientiﬁcally observed. In
a future study, the author hopes to collect baseline data of the parents’ inspirational
versus controlling and passive behavior during an educational game. Then, a similar
observation would be made in the last session (during a verisimilar game or the same
game). This would enable the author to document the parents’ improved ability .to
implement the IMS components.

A ﬁnal limitation has to do with the exact mechanisms of the treatment effect.
Most scientiﬁc treatment programs fail to address this question, since it requires
programmatic testing of the therapeutic mediators and moderators (Hughes, 2000;
Kazdin, 2000). Indeed, Lochman (2000) has pointed out that it is best to ﬁrst ﬁnd out
what works, then in future replicative studies determine how it works and for whom. In
the case of the Love for Learning Project, this ﬁrst study suggests that it does work. Yet,
an understanding of the impact of each therapeutic ingredient would enable the researcher
to understand the extent to which each ingredient is essential. For instance, treatment
integrity was 76% for the IMS and 31% for the Ieaming goals. While this may mean that
most of the salubrious effect was accounted for by the parent’s use of the IMS, it is
possible that the learning goals are so potent that they were responsible for most of the

children’s motivational growth. On the other hand, the therapeutic relationship with the

51

consultant may have been a major factor in producing the treatment effect, since some
have suggested that the therapeutic relationship (i.e., consultant conveys warmth and
empathy and expectation for success is created) is often as important as the
therapy/intervention itself (Quintana & Atkinson, 2002).

In larger future studies, the mediators of the treatment effect may be determined
by randomly assigning one group to a Ieaming goals only treatment group, another to
IMS only, another to a control, another to the full Love for Learning Project and yet
another to friendly discussion sessions with a consultant. If the whole program is
essential, one would expect that the gains of those in the full Love for Learning Project
would be the greatest (i.e., signiﬁcantly larger than each of the other four groups). One
would also expect that the three componential groups would show statistically greater
gains than the control group. Moreover, any statistically signiﬁcant differences between
the three componential groups might reveal which component of the overall treatment is
the most effective.

If the funding for such a large study is not available, one could randomly assign
participants to either the full Love for Learning Project or a placebo intervention group.
This would help to address the possibility that the parents and children in the current
study’s control group may have shown non-signiﬁcant declines on the measures because
they were more aware of motivation after ﬁlling out the surveys at pre-treatment, yet had
no new ways of promoting it. However, the control group in the current study followed
the normal developmental pattern for intrinsic motivation, suggesting that the control

group did not experience any adverse treatment.

52

Any great line of intervention research must also address moderators of the
treatment effect (Hughes, 2000). For instance, Carol Webster—Stratton has gone to great
lengths to ﬁgure out which families do not respond to her videotape modeling program
for families with conduct problem children. Through numerous studies, she has
discovered that a non-response to treatment is moderated by the following factors:
maternal depression; marital communication problems; low income; and single
parenthood (e.g., Webster-Stratton, 1990; Webster-Stratton, 1994). This ﬁnding
provided an impetus for her to create ADVANCE, an addendum to videotape modeling,
which helps to address the moderators by teaching marital communication and coping
skills (Webster-Stratton, 1994). As it turns out, ADVANCE led to additional gains in
terms of parent treatment integrity (e.g., using praise) as well as better child social
problem solving skills.

Currently, no moderators of the Love for Leaming Project have been identified,
partly due to the statistical limitations of a modest sample size. For instance, one child
with attention-deﬁcit/hyperactivity disorder (ADI-ID) did not respond to the current
motivational enhancement (i.e., stayed exactly the same on PQCML, gained four points
on the FIHF, lost 3 points on the CAIMI, and gained 7 points on the RAI), yet there were
not enough children with ADI-ID in the study to determine if their response to treatment
was significantly different than that of other children. Anecdotally, the author suspects
that the child may have needed additional treatment for ADHD before being able to fully
beneﬁt from the Love for Leamin g Project. For example, he found it hard to concentrate
on writing the Ieaming goals, thus wrote very few. On the other hand, his parents said

that he liked the IMS and they even overheard him using the style when trying to

53

encourage a friend of his. Future studies may reveal that psychological disorders such as
ADHD are indeed moderators of the treatment effect. In that case, effective adaptations
to the motivational enhancement program would have to be made in order to extend the
treatment to that population.
Possible Reﬁnement of the Relative Autonomy Index

Ryan & Connell (1989) validated the Relative Autonomy Index in a series of
correlational studies, suggesting that self-determination theory is correct in ranking the
level of autonomous self-regulation and associated psychological health (i.e, intrinsic
regulation, identiﬁed regulation, introjected regulation and extrinsic regulation, in
descending order). However, they never described any statistical analysis of the four
behavioral domains the scale addresses (e.g., “Why do I do my homework”). They only
reported that the four behavioral domains were chosen after surveying elementary school
teachers. These four domains were thought to be “central for academic performance and
could be reasonably expected to have varied motivational sources” (Ryan & Connell,
1989, p.751). Yet, they never reported internal consistency reliabilities for the four
domains, nor did they correlate individual domains with other scales when doing
concurrent validity checks. Moreover, subsequent published articles that have used the
SRQ-A in correlational studies have not analyzed the individual domains (Grolnick &
Ryan, 1989; Grolnick, Ryan, & Deci, 1991; Grolnick, Kurowski, Dunlap, & Hevey,
2000; Miserandino, 1996). This is surprising since Grolnick’s studies were looking at the
relationship between parental autonomy support and children’s autonomous self-
regulation. Since stronger effects are most often found in the immediate environment,

one might expect greater correlations between the “Why do I do my homewor ” portion

54

of the RAI and measures of parental autonomy support than with the entire RAI. In other
words, it seems likely that parental autonomy support would most readily serve as a
greater “motivational source” for children’s autonomy during homework.

In the present study, parents in the treatment group were taught to use an
autonomy supportive style of communication and children learned how to set learning
goals for homework assignments. Children in the treatment group showed a marginally
signiﬁcant greater gain than the control group in academic perceived autonomous self-
regulation (i.e., p<.07). However, the author considered that the home-based wellness
enhancement may have had the most speciﬁc effect on the immediate environment. In
accordance, a one-way ANOVA on the difference scores revealed that children in the
treatment group, in comparison to the control group, gained signiﬁcantly more perceived
autonomy related to homework than children in the control group (p<.03).

The author then wanted to see the extent to which the treatment generalized to the
children’s perceptions of autonomous self-regulation in the other three domains.
Children in the treatment group showed a signiﬁcantly greater amelioration, qua
autonomous self-regulation, than children in the control group in the “Why do I work on
my classwork?” domain. They also showed a marginally signiﬁcantly greater
improvement on the “Why do I try to do well in school?” domain.

On the other hand, children in the control group appeared to have gained more
autonomous self-regulation than the treatment group in the “Why do I try to answer hard
questions in class?” domain. Prima facie, this looks like a minor case of iatrogenicity.
However, this subscale was unreliable for the 30 participants at pre-treatment. Due to

this lack of reliability, the author examined the effects of the treatment on RAI scores

55

without this portion of the scale. This reﬁned RAI led to a higher level of internal
consistency. Moreover, an overall treatment versus control group MANOVA revealed a
stronger effect size when the new RAI was used (i.e., jumped from .45 to .50).
Subsequent univariate analysis revealed that the treatment group showed very signiﬁcant
improvements in overall autonomous self-regulation in comparison to the control group
(p<.005).

This treatment study suggests that the RAI may need to be reﬁned by eliminating
the “Why do I try to answer hard questions in class” domain. The domain’s lack of
reliability in this study suggests that it may be worthwhile for the authors of the
aforementioned correlational studies to re-exarnine their data and see if the internal
consistency coefﬁcients are also low for the hard questions domain of the RAI in their
larger studies. With improved internal consistency, they may ﬁnd that the correlations
between the RAI and measures of parental autonomy support, as well as measures of
psychological health, are stronger without the hard questions in class domain. They may
also ﬁnd that parental autonomy support has a more notable correlation with the
homework portion of the RAI than with other portions.

Also, if others are considering the use of the RAI in treatment studies, they may
want to be forewarned that the hard questions scale shows signs of being unreliable and
insensitive to a home-based treatment.

Potential Developmental Signiﬁcance of CAIMI Scores

In the current study, children in the treatment group did not make statistically

signiﬁcant gains on the CAIMI. However, the treatment group did gain an average of

2.47 points, while the control group lost .60 points. In a longitudinal study involving 96

56

children, Gottfried et al. (2001) found that CAIMI scores tend to decline by about a half
point a year (a loss of .87 points between 4‘h and 5th grade). See Figure 4 for a graphic
comparison of the treatment and control groups with the normal developmental trend. On
the 90-point scale, a half-point decline suggests that the average child loses .5% of his/her
intrinsic motivation to learn each year. In this study, the children in the treatment group
made a 2.7% gain in intrinsic motivation. Since the negative effects of a controlling and
extrinsic reward based environment in most schools (Lepper et al., 1997; Gottfried et al.,
2001) only leads to a .5 point decline per year on CAIMI scores, it is not totally
surprising that an autonomy supportive and intrinsically oriented home-based treatment
would only lead to a 2.5 point gain in 7 weeks. The problem, of course is a lack of
statistical power in the current study. A future larger treatment study (with more degrees
of freedom) will increase the likelihood that a statistically signiﬁcant effect will be found.
With 94 degrees of freedom, Gottfried et al. (2001), found a statistically signiﬁcant
decline in academic intrinsic motivation (p<.05), but the effect size was only .06.
Comparably, the effect size was .05 when comparing the change in academic intrinsic
motivation of the treatment versus control groups in the present study. Moreover, the
treatment group’s gain from pre- to post-treatment had an effect size of .094. This effect
size may be better for comparison’s sake, since longitudinal studies do not employ a
control group. Either way, the 8-week positive treatment effect size for CAIMI scores
was roughly equivalent to the effect size for the typical developmental regression that
takes place in an entire year. Therefore, a larger replicative study is needed, in order to
see if the potentially developmentally signiﬁcant effect of the Love for Learning Project

on CAIMI scores is verified with statistical signiﬁcance.

57

 

70

CAIMI

 

69*
68~
67-
66~
65~
64~
63~

Mean Scores

 

62

 

 

—-—— control

— — I -- treatment

—+— normal

 

 

\. regression

 

 

 

Pre Post

Time

 

Figure 4. Mean Changes in the Treatment and Control Group from Pre-Treatment to
Post-treatment, in Comparison with the Developmental Trend for Fourth-Graders.

58

 

Relevance to Dweck’s Learning Goals

In numerous studies Dweck and others (e.g., Dweck & Leggett, 1988) have found
that Ieaming goals are associated with many positive Ieaming and motivational outcomes.
Her deﬁnition of Ieaming goals emphasizes a desire to increase competence. Dweck
contrasts Ieaming goals with performance goals which involve attempting to gain a
positive evaluation of one’s performance. In applying her conception of Ieaming goals in
the current treatment study, the consultant used this parsimonious deﬁnition of Ieaming
goals. Thus, in much of the study children were taught that wanting to become better at
something (e. g., math computation) was a Ieaming goal. However, it became apparent
that a couple of children were focused on becoming better at something in order. to please
their parents, teachers, or gain rewards. Thus, they may have had a proximal Ieaming
goal, but it was really in the service of a salient performance approach goal, or even a
salient performance avoidance goal (e. g., “I want to become better at spelling so I don’t
get in trouble for not Ieaming my wor ”).

In an effort to purify the Ieaming goals, the author revised the reminder on the
learning goal sheet and reminded children that inspirational Ieaming goals include
becoming better at skill areas so that one can help others someday or in some way. This
led to improved learning goals, such as, “how to spell words better, SO I can write stories
that others can understand”. Including an identiﬁed or intrinsic reason for wanting to
gain competence is a speciﬁcation that will continue to be used in future studies of the
Love for Learning Project, since it insures that the goal is more of an intrinsic learning
goal. For this reason, the reﬁned goal sheet (see Appendix I) will be used in future

studies rather than the original. If children say that they want to understand how people

59

live in South America, there is no need for specifying why (although it would not hurt).
This is because such a goal is truly a task-oriented goal, focusing on the inherent value of
the assignment. However, one can increase the motivational purity of a competence goal
by specifying that the reason is for personal growth or for empowering one to better help
others, since both of these are considered intrinsic goals (Kasser & Ryan, 1996; Schmuck
et al., 1999). These goals are considered intrinsic in that they have inherent worth rather
than being dependent on others’ evaluations (Kasser & Ryan, 1996).

While the improved competence goals were more intrinsic than the disguised
performance goals, Jere Brophy and Evelyn Oka have pointed out that Ieaming in order
to help others may itself be considered an instrumental goal (personal communication,
May 22nd, 2003). Thus, it may be better to say that Dweck’s (1988) Ieaming goals can
become more intrinsic (not purely intrinsic) by stipulating that one wants to become
better at a Ieaming task in order to use the knowledge or skill to help others. Namely,
one could consider such a goal an identiﬁed goal (see the Introduction for a discussion of
identiﬁed self-regulation in relation to intrinsic motivation), which is more intrinsic than
a performance goal. In this study, the identiﬁed learning goals may have enabled
children to see the usefulness of Ieaming.

Renewed Sense of Vitality and Reduced Psychosomatic Symptoms

The major ﬁnding in regards to the FIHF was that the children in the treatment
group experienced a signiﬁcant gain in self-reported emotional health. However, it is
worth noting that they also experienced a speciﬁc reduction in self-reported somatic
complaints and a gain in vitality. This ﬁnding extends the previous ﬁndings concerning

the relationship between intrinsic goals and vigor. Namely, Kasser & Ryan’s (1996)

60

correlational study found that college students who emphasized intrinsic goals (such as
relatedness to others, helping others, becoming more healthy, and growing as a person)
were less likely than normal to report physical symptoms and more likely to have a
strong sense of vitality. These results were replicated among German college students
(Schumck, et al., 1999). The current treatment study suggests that children’s sense of
vigor increases as their intrinsic motivation increases (partly through setting intrinsic
Ieaming goals). Also, the current study speciﬁcally suggests that children report less
muscle tension, headaches, and stomach pain, when parents use an autonomy supportive
style to promote intrinsic motivation. This ﬁnding supports Williams et al. (2000)
suggestion that an autonomy supportive family environment will reduce physical
symptoms in family members.

Utility of the PQCML and FIHF

The Parent Questionnaire of Child Motivation to Learn (PQCML) and Froiland’s
Inventory of Homework Feelings (FIHF) both showed signs of being sound measurement
devices. First of all, both instruments demonstrated excellent internal consistency.
Moreover, moderately signiﬁcant positive correlations between the PQCML and the two
established motivational instruments (i.e., the SRQ-A and the CAIMI), suggest that the
PQCML has good concurrent validity.

On the other hand, the concurrent validity of the FIHF was not tested in the
current study, because no other instruments dealing directly with emotional health were
included. In future studies, concurrent validity could be examined by including well-
established measures such as the Depression, Anxiety, and Somatization subscales of the

Behavior Assessment System for Children- Self-Report of Personality (BASC-SRP). It is

61

expected that the FIHF would show a small to moderate signiﬁcant negative correlation
with each of these subscales. In the same vein, it would be interesting to see if children
in the treatment group would improve on the BASC subscales, since the BASC involves
a more general look at emotional status than the FIHF. The use of another such measure
would also enable another test of the criterion-related validity of the PQCML (recall that
the PQCML and the FIHF were signiﬁcantly correlated).

The FIHF showed promise, qua criterion-related validity. Since intrinsic
motivation to Ieam has repeatedly shown negative correlations with measures of anxiety
and depressive symptoms, one would expect a sound measure of emotional health to
correlate signiﬁcantly with established measures of intrinsic motivation. Indeed, the
FIHF was signiﬁcantly positively correlated with the SRQ-A and the CAIMI.

In terms of test-retest reliability, both the PQCML and the FIHF scores were quite
stable for the control group. Also, the members of the control group did show non-
signiﬁcant reductions on both measures, which is to be expected based on developmental
research. Namely, intrinsic motivation to Ieam and the emotional experience of school
both tend to decline gradually over the course of the school years (Lepper et al., 1997;
Sansone & Morgan, 1992). In a 2-month interval, one would expect a very small decline
on such measures when no treatment is present. In the future, it will be important for the
PQCML and FIHF to demonstrate stability in a larger sample, noting that signiﬁcant
declines (with very small effect sizes) may take place over longer intervals.

The facts that the PQCML and FIHF were stable for the control group and able to
detect statistically signiﬁcant gains in a 15-member treatment group suggest that both

instruments are treatment sensitive. Hopefully, both instruments will be used in

62

replications of the current study as well as other psychosocial treatment studies in order
to get an idea of the range of treatments that have an effect on the instruments. Although
these instruments were designed primarily to examine children’s responses to
motivational interventions, they may also prove to be useful in measuring children’s
responses to school-related behavioral interventions. That is to say that a
developmentally sound behavioral intervention will not only increase appropriate
behaviors (e.g., do homework) but also increase or maintain intrinsic motivation and
positive emotions (Hughes, 2000). Conversely, it is worth ﬁnding out whether the
PQCML and FIHF are signiﬁcantly positively correlated with positive school-related
behaviors (e.g., attendance, homework completion, homework scores, homework
creativity, displays of persistence in the classroom).

The current ﬁndings indicate that the PQCML and FIHF are promising
instruments for measuring responses to a motivational wellness enhancement. The author
hopes to publish these scales, so that they will be available to psychologists
internationally. However, it is ﬁrst necessary to do a large correlational study (ideally
with a simple random sample or stratiﬁed random sample) in order to see if the strong
internal consistency, stability, concurrent validity, and criterion-related validity are
replicated. Moreover, it is important to further test the concurrent validity of the FIHF by
including other, more well-established measures, such as the emotional scales of the
BASC-SR. Likewise, the ecological validity of the measures could be tested by
correlating scores with germane behavioral observations or scholastic criteria at pre-

treatment in another treatment study. Then, one could further test the validity by seeing

63

if elevations on the PQCML and FIHF are accompanied by elevations in positive
academic behaviors.
Major Effects of the Love for Learning Project

In general, the motivational wellness enhancement moderately improved the
parents’ and children’s perceptions of the children’s intrinsic motivation to Ieam and
emotional health during homework. Speciﬁcally, the treatment group (in comparison to
the control group) displayed a signiﬁcant increase on the PQCML, FIHF, and the RAI of
the SRQ-A. This indicates that the parents in the treatment group felt that their children
showed a marked improvement in intrinsic motivation to Ieam, including the following:
more signs of persistence in the face of challenge; more self-encouraging verbalizations;
more self-initiation of homework, a greater focus on understanding the material; more
value placed on school; more focus on mastery; more task endogeny; more positive
emotions and fewer negative emotions displayed. See Figure 1 for a pictorial
representation of the effects of the motivational enhancement on PQCML scores.

In addition, the children in the treatment group made signiﬁcant gains on the
FIHF, which indicates that the children reported experiencing fewer depressive and
anxious symptoms during homework. Moreover, the children in the treatment group
gained more positive emotions toward homework and reported fewer somatic symptoms.
See Figure 2 for a visual representation of this salubrious effect.

Children in the treatment group also gained a greater perception of autonomous
self-regulation than the children in the control group (see Figure 3). This is an important
result since one of the major treatment components entailed an autonomy supportive

motivating style on the part of the parents. Moreover, autonomous self-regulation and

intrinsic motivation are associated with numerous indexes of academic strength and
motivational health. For example, intrinsic motivation and autonomous self-regulation
are associated with better grades and achievement scores (Gottfried, 1990), more
creativity (Grolnick et al, 2002), more cognitive and behavioral persistence on
challenging tasks, better school attendance (Vallerand & Bissonnette, 1992), better long-
term memory for school material (Conti et al., 1995), less Machevelianism and
narcissism (McHoskey, 1999), greater internalization of prosocial values (Battistich,
Solomon, Kim, Watson, & Schaps, 1995; Battistich, Solomon, Watson, & Schaps, 1997),
better behavior (Grolnick & Ryan, 1989), fewer depressive symptoms (Boggiano &
Barret, 1992; McClure, Rogeness, & Thompson, 1997; Kasser & Ryan, 1996) and less
anxiety (Ryan & Connell, 1989). The current study only examined one aspect of these
beneﬁcial side effects (i.e., emotional health). In future studies, it will be worthwhile to
see if the Love for Learning Project also leads to gains in some of these other associated
areas, especially those which are most directly related to academic performance (e. g.,
creativity, long-term memory, grades). If the Love for Learning Project is to reach many
schools, it may be necessary to show a direct link between this motivational wellness
enhancement and academic performance. Currently, one can only say that the link is
very likely, since intrinsic motivation to Ieam is empirically linked (i.e., through
correlations and short-run laboratory experiments) to the aforementioned academic
strengths. Some parents and education leaders may want to know if the Love for

Learning Project itself leads to these academic strengths.

65

SUMMARY

This study found that the Love for Learning Project was moderately effective in
enhancing the following: parents’ perceptions of their children’s intrinsic motivation to
Ieam; children’s perceived autonomy during homework and classwork; and perceived
emotional health during homework. It is hoped that this is the beginning in a series of
programmatic studies that lead to a thorough understanding of the Love for Leaming
Project’s efﬁcacy, essential ingredients, and moderators. In order for this to happen, a
follow-up study may randomly assign a large number of families to ﬁve groups (i.e.,
intrinsic Ieaming goals only; inspirational motivational style only; full Love for Learing
Project; discussion with consultant only; or no-intervention control). With the larger
number of families, one would likely be able to determine if certain factors (e.g.,
maternal depression, marital discord, child ADHD) moderated the treatment effect. An
understanding of the essential treatment components and the moderators could lead to
reﬁnements or addendums to the motivational wellness enhancement for children who
otherwise might not respond well. Likewise, a closer look at treatment integrity (through
systematic observations of families) could help the developer understand why certain
parents have trouble implementing the IMS and Ieaming goals assistance.

Through examining treatment integrity, the developer already reﬁned the Ieaming
goals sheets by making the reminder more explicitly focused on identiﬁed or intrinsic
goals. In particular, children were told that a Ieaming goal includes wanting to become
better at something for the purpose of helping others. This has important implications for
Dweck’s research on learning goals, since some children actually appeared to be writing

pure Ieaming goals when they said they wanted to become better in a skill area.

66

However, when asked why they wanted to become better, some of the children in the
current study gave performance reasons. Using Kasser & Ryan’s (1996) intrinsic goal
deﬁnitions helped the developer to reﬁne the Ieaming goals sheet by stipulating that the
desire for competence must be in the service of others or for personal growth.

In a related ﬁnding, the current study suggests that setting intrinsic goals and
experiencing a more autonomy supportive parental style led to a greater sense of vitality,
fewer self-reported headaches, less self-reported muscle tension, and less self-reported
stomach pain in children. This is an important extension of Kasser & Ryan’s work, since
they found a positive association between intrinsic goals and vitality among college
students in the USA. and Germany (Kasser & Ryan, 1996; Shmuck et al., 1999).
Likewise, they found a negative correlation between intrinsic goals and somatic
complaints. The current study suggests that we can improve children’s vigor through
teaching them to set intrinsic goals and using an autonomy supportive style.

This initial test of the Love for Learning Project’s effectiveness also makes an
important contribution to the area of motivational measurement. The PQCML and the
FIHF showed promise as reliable and valid instruments that are sensitive to a
motivational wellness enhancement. Larger studies will enable us to see if the strong
internal consistency and stability are replicated. Also, the criterion-related validity of the
PQCML and concurrent validity of the FIHF could be tested by correlating scores with
other measures such as the Anxiety, Depression, and Somatic complaint scales of the
BASC-SR. In addition, such a general measure would help to see if the Love for
Learning Project’s treatment effect generalizes beyond the domains of homework and

schooL

67

Another potential contribution to motivational assessment has to do with the RAI.
Although Ryan & Connnell (1989) describe the four behavioral domains as important,
they never tested the internal consistency of the separate domains, nor did they or other
published users of the scale correlate the domain scores with important variables (e.g.,
correlate parental autonomy support with child homework autonomy). The current study
found that the Love for Learning Project led to statistically signiﬁcant gains on the
homework and classwork domains of the RAI. Furthermore, when the unreliable hard
questions domain was eliminated from the total RAI, the treatment group much more
signiﬁcantly out-gained the control group (p<.005). This suggests that previous
correlational studies for the SRQ-A may need to be reexamined in order to see if the
internal consistency was low for the hard questions domain. If so, this domain should be
eliminated from the scale in both future correlational studies and treatment studies, since
it is likely to reduce important correlations and spuriously attenuate treatment effects.

Overall, this motivational wellness enhancement made a good debut, leading to a
marked increase in three out of four measures of children’s motivational health. Also, the
parents found the sessions to be very helpful and plan to continue to use the IMS and
Ieaming goals. This high level of parental satisfaction may explain why the attrition rate
was 0%, much lower than the 28% average found in the parent consultation literature.
The Love for Learning Project is worthy of continued programmatic study, since it shows
promise for empowering parents to foster a precious motivational resource within their
children. In order to convince many school administrators that the families in their
schools could beneﬁt from the Love for Learning Project, it will be necessary to

demonstrate that the motivational enhancement package has direct impact on academic

68

variables that are associated with intrinsic motivation to Ieam (i.e., deeper understanding

of material, better long-term memory, creativity, classroom engagement, and attendance).

69

APPENDIX A

The Love for Learning Project

You have the opportunity to develop your inspirational motivational style, which
is designed to help your 4th or 5th grade child to love Ieaming even more than he or she
already does. Also, your participation in this study could help advance research in the
area of developing child motivation by helping the developer ﬁnd out whether this
particular motivational enhancement program is effective. Research suggests that the
associated beneﬁts with high levels of intrinsic motivation to Ieam are the following:
increased long-term memory, increased conceptual understanding, increased enjoyment
of Ieaming, increased persistence in the face of challenging material, less anxiety during
Ieaming activities, less boredom, fewer negative feelings, more creativity, and better
grades. The purpose of this study is to see if children’s motivation to Ieam can be
signiﬁcantly enhanced with the help of their family and if such an increase in intrinsic
motivation to Ieam (what I call a love for Ieaming) leads to reduced academic anxiety

and improved homework performance.

Benefits

In addition to the possible increases in your child’s love for Ieaming, the developer will
either donate $20 to your child’s school or provide you with a $20 gift certificate to a
local bookstore after completion of the seventh session. Families that simply ﬁll out the
questionnaires will receive a $5 gift certiﬁcate or $5 donation to their school, after
completing the questionnaires the second time. Families with 4th or 5th grade children
will be accommodated on a ﬁrst come, ﬁrst serve basis. A maximum of 40 families will
participate in the seven sessions, and a maximum of another 40 families will simply ﬁll

out the questionnaires.

70

Format

In 7 30-minute sessions, you can Ieam how to apply an inspirational motivational style and how to help
your child set learning goals in a way that may increase his or her appreciation of homework, school, and
learning in general. The sessions are designed to be informational, useful, and fun for you and your child.
If you are not able to participate in the sessions, you and your child could help advance motivational

research by brieﬂy ﬁlling out a couple of questionnaires before and after the study.

Where?

In order to save you time and childcare costs, the 7 sessions (one per week) will take place in your home or
at another location you prefer. Families that only ﬁll out surveys will receive them in the mail (in a self-

addressed, postage paid envelope).

How to Get Involved

Simply call John Froiland, Doctoral Candidate or his wife Denice at 333-8286 or e-mail at
froilan1@msu.edu, or ﬁll out the information below and mail in the provided envelope. The program will
most likely begin either in the second or third week of January. The form below is merely a statement of

interest in the study. Families that are interested will receive the consent form at a later date, as long as

space permits.

 

 

 

 

Name Child’sName__
Child’sGrade

Phone# AlternatePhone# Best Time to

Reach You

 

Best Day(s)/Time(s) to Meet with you and your child

 

I would like to participate in the 7 sessions to enhance my child’s love for learning
I would be willing only to have my child and I ﬁll out a couple of questionnaires (e.g., child academic
motivation inventory), to help further motivational research

If you are not interested feel free to discard this form.

Note: This ﬂyer is shown in actual size. However, it was printed on goldenrod paper.
Also, a border of three-dimensional pencils surrounded the actual handout.

71

APPENDIX B

The Love for Learning Project

Reference Booklet for Parents

John M. Froiland
Michigan State University

NO part Of this work may be reproduced without the prior written permission
Of the author. All rights reserved.

72

Acknowledgements
I would like to thank the parents of fourth-graders that previewed an earlier
version of this booklet and gave me helpful and encouraging feedback.
This booklet is dedicated to my wife and our baby (Elijah Andrew) who is on the
way! Moreover, this booklet is dedicated to the motivational health and optimal Ieaming

of children.

73

Contents

About the Developer of the Great Love for Learning Project & Introduction ...... 4-5
What is an Inspirational Motivational Style? ............................................... 5-9
Learning goals: What they are and the beneﬁts they may bring my child ....... 9-11
How do I help my child set learning goals? .................................................... 11-12
Bibliography .......................................................................................................... 13
Quick-reference sheets
The Inspirational Motivational Style Components ............................................ 14-15
Visible Signs of Your Child’s Growing Love for Learning ....................................... 16
My New Learning Goals for Tonight ...................................................................... 17

74

About the project developer: John Froiland is a Doctoral Candidate in School
Psychology at Michigan State University. Under the supervision of school psychologists
in the Greater Lansing area, John has consulted with teachers about children’s attention,
behavior, emotional, and motivational struggles. For example, when John created a
motivational intervention for a child with ADHD, the teacher liked it so much that she
asked him to adapt it for the whole classroom as a motivational enhancement. In a
different school, a child increased his enjoyment of mathematics and math assignment
scores with the help of a motivational program. John has also taught an educational
psychology class for future elementary, middle school, and high school teachers at
MSU’s extension site in Troy, M1 for the last two summers. He has served as an assistant
instructor for the same class on the East Lansing campus for the past three years. Also,
John taught a Child Development class at Jackson Community College. John is
especially interested in helping fanrilies to increase their children’s love for Ieaming.

In a recent study with parents and their children, John found that children often
respond immediately to an inspirational motivational style during a Ieaming task. When
parents used the motivational style you will have the Opportunity to practice, children
usually responded immediately with visible signs of a love for Ieaming (see “Visible
Signs of Your Child’s Growing Love for Learning” at the back of this booklet). For
instance, children were much more likely to ﬁgure out how to solve a problem on their
own, srrrile at their parents, continue working on the task, and say things like “I like this”
or “I know I can ﬁgure this out”.

In the sessions, you will have the opportunity to develop your inspirational

motivational style. You will also learn how to teach your child to set Ieaming goals in a

75

way that may further inspire his or her Ieaming. In this booklet, I will explain what an
inspirational motivational style is along with its beneﬁts. Then, some examples of the
style will be given. Later, Ieaming goals and the beneﬁts Of creating them will be
described. Also, examples of learning goals will be provided. In the back of the booklet
are a few quick reference tables that you may ﬁnd useful in inspiring your child to love

learning more than he or she already does.

What is an inspirational motivational style?

When a parent or teacher uses an inspirational motivational style, they help a
child see the value in doing a learning—related activity and help the child feel understood.
A parent who uses an inspirational style can communicate the same information as
another parent, yet get a much better response. For instance, let’s say that a fourth-grader
named Molly does not want to do her math homework because she would rather play
with her friend. Yet, her mother knows that it is 7pm. and the homework will probably
not get done if she plays with her friend. A parent using one motivational style might say
with a loud and upset voice, “You better get in your room and do your homework right
now, or you’ll be in big trouble.” Molly may very well go to the room and begin
working, but studies suggest she will likely experience one of the following:
nervousness, resentment that she has to do the task, boredom, a desire to just get the task
done without really giving it her best shot, and only a shallow understanding for what she
learned. Also, she may show even less interest in her math homework in the future.

On the other hand, what if Molly’s mom calmly and with warm conﬁdence

looked Molly in the eye and said, “I know you want to play with your friend, but your

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math homework is very important. What is your assignment about?” While Molly
explains her homework, mom listens closely. After Molly explains that they are working
a multiplication word problems, the mom suggests that understanding those type of word
problems could help her Ieam to ﬁgure out all sorts of interesting problems in real life.
For instance, maybe she could ﬁgure out how many allowance periods it will take her to
save up for the new doll she really wants or for the trip to the pizza arcade with the friend
she likes to play with. Molly sees the enthusiasm mom’s eye and agrees that she can
spend time with her friend on the weekend or during recess at school. Numerous studies
suggest that Molly will be much more inspired to learn in this situation. For instance, she
is likely to enjoy her math assignment more, remember more of the material a week later,
have a deeper understanding of the concepts, and face challenging homework problems
with more effort, creative thinking and patience. Over time, many interactions like this
will make it likely that Molly will develop an interest in math that will beneﬁt her for
many years to come.

I believe that parents are the experts when it comes to understanding their child,
and each parent will develop his or her own inspirational style a little differently. So let’s
consider a much different example. Let’s say that Ronny comes home smiling because
he scored an A on his book report. His mom and dad, like most parents, are glad and
congratulate him. This is great. But, the inspirational motivational style takes their
responses a step further. Mom says, “Wow, I’m so glad, and I noticed how you really got
into that book and worked hard on your report. You’re really gaining a passion for
reading detective stories.” Then, dad says, with an interested look, “If you want, I’d like

to hear a little about the story you read.” Both parents were glad Ronny received an A,

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but they also showed Ronny that they were quite interested in what he learned and in his
increasing passion for Ieaming.

These are just two examples of an inspirational style in Ieaming situations. Many
other ways to express an inspirational Style in the above situations could have been
mentioned. Also, there are components of an inspirational style that were not covered in
the two scenarios. For a quick reference sheet that breaks down an inspirational style into
clear components, please refer to “The Inspirational Motivational Style Components” in
the back of this booklet.

It should be clear from the “The Inspirational Motivational Style Components”
sheet that this style is quite ﬁne-tuned yet offers a great deal of ﬂexibility for each parent.
Also, it avoids two less healthy extremes that most motivators have struggled with at one
point or another: passivity and over-control. Some parents and teachers hope to let
students blossom by letting them do almost whatever they want and having few
expectations. This is called pennissiveness or passivity. It often leads to children who
lack self-discipline in their Ieaming efforts. Other motivators only use commands,
rewards, threats and punishment to motivate children. This overly controlling style often
leads to children doing the work without much inspiration. In contrast, motivators who
use an inspirational style maintain high expectations, develop a better learning-related
relationship, and inspire their children to reach their potential. These motivators still use
rewards (especially speciﬁc and genuine praise) for good work and, if necessary, warn
their children about consequences for not doing their work, but they also help children to

understand the rewards that learning itself provides (e.g., learning leads to greater

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understanding of how things work; helps people to pursue their dreams; strengthens the

mind; helps us to solve problems in real life, etc.).

Learning Goals: What they are and the benefits they may bring your child

When children set Ieaming goals, they are aiming to increase their knowledge,
skill, or understanding. While this may sound simple, it seems that very few children are
focused on Ieaming goals when they do schoolwork. For instance, one study found that
low achieving elementary school students usually worried more about ﬁnishing their
work on time than about understanding what they were studying. High achieving
students were less wonied about getting done on time, but even they could not explain
what they were Ieaming from the assignments. Another study interviewed 49
elementary school students about what they thought about when they did schoolwork. It
found that 45 students were worried about getting the answers right, 2 only cared about
ﬁnishing the work on time, and only 2 expressed that they were trying to understand the
Ieaming topic.

The fact that few children are focused on Ieaming when doing schoolwork is
upsetting, because they are missing out on the many beneﬁts of having Ieaming goals.
Children with Ieaming goals tend to enjoy the following beneﬁts: they view high effort
as a strategy for pursuing mastery, rather than as a sign of being “slow”; they are more
likely to learn from their mistakes; emotional energy is channeled into the Ieaming
process, rather than distracting them from Ieaming; challenging tasks are sought and

enjoyed, rather than avoided for fear of failure.

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Learning goals are very different from performance goals. Performance goals
have to do with focusing on getting a good evaluation (performance~approach goals) or
avoiding a bad evaluation (performance-avoidance goals). Performance-avoidance goals
(e.g., “I don’t want to get this answer wrong”) decrease a child’s love for Ieaming and
lead to anxiety. Learning to set Ieaming goals will help a child to avoid the negative
focus that performance-avoidance goals give. Performance-approach goals (e.g., “I want
to get an A on my social studies test on the Midwest”), on the other hand, can improve a
child’s school performance. However, if the performance-approach goal becomes more
important than a Ieaming goal (e.g., understand more about what makes the Midwest a
distinctive region), the child may begin to lose appreciation for Ieaming about the
Midwest and have only shallow understanding and poor long-term memory for what he
or she learned. Performance-approach goals are likely to have the best effect on learning,
when they are combined with learning goals.

As mentioned earlier, Ieaming goals tend to have many beneﬁts (e.g., increase a
child’s interest in learning). However, many of the studies about Ieaming goals were
done without the child actually creating his or her own Ieaming goals. When people
write down or clearly state their own goals, they are more likely to carry them out. Thus,
in the sessions you will Ieam how to help your child create and write his or her own
Ieaming goals. As a quick reference, an example of a completed learning goals sheet is

provided in the back of this booklet (see “My Learning Goals for Tonight”).

80

How do I help my child set learning goals?

1)

2)

3)

This will be covered in detail in the sessions, but here are some of the basic tips:

Remember that a Ieaming goal involves the child focusing on increasing knowledge,
skill, or understanding for the subject (there is a reminder for the child in boldface on
“My Learning Goals for Tonight”)

Explain what Ieaming goals are and how they differ from other goals like “I want to get
this done” or “I want to get them all right”. If you and your child use performance-
approach goals (e.g., “I want to get them all right”), feel free to keep those goals, but be
sure that your child learns to set Ieaming goals as well. Remember, Ieaming goals and
performance approach goals can be a healthy combination.

Use an inspirational motivational style (see The Inspirational Motivational Style
Components) when teaching your child to set learning goals. Warmly and clearly explain
how the learning goals will help him or her to Ieam more and enjoy Ieaming more. DO

not worry about spelling or grammar when the child writes Ieaming goals.

4) After explaining what Ieaming goals are for the ﬁrst time, Show the child how to set

5)

6)

7)

8)

9)

Ieaming goals for his/her homework for that night. Answer any questions your child
might have, then let your child ﬁll out a fresh Ieaming goals sheet in his/her own words.
Look over each goal with your child and compliment him/her on any Ieaming goal that is
an actual Ieaming goal. If one of the goals is not really a Ieaming goal, ask your child if
the goal ﬁts with the boldface reminder on the Ieaming goals sheet. For example, “Your
goal is to get all your math problems right. That’s good, but what do you want to Ieam,
understand, or get better at.” Be patient, this may be a new way of thinking for your
child (it is even for most adults!). Remember to show your child that you look at
mistakes as opportunities to learn, rather than as failures or signs of ability deﬁciencies.
Once your child has made a Ieaming goal for each assignment, encourage him or her in
your own way as you let him or her start the assignments.

Please collect the Ieaming goals sheet each night so that you can give all ﬁve of them to
the developer at the beginning of each new weekly session.

Remind your child to set Ieaming goals each night before starting the homework. Show
enthusiasm when you mention the learning goals or remind your child that they will help
him/her Ieam more and ﬁnd it more interesting.

Help your child see if he or she is setting actual Ieaming goals for the ﬁrst few nights, or

until he/she seems to really grasp the idea. Once your child becomes skilled at setting

81

Ieaming goals, you can just check them when you collect them and compliment him/her
on the ones that were clearly Ieaming goals.
10) Each week the developer will collect the Ieaming goals sheets at the beginning Of the

session and give you 5 new sheets to give your child.

82

Bibliography
Anderson, L., Brubaker, N., Alleman-Brooks, J ., & Duffy, G. (1985). A qualitative study

of seatwork in ﬁrst-grade classrooms. Elementary School J ouLn_alL86, 123-140.

Brophy, J. (1998). Motivating students to Ieam. New York: McGraw Hill.

Dweck, C. S., & Leggett, E. L., (1988). A social-cognitive approach to motivation and
personality. Psychological Review, 95, (2), 256-273.

Froiland, J. M. (2003, April). The Role of Paren_ts in Nurturing Children’s Motivation to
_L_e;a;n_. Poster session accepted for presentation at the annual convention of the National
Association of School Psychologists, Toronto.

Gollwitzer, PM. (1999). Implementation intentions: strong effects of simple plans.
American Psychologist, 54, (7), 493-503.

Pintrich, P. R. (2000). Multiple goals, multiple pathways: The role of goal orientation in
learning and achievement. Jouﬂal of Educational Psychology, 92, (3), 544-555.

Rawsthome, L. J ., & Elliot, A. J. (1999). Achievement goals and intrinsic motivation: A
meta-analytic review. Personglity and Soci_al Psychology Review, 3, (4), 326-344.

Rohrkemper, R., & Bershon, B. ( 1984). Elementary school students’ reports of the causes

and effects of problem difﬁculty in mathematics. Elementm School Journal, 85, 127-147.

83

The Inspirational Motivational Style Components

0 Emphasize reasons for doing homework that have to do with Ieaming goals (e.g.,
“Molly, reading this history chapter could help you understand how Michigan became the
interesting state that it is today)

0 Offer hints or subtle cues only when your child appears stuck (this gives needed help,
while still allowing your child to solve problems independently)

0 Acknowledge your child’s point of View or feelings (may include returning a smile,
providing a nod of understanding, paraphrasing what your child said with a sincere voice,
or saying that you understand why they are upset)

0 Reﬂect what your child says and feels by brieﬂy and sincerely repeating what he or she
said in your own words (e.g., Ronny says with an upset voice, “that test stunk” and his
mom reﬂects by saying, “so you didn’t like the test”). As a friend of mine says, this
helps to charge a child’s battery so that he or she will be more ready to listen to the
parents’ encouragement or requests.

0 Warm silence and active listening are almost golden! Sometimes children feel
rejuvenated simply by telling their parents about the challenges they face with homework
and school. Also, warm parent attention can often do wonders for a child’s inspiration to
learn.

0 You may even want to play with your child for 5 minutes during a study break, letting
him or her lead, while you give warm attention and reﬂect what he or she says.

0 Let your child see your enthusiasm for what he/she is learning

0 Take time to explain how well they did at a learning task, in terms of the motivation to
Ieam they showed, the effort they put in, and the growth toward mastery they are making
0 Teach your child that mistakes on homework or classwork are tools for learning
(stepping stones, not stumbling blocks)

0 Give informational replies to your child’s questions

0 Once in awhile, try a little humor when your child seems worried about

school/homework

84

More Inspirational Motivational Style Components

0 Use parables, analogies, or metaphors to help make your child aware of ways to
improve or ﬁnd more meaning in the present schoolwork-related situation (e. g., “every
time you study you make your mind stronger, because your mind is like a muscle, it gets
stronger with exercise”)

0 Give a speciﬁc compliment to your child when he or she shows signs of creativity or
unique expressions in his/her writing or ideas (e.g., I like the way you explained the
science concept in your own words!)

0 Try taking a deep breath before telling the child what to do when you feel frustrated or
upset

0 If your child refuses to do homework and pointing to the value or beauty of the
assignment does not work, calmly explain to the child the consequence that will occur if
they do not do what you say. Then, wait 5-10 seconds for your child’s response (this
gives the child a chance to think about the wise response)

0 Whenever you ask questions about schoolwork, wait quietly for your child to respond
even it takes 10 seconds.

0 When you use rewards, help your child to remember that the real reward is Ieaming
itself!

0 When your child seems motivationally drained, explain to your child how you keep
yourself interested in your work or hobbies (e.g., you remember that what you are doing
helps other people; likewise, your child’s growing knowledge may help others someday),
you remind yourself of how your challenges can lead to personal growth, the ability to
help others, or you remind yourself of the interesting things about a task. This will help
your child’s love for learning. Try not to mention things like, “I remind myself that I can
make a lot of money” or “ I say to myself, if I don’t exercise I won’t look as good”.

0 If your child complains about a subject being boring, explain that you understand this
feeling, but then suggest the beautiful aspects of the topic (e.g., “math is a wonderful
language that helps people to ﬁgure out how things work, for example, if I can multiply
10X12, I can ﬁgure out how much furniture I can ﬁt in the living room”; or “did you

know that scientists used math to ﬁgure out how the planets revolve around the sun?”).

85

Visible Signs of Your Child’s Growing Love for Learning During the Educational

Game.
1. Resumes or continues work independently

2. May stop you from doing the work for him/her (e.g., “I can do this”)

3. Problem solving on his/her own (e.g., saying, “Hmm, what should I do next”)

4. Making his or her own decision about next move to make

5. Initiates task related move/statement

6. Eliciting parent’s help as a consultant by asking strategy based questions (e.g., Do you think it is back
far enough?)

7. Any very brief digression or pause that seems to refresh or motivate the child (e. g., saying “I know I can
do this, patting him/herself on the back, or taking a deep breath)

8. Other task-oriented actions that appear clearly self-determined

9. Enjoyment (visible positive emotions while focusing on task, such as smiling or saying, “I like this”)
10. Persistence (i.e., continues to keep trying even when the assignment is hard)

1 1. Jokes about task without complaining

12. Expressing feelings or opinions without complaining or negative affect (e.g., “This is tricky!”)

13. Other expressions of appreciating the task

Mum will start to see M

1. Signs of boredom (e.g. staring at the ceiling, sulking, asking when he! she can quit)

2. Complaining about task or sighing

3. Giving up, quitting, or malingering

4. Putting head on the table

5. Other actions or vocalizations that express disliking for the task

6. Trying to get you to do the work or asking you for the answers

7. Asking you for hints without trying for awhile

8. Getting angry at you for not letting him/her ﬁgure things out for him/herself, not paying attention to
him/her, or for rushing him/her

9. Other actions that express over-dependency

86

My New Learning Goals For Tonight: Example Sheet
Non—Ieaming goals are in parentheses
Homgwork assignments (ﬁll in each alssignment) What I Hope to Legm

 

1) Read Social Studies Chapter about the Caribbean I want to understand what it
might be like to live on one
of those islands today
(I want to remember what I
read so I get an A on the test)

2) Math computation sheets I want to become a little
better at multiplying
(I want to get done in 15
minutes so I can watch the
hockey game)

3) Book report I will be able to share my
story with my teacher
(My teacher won’t be upset
with me if I write well)

How many homework assignments did you have today? 3

Progress Toward New Learning Goals (for each goal you made above, briefly write
about one thing you became a little better at, one thing that you learned, or one
thing you thought was interesting)

1) I feel like a got a little taste for how people live in the city and country parts of the
Caribbean islands

2) I got some good practice.

3) I can share my story now. I realize that I understand a lot about this book.

Remember, a learning goal means that you try to understand
something better, or become a little better at doing something.
Your own Ieaming goals will help you learn more and like Ieaming
more.

87

APPENDIX C

Role Plays for Family Sessions in the Love for Learning Project

Role Plays for Session 1: (Feel Free to Create Your Own Responses)

Role Play #1 I will play the role of the parent and you play the role of the child.
You come home excited telling your parent about a good score on a test:
Situation 1a When the parent doesn’t seem very interested, you: angrily raise
your voice and say, ”don’t you even care that I got an A on my test” OR your
look a little sad for a second.

Situation 1b When the parent tells you that if you keep it up, you get to go to
the Steakhouse, you seem excited, but you feel a little nervous about whether
you’ll be able to earn the prize.

Situation 1c When the parent uses an inspirational style, You make a big smile
and say, ”okay”!

Situation 1d Reverse Roles. Now you only play the role of the inspirational
parent.

Role Play #2 I will play the role of the parent and you play the role of the child.
The parent asks how you did on your social studies project, and you feel bad
about not doing as well as you wanted to, so you don’t answer right away
Situation 2a When your parent rushes you for an answer, you get upset, look
away, and say, ”I didn’t do well”.

Situation 2b Your parent is patient. After about 5—10 seconds, you say Openly
”I thought I did well, but the teacher took Off a lot Of points”. You then feel
encouraged by the way your parent shows understanding and explains how to
Ieam from mistakes.

Situation 2c Reverse Roles Now you play only the role of the inspirational

parent.

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Role Plays for Session 3: (Feel Free to Create Your Own Responses)

Role Play #1 I play the role of a parent and you play the role of a child. I notice
you have been bored with homework lately or sometimes put things off until the
last minute. I try to motivate you in either a controlling or inspirational way:
Situation 1a When your parent pressures you, you frown and yell, ”okay”. Or,
you go ahead and get back to your homework but feel stressed because your
under a lot of pressure.

Situation 1b. After your parent empathically lets you know that he notices
your struggling motivationally, he waits patiently for 5 seconds before you
respond. You answer, "yeah, I’m tired of it”. Then, you begin to feel
somewhat relieved as you realize that your parent has overcome the same
motivational obstacles and believes you can too. ‘
Situation 1c. Reverse roles. You are the Inspirational parent. You notice I’ve
been bored with homework lately and ................... use 5 second pause,

acknowledgement of feelings and motivational modeling

Role Play #2. You play the role of your child. I play the role of parent. When I
collect your Ieaming goals sheet on Tuesday night, only two goals were filled
out, even though you had three assignments. Also, one of the goals was a
performance-approach goal. lust get a feel for the three different styles- respond
naturally.

Situation 2a. Passive parenting Situation 2b- Controlling parenting
Situation 2c. IMS

Situation 2d. Reverse roles. Your are the inspirational parent. Help me to
improve my Ieaming goals sheet in an Inspirational way (point out good
Ieaming goal and how it will help me; how performance-approach goals could
be a helpful secondary goal; and encourage me to fill out all my goals in the

future because they will help me learn more and get into math more).

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Role Plays for Session 4: (Feel Free to Create Your Own Responses)

Role play #1. You play the role of a child. I play a parent. You have a social
studies project that is due tomorrow, but you are only half way done.
Nonetheless, you are procrastinating. Your parent notices and really wants you
to get started within the next few minutes.

Situation 1a. Controlling parent- respond as either angry or quietly nervous
Situation 1b. Inspirational parent

Situation 1c. Reverse roles. You are the parent who uses an IMS.

Role play #2 (alternate version of Role play #1). You play the child again. Even
though I encouraged you to focus on the interesting parts of your social studies
project, you loudly refuse to begin doing your project. As a parent, I ’m worried
that you won’t get the project done. '
Situation 1a. After the parent talks about how you can grow through doing the
project you say, ”no way, I don’t wanna do that project” with an angry voice.
When the parent shows empathy yet firmly states the consequences, you agree
to go ahead and do your work.

Situation 1b. Reverse roles. You are the parent. Explain the benefits of doing
the project. When the child responds negatively, take a deep breath,
acknowledge his feelings, then explain the consequence that will occur if he

does not begin doing his work.

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Role Play for Session #5- Some examples of things you could say
to help your child focus on the beauty of Ieaming for different

assignments or subjects:

Spelling test- “more people will be able to understand and appreciate what you write, when you
know how to spell words correctly; also, spell-check often makes mistakes if you don’t misspell
the word just like the computer expects”

Math computation- “you will be able to ﬁgure out things like how to stay within your budget, or
how big of dresser can ﬁt on the wall in your room; when you become quicker at multiplying it
becomes almost automatic so that you can use the rest of your mental energy for other things like
holding a conversation, or thinking more deeply about how solve a problem. Music is
mathematical and even the orbits of the solar system are ﬁgured out with math”.

Word problems— “word problems help to develop your problem solving skills. People that know
how to solve big problems (e.g., detectives, doctors, managers. leaders) ﬁrst learned how to solve
homework problems!”

Science- “if you understand how things work, you can invent ways to protect or improve things
(e.g., medical doctors use biology and chemistry to help patients; marine biologists use
understanding of sea creatures and plants to ﬁgure out how to best protect them from pollution
and thrive; chemists help create medicines; people that design buildings know geometry and basic
physics; geologists/earth scientists/environmental scientists ﬁgure out how the earth works and
then help design systems that work with the earths patterns (e. g., canals, sewer systems,
conservation areas). Science helps you to see the wonders of humans and everything else in the
universe.”

Social studies- “the more you Ieam about other people, the more you understand them, the more
you understand them, the more you’ll be able to help them, win their trust, see their hidden
qualities and talents, and avoid their harmful behaviors (e.g., tricks, scams, etc.).”

History- “history helps you learn about people’s past mistakes and wise behaviors so that you
can learn what works and what did not work, without making all the same mistakes. Also, history
helps you to understand how why people ﬁnd certain things very important.

English/grammar- “the better you get at this the more people you will be able to convince of
your ideas; the more you understand the English language the more you will understand books,

newspapers, websites, and manuals (e. g., car manuals, computer manuals).”

91

Role Plays for Session 6: (Feel Free to Create Your Own Responses)

Role play #1- You play the role of a child, I play the role of a parent. I
had a stressful day and feel a little tired and crabby. I know you have a big
social studies test tomorrow, and I ’m surprised to find you sitting on the couch
watching television at 7 pm, especially considering that you did not get home
from an after school activity until dinner time.

Situation 1a- Controlling- When I question you, you say, ”I’m watching
this movie, all my friends are watching it tonight”. My response frustrates you.

Situation 1b- Inspirational- First answer, ”about a half hour”. When I
remind you of the importance of the test you say, ”I really want to watch this
show, all my friends are going to see it". When I show understanding and come
up with a solution, you feel better yet say, ”But, I don’t feel like studying”.
You are encouraged by the farming analogy and almost see studying in a new
light.

Situation 1c- Reverse roles (you may want to acknowledge my feelings,

use patience, and use a motivational analogy).

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APPENDIX D

Inspirational Motivational Style Vignettes and Record of Parent-Child Play

Inspirational Motivational Style in action

Please use this form to record one example in which you used a component of IMS and
found that your child responded with visible signs of a love for Ieaming (see Visible
Signs of Your Child’s Growing Love for Learning for some examples) or you felt that
you did a good job of applying IMS. Remember, even if your child does not show
immediate reactions to your IMS, his/her love for Ieaming is growing like a seed
underground.

Date:
Time:

Brieﬂy describe the situation, what you did, and how the child responded:

Parent-Child Play during Educational Game

Please play the game introduced during the session with your child for approximately 10
minutes. This provides you with the opportunity to practice the IMS (see The
Inspirational Motivational Style Components quick reference sheet in your booklet),
while having fun with your child. Here are the IMS components that you may ﬁnd
especially relevant during this weeks game: use subtle hints if child appears stuck; reﬂect
the child’s emotions and statements; active listening and warm silence, giving the child
time to think of solutions; genuine and speciﬁc compliments when your child shows
creativity or comes up with an interesting idea or displays a determined effort.

Date:

Time (of start and ﬁnish):

Game:

How did it go?

Note: The IMS components were updated each week depending on the game(s) that were
introduced in the particular session.

93

APPENDIX E

Treatment Manual: Family Session Plans for the Great Love for Learning Project
John M. Froiland, Doctoral Candidate

Michigan State University

No part of this work may be reproduced without the prior written permission of the
author. All rights reserved.

94

Family Session Plans for the Great Love for Learning Project
Session 1 (10-15 extra minutes for pre-enhancement assessment)
Brief introductions: thank the family (both parent and child) for participating and explain
that I believe that the Love for Learning Project will be exciting and useful for both the
parents and the child. Ask if they could ﬁll out the questionnaires before I explain the
Love for Learning Project to them.

Pre-enhancement measurement: give the parent the Parent Questionnaire of Child
Motivation to Learn (PQCML); give the child the Academic Self-Regulation
Questionnaire (SRQ-A; 32 items), the Children’s Academic Intrinsic Motivation
Inventory (CAIMI-18 item general scale only), and Froiland’s Inventory of Homework
Feelings (FIHF; 21 items). The regular session can begin once the parent ﬁnishes the
PQCML. The child will continue to ﬁll out the questionnaires and only needs to actively
join this session in the last 5 minutes or so.

Explain the purpose of the Love for Learning Project: I designed the Love for
Leamin g Project because numerous studies have shown that most children lose their
passion for learning as the school years progress and begin to only study in order to stay
out of trouble, get good grades, impress their peers, or avoid feelings of guilt or fears of
failure. This loss of a love for Ieaming leads to more academic anxiety and tension, more
boredom, and more apathy. On the other hand, preserving a love for Ieaming leads to
more long-term memory, creativity, better grades, more enjoyment and appreciation for
school, better school attendance, better self-control and a deeper conceptual

understanding.

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Brief expectation building

I believe the Love for Learning Project will help your child ﬁnd great meaning in
his/her classes and this passion for knowledge will help your child reach his/her highest
potential. I have noticed that many of the greatest people in our society had a love for
what they studied or did. Cite one example that the family will likely admire or identify
with to some degree in terms of culture, ethnicity, religion, and maybe gender of the
child. Here are some examples: Dr. Jonas Salk loved ﬁnding ways to use medicine to
bring healing to people, so that he persistently and passionately studied medicine and
worked until he found the cure for polio; as a teenager, Malcom X wrote out every
deﬁnition in the dictionary from aardvark to zebra. These sessions will help your
child’s love for learning increase so that he or she can also reach his/her potential
and find the path meaningful.
Smopﬁs of Enﬂncement PM

There are two ways of helping your child to love learning that I will show you in
these sessions. The ﬁrst is what I call an inspirational motivational style. This is a
communication style that I have studied for the past three years and have found that
children respond to it with the healthiest forms of motivation. The other major tool that I
will share with you is teaching you how to teach your child to set learning goals. Studies
have shown that less than 1% of children set authentic learning goals. Thus, Ieaming to
set these goals will give your child an advantage in school. Both the inspirational
motivational style and the learning goals are clearly explained in this booklet (hand the

parents the Love for Learning Project: Reference Book for Parents). You can use the

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booklet to refer to anytime you want. In the back you will ﬁnd a quick reference sheets
that are especially useful.

So as not to give you too much information at once, I’ll introduce you to IMS
today. Next week we’ll begin to look at Ieaming goals, though you can feel free to read
about them ahead of time if you want.

Introduction to IMS

An inspirational motivational style involves helping your child to see the value
and even beauty in learning, while also helping your child to feel that you love and
understand him or her and see the unique potential of your child has a learner. This style
avoids the pitfalls that many motivators step into: passivity/permissiveness and
controllingness. Numerous studies have shown that parents that use the components of
what I call an inspirational motivational style have children that love learning more.
Each parent can creatively develop his or her own IMS and you may ﬁnd that you already
have a rather inspirational style. I believe that the sessions will help you to further
enhance your style and lead to further enhancement of your child’s motivation to Ieam.
Let’s look at the components of IMS in the booklet. Have the parent read brieﬂy and
ask questions about any of them (note: read aloud only if the parent(s) may have reading
difﬁculty).

Introduce role plays: I’m going to help you develop your own IMS through
interesting role plays. The reason I will use role plays is that numerous educational,
business, and psychological studies suggest that people Ieam new techniques the best
when they actually get to see someone else do it then practice it themselves during role

plays. The other advantage of role plays is that it will help you to see the IMS versus

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other motivating styles from your child’s perspective. This is important as there is a sign
at the 4-H Garden that says if we want to teach our children the best way sometimes we
have to become like them.

Pick one or two key role plays that capture essential components of IMS (see Role
Plays for Family Sessions, for the parent scripts for parents with adequate reading skills):
la) Passive response to a good grade: I ask the parent to pretend she came home with an
good score on her test in _(parent chooses). I respond by half-listening (no eye
contact) and saying “that’s nice” while continuing to read the paper. Ask, “how does that
feel?” lb) Wow that’s great, but you better keep it up for the rest of the quarter so that
we take you to the Texas Steakhouse for getting an A in the class (note: it is okay to
reward a child based on their performance, but this alone leaves a high pressure focus and
does not allow child to enjoy today’s success). 1c) “Wow that’s great, like I said if you
get an A for the rest of the quarter we’ll take you to the Texas Steakhouse. More
importantly, I want you to know that I’ve noticed how much effort you put into studying.
This knowledge your learning will help to make your mind stronger. Later tonight, I’d
like to hear about what you learned throughout the last chapter you studied.” Point out
how I used three components of IMS (noticing effort, using an motivational metaphor,
and encouraging the child to focus on Ieaming). After brieﬂy playing the model in each
role, let the parent be herself and you become the fourth-grade child (show excitement
about parents interest). The parent only plays IMS role (rehearses success). Prophesize
to the parent about child responses- now, we’re looking at the ideal response, but it may

take your child awhile to get used to your new style. Also, it is important to remember

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that the IMS is the most effective style even if you do not see immediate visible results.
Studies have shown that this way of communicating brings long-term beneﬁts.

2) Scenario: the parent wonders how her child did on the social studies project; the child
feels bad about not doing as well as he would have liked so he hesitates to answer. 23)
The parent asks the child “how did you do on your social studies project?”. The child
hesitates. In less than 2 seconds the parent says, “well, how did you do, did you get a
good score?” The child now feeling pressure gets upset and says “I didn’t do well, while
looking away from the parent”. 2b) The parent asks, the child hesitates, and the parent
waits patiently for 5-10 seconds. The child responds by saying, “I thought I did well, but
the teacher took off a lot of points”. The parent then responds by acknowledging the
child’s feelings “I know sometimes it doesn’t feel good when you don’t do as well as you
thought”, but remember that you can always Ieam from your mistakes. We all make
mistakes, but the person who is humble enough to Ieam from them is the real winner!
Point out how this role play used three components of IMS (i.e., 5-10 second wait,
acknowledging feelings, and stepping stones). 2bb) the parent uses a similar IMS
response to the child, while the consultant responds favorably.

Congratulate parent(s)on excellent participation in role plays.

Ask parent(s) to read the Parent Booklet this week and refer to the Inspirational
Motivational Style Components and to try using them during the week. At the beginning
of the next session, I’ll collect the Inspirational Motivational Style in Action sheet and
ask you how you liked the Parent Booklet.

Homework assignment (hand-out the Inspirational Motivational Style in Action

sheet): write down one time during the week in which you used an IMS component and

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your child seemed to respond positively (describe which component you used, such as
actively and warmly listened to the child), the situation, and how your child responded-
remembering that IMS shows the greatest results over time). Also, on the lower half of
the sheet write down the time and date that you played the educational game together and
how it went.

Explain that we will end each session with a short game and then ideally the
parent and child will continue the game for 10 or more minutes later in the week if they
have time. Ask the parent to record the day and time they play the game on the same
sheet as the IMS vignette. Also, explain that the game is great way to practice IMS in a
fun setting. Point out the most relevant components for today’s game (i.e., subtle hints if
child appears stuck; reﬂect the child’s emotions and statements; active listening and
warm silence, giving the child time to think of something; genuine and speciﬁc
compliments when your child shows creativity or comes up with an interesting idea or
displays a determined effort).

Ask parent to get the child, if the child is not in the room. Most children will
want to stay to watch all the role-plays, thus they will already be present.

The game for session 1 is Ben Franklin’s REBUS (Krueger, 2002). Explain how
you use numbers, letters, and words to indicate other words or parts of words. Show a
page of examples and have the family answer (e. g., I see a dog; you stepped on my shoe;
my cat loves ﬁsh; I understand; crossroad; reading between the lines). Compliment them
and ask them to continue to play for at least 10 minutes later in the week. Now you and
your child write your own REBUS sentences and if you get really into it write a one

paragraph story (three or so sentences) in REBUS form and let another family member

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figure it out. I’d like to try your REBUS sentences next week if you don’t mind!

Remember to have fun!

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Session 2

Collect IMS vignette/family play sheet. Read vignette quickly and ask how they
liked IMS so far. Ask if I can read their REBUS sentences/story or how it went.

Ask how the parent liked the “Love for Leaming Project: Reference Book for

Parents”. Do you have any questions?

Introduce Learning goals versus performance-avoidance and performance-approach goals

Now I’ll introduce you to Ieaming goals. Remember, you can read about them
more in the booklet. Leaming goals are simple to set, but most children and adults do not
set them. This is because it requires a new way of thinking. When I asked children in a
nearby school to set Ieaming goals, most of them wrote things like, “I want to get all the
answers right” or “I want to get an A”. These are not Ieaming goals, they are
performance goals. A learning goal focuses you on actually learning what you are
reading about, while a performance goal tends to make you think more about what
happens when you turn your book report in. “What will the teacher think, we’ll he/she
like it?” “Will I get a good grade?” “Will Suzy do better than me?” “I’ll get in trouble if
I don’t do well” “it would be embarrassing to get less than a perfect score” “I want to
show everyone that I’m smart”. Numerous studies have shown that children are more
nervous, more likely to give up in the face of challenge, and retain less of what they study
when these type of goals dominate their thoughts.

There are two types of performance goals, performance approach and
performance avoidance. Performance avoidance goals are the most harmful to a child.

Though few children would write these down, they guide the thoughts of so many

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children. Performance avoidance goals involve worrying about failing, trying to avoid
embarrassment, trying not to look stupid, trying to stay out of trouble etc. These goals
are not healthy for the child emotionally or academically. Then, there are performance-
approach goals, which involve trying to get a reward or a good score. These are more
healthy than performance-avoidance goals, but they too can lead to feelings of being
under pressure, being sad when the goals are not met, losing concentration on what the
child is Ieaming at the moment, less long-term memory of what the child learned ,etc.
Studies have now shown that the only way performance-approach goals can be healthy is
if they are accompanied by Ieaming goals. If a child wants to get an A, but hates math,
the quarter will be sheer emotional torture. But, if the child begins to see the beauty in
math or the usefulness of it, and wants to Ieam math, his desire to get an A can actually
work with his desire to learn math.

As you can see on the learning goals example sheet (point to the My New
Learning Goals for Tonight: Example sheet in the Reference Booklet for Parents), I bold-
faced a simple deﬁnition of learning goals as a reminder for him/her. “A Ieaming goal
means that you try to understand something more or become a little better at doing
something”. Simply put, a learning goal involves wanting to learn the topic.

”Take a minute to look at the examples on the Example sheet”.

Now, hand the parent the Imaginary Homework List and a blank copy of My
New Learning Goals for Tonight. Ask the parent to ﬁll out the sheet (including
assignments) as if they were the child. When the parent is ﬁnished specifically
compliment him/her on any goal that is an actual Ieaming goal. If one of the goals is

performance approach/avoidance, ask how the goal ﬁts with the boldface deﬁnition on

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the sheet. If a goal is performance approach goal, point out how it would make a good
secondary goal. Remember to be patient (use IMS with parents in general). If necessary,
clearly explain how one or more of the goals is not a Ieaming goal. Ask the parent to
write a revised goal for any of the goals that were not Ieaming goals. Use speciﬁc
compliments on any revised goals that are Ieaming goals (note: if the parent has trouble
reading or writing, do this all orally and write down the goals they state).

Tell the parent that they will actually do this with their child’s real homework
assignments the ﬁrst time they introduce learning goals to their child. Namely, they will
model how to set Ieaming goals by showing how to ﬁll out a blank sheet for that day’s
homework assignments, then, giving the child a fresh sheet and letting him/her ﬁll it out
in his/her own words.

Have parents practice teaching me to set Ieaming goals for my classes (refer to
“How Do I Help My Child Set Learning Goals” section in Parent Booklet). Remember to
teach parents to use IMS during this. Ask parent to brieﬂy tell me about Ieaming goals
and how they will help. Then, they show me how to ﬁll out the Ieaming goals sheet
(here, just have them show me the sheet they just ﬁlled out). Next, they give me a fresh
Ieaming goals sheet and ask me to try to set the Ieaming goals, while they warmly pay
attention and answer any questions I have. Next, they use speciﬁc praise to compliment
me on actual learning goals. Also, according to step 5 of “How Do I Help My Child Set
Learning Goals” they ask the child how any non—Ieaming goals line up with the bold face
deﬁnition on My Learning Goals for Tonight. Note: Intentionally make one learning

goal a performance goal so that the parent gets a chance to give corrective feedback (and

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to make sure they notice the non-Ieaming goal). Encourage the parent for displays of
IMS.

Give parents 5 learning goals sheets and ask them to teach the child how to use
Ieaming goals the ﬁrst couple nights and collect Ieaming goals each night to hand back to
me at beginning of next session. Remind parents to use IMS while teaching their child to
set Ieaming goals (point to the “How do I Help My Child Set Learning Goals?” section of
the Love for Learning Project Reference Booklet for Parents).

Last ﬁve minutes- Spaghetti and Marshmallow tower is the family educational
play for the day. Parent gets the child. Pull out package of long spaghetti and mini-
marshmallows. Demonstrate how spaghetti can be placed in marshmallows. Ask them to
work on building a tower together. Germane IMS: reﬂect child’s emotions and
statements; help child when stuck; use humor; look at mistakes as stepping stones;
have fun!

Remind parent to ﬁll out the IMS sheet this week and record how many times
they play and for how long. Encourage them to play more than once during the week,

seeing if they can surpass previous tower heights.

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Imaginary Homework List

OSpelling list- prepare for spelling test on Friday

OSocial studies- read about what is going on in South America in the Lansing State
Journal and write one page about what you discover (worth 15 points).

OScience class- read chapter about the weather and answer the questions at the end of the

chapter (each question is worth one point).

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Session 3

After greeting family, collect Ieaming goals sheets and review. If the goals are
actual learning goals, provide compliments. If some of the goals are performance-
avoidance or performance approach goals, provide informational/corrective feedback.

Collect Inspirational Motivational Style in Action and Parent-Child Play.
Discuss the vignette and the play. Compliment the parent(s) for implementing the style
and doing the play. Ask just how high their spaghetti tower became. Otherwise,
encourage them reminding them of the psychological and educational benefits of IMS
and the games.

IMS role play: motivational modeling- Scenario: Your child has been bored
with homework lately or sometimes procrastinates (puts it off until the last minute). You
go up to your child and say: la) Controlling (consultant plays the role of the parent)-
“You know what I’ve noticed how lazy you’ve been about school lately, you better pull it
together quickly or your not going to get that present you want for your birthday.”
Discuss (elicit notions of the motivationally harmful aspects of over-control, such as the
child may be nervous or angry while trying to do the homework now; point out that it
was good that the parent noticed that the child was motivationally drained, which shows
the parent is sensitive to the child, also, just like when the child is mentally stuck, the best
time to offer motivational help is when the child really needs it).

1b) Motivational model: “Sarah, I’ve noticed that you haven’t seemed excited
about school lately” (gentle and sincere tone, eye contact)? Wait 5-10 seconds for a
response. Sarah says, “yeah I’m tired of it”. Reﬂect and acknowledge feelings by

saying, “I know how you feel, I get tired of what I do sometimes too. But, I keep myself

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going by reminding myself that what I do can help other people (motivational modeling).
Did you know that everything you’re Ieaming could one day help you to help someone
else?”. Discuss (point out how I used 5—10 second pause, acknowledgement and
reﬂection of feelings, and motivational modeling).

1c) Switch roles (the parent now plays the IMS parent using something positive
they do to motivate themselves for some activity or they can just emphasize pointing to
the interesting things about what the child can Ieam).

Love for Learning Goals Role play- When you went to collect Tuesday nights
learning goals sheet from your child, only two goals were ﬁlled out, even though your
child had three assignments (hand out Practice Sheet for Session 3, a learning goals sheet
with a chimerical assignment and goals). Also, one of the goals was a performance-
approach goal.
2a) Passive: pretend you don’t notice and never mention it to the child; 2b) controlling:
“you were supposed to ﬁll out one goal for each assignment, what’s the problem? To top
it off, one of your goals isn’t even a real learning goal.” 2c) Sarah, I noticed you didn’t
write a Ieaming goal for your math assignment (pause). Your learning goals will help
you to get a deeper understanding of what you study and ﬁnd it more cool. The goal you
wrote here is really good (i.e., the learning goal), that type of goal helps you to really get
into what you study. This goal here (i.e., the performance-approach goal) is good, but it
would be better if you wrote it as a secondary goal. Show parent how to write a
secondary goal into My Learning Goals for Tonight. Getting a good grade is a

performance-approach goal and it will work for you better if you focus the most on

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learning the topic, then a little on getting the good grade. 2d) Reverse Roles. Parent now
plays the role of an IMS parent.

Introduce the equations game by handing out the Equations sheet. Play the role of
an IMS consultant, by making hints if the family appears stuck or asks for help. Note:
these equations are tricky, so the parent will be given a copy of the answers for play later
doing the week (Equations: Key for Parents). In this way, the parent is empowered to
play the role of an IMS consultant. Parents can hint by giving out some of the words
(e. g., 7 Days in the W; 60 Minutes in an H). If child struggles With an equation for more
than 2 minutes the parent can give the answer and acknowledge how challenging/tough

the equation was.

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Session 4

After greeting family, collect Ieaming goals sheets and review. If the goals are
actual learning goals, provide compliments. If some of the goals are performance':
avoidance or performance approach goals, provide informational/corrective feedback.

Collect Inspirational Motivational Style in Action and Parent-Child Play.
Discuss the vignette and the play. Compliment the parent(s) for implementing the style
and doing the play. Ask how the equations game went and ifI can see the sheet. Ask if
they created any equations for me to ﬁgure out. Otherwise, encourage them, reminding
them of the psychological and educational beneﬁts of IMS and the games.

The right IMS for the situation- these two role plays build on each other. The
first one involves providing an explanation when the parent has to ask the child to begin
working on a social studies project, since it is due tomorrow and only halfway done. In
role play la, the controlling parent says that he better see his son sitting at his desk in 10
seconds, “or else”. In contrast, the IMS parent (in role play lb) clearly explains why he
wants his son to start working on his social studies project soon, also reminding the child
of the features of the project that are interesting and the skill that he might develop. In
role play 1c the parent now plays the IMS parent.

It is explained that the above will often work, however, there are times when the
child does not respond immediately to IMS; at times you must adjust the level of
autonomy support to the situation and in response to the child’s initial reaction. When
necessary, the parent may need to let the child know that a consequence will occur if the
child does not begin doing what he or she has been told within a short time span. This

next role play shows how to deliver an urgent request/command in an inspirational way.

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Remember, IMS is quite different from “permissive parenting”, which leads to a child
lack of self-control, rather than self-discipline. In addition, it is explained that there is a
tendency to become excessively controlling, when the parent senses pressure or
frustration, thus the model will regulate his anger by taking a deep breath and remain
optimally inspirational when the child does not initially respond.

Role play 2a (alternate version of role play l)- the child, who has procrastinated
excessively, still refuses to return to his study place, even after the parent makes the
aforementioned explanation and calmly waits for momentarily. After taking a deep
breath, the parent clearly explains the consequence that will be administered if he does
not begin doing his work, in a calm and concise manner. Role play 2b- reverse roles, the
parent now practices an IMS response. Discuss the two role plays brieﬂy (e.g., how
taking a deep breath helps one to stay level-headed and inspirational, whereas it is normal
to get upset when the child is deﬁant).

Handouts: hand out the 5 new My New Leaming Goals for Tonight sheets and
thank the family for their continued participation and encourage them in terms of reaping
a motivational harvest; hand out Inspirational Motivational Style in Action and Record of
Parent-Child Play (point out once again that the sheet lists the IMS components that are
particularly relevant to the educational game).

Palindromes- explain that today’s game involves creating Palindromes, which are
words that are spelled the same from left to right or vice versa. The literal Greek
meaning of the word Palindrome is running back again. Tell the child to picture
Palindromes as word boomerangs! Pass out the handout and ask the parent and child to

write down as many palindromes as possible. Tell them that they can be words, names or

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even sentences. Give the following examples: radar, dad, Hannah, and the humorous
sentence that some say Adam said to Eve, “’Madam, I’m Adam.”’ (Krueger, 2002, p.20).
Also, provide the family with a second option in case they want to take a break from
palindromes. Joke-athon- Take turns telling each other clean jokes and/or write down
some of your favorite jokes or create your own joke(s). Tell the family that they might
ﬁnd themselves able to create some more palindromes after laughing, because humor
enhances cognitive ﬂexibility. Share my Seinfeld-Calculus example: in college I found
that I was less likely to get stuck on Calculus problems after laughing for a half hour at
the Seinfeld comedy show.

If the family has trouble generating jokes during the session, model good humor
by sharing a couple of jokes of your own. Share two or three clean jokes that you can
deliver with conﬁdence and an expectation for laughter. This not only models joke
creation, but it brings in the therapeutic beneﬁts of laughter, including cognitive
ﬂexibility. In order to build expectation, tell the family that laughter also increases the
endorphins and neurotransmitters (e.g., anandamine) which are the same pain relievers
released in the body during good exercise (e. g., runner’s high). Moreover, 3 minutes of
hearty laughter is equal to 10 minutes of strenuous rowing in terms of cardiovascular
workout. Just a full smile makes a person’s brain waves move in the directions
associated with happiness. Now you see I have given you information that enhances the

likelihood that you will have love for creating funny jokes!

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Session 5

After greeting the family, collect Ieaming goals sheets and review. If the goals
are actual Ieaming goals, provide compliments. If some of the goals are performance-
avoidance or performance approach goals, provide informational/corrective feedback. If
learning goals or goal sheets are missing, ask about barriers to completing the goals. If
necessary role play problem situations, otherwise problem-solve in general.

Collect Inspirational Motivational Style in Action and Parent-Child Play.
Discuss the vignette and the play. Compliment the parent(s) for implementing the style
and doing the play. Ask if I can see the palindromes they generated. Read each one to
show that you value what they generated. Also, ask if they would like to show me or tell
me the jokes they created. Encourage them reminding them of the psychological and
educational beneﬁts of IMS and the games.

Focusing on the beauty/meaningfulness of learning role plays- This role play
gives you practice in actually explaining what your child may ﬁnd interesting in different
topics/assignments. Model by passing out a sheet (see Role Play for Session #5) that
describes many of the basic subjects and common sub-tasks and what one can say to
support a focus on the beauty in that subject. “I’m going to give you some examples of
how to focus on the beauty of learning with various subjects and tasks that most children
deal with. Although you may already know all of these examples, thinking about them
will help you to come up with them more quickly when talking to your child.” Read each
example aloud as the parent reads along. Also, discuss alternative ways of stating how to

focus on the beauty or meaningfulness of each one.

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Ask the parent which subject his or her child struggles with the most. Then enact
a role play in which the parent uses the related script/improvised variation of the script,
after you say you’re bored in the area the child struggles with. For example, if the parent
says the child struggles with math the most: Start the role play by saying, “Mom (dad)
I’m bored with math computation, I don’t see the purpose in it”. The parent then uses the
Role play sheet as a stimulus for how to respond. Try two or three different subjects,
noting that almost any child could focus on the beauty more, even in subjects he or she
excels at.

Handouts: hand out the 5 new My New Learning Goals for Tonight sheets and
thank the family for their continued participation and encourage them in terms of reaping
a motivational harvest; hand out Inspirational Motivational Style in Action and Record of
Parent-Child Play (point out that the sheet once again lists the IMS components that are
particularly relevant to today’s educational game).

Introduce the “Do a 360” game (Sher, 2002). Ask the parent and child to stand
back-to-back, lock elbows (if they would like to), and turn clockwise at a very slow pace.
Then, simply ask them to take turns describing the beautiful things they see. Ask them to
accentuate the positive and an attitude of gratitude. For instance, the mother might say,
“I see the big blue couch that we all sit in together”. Next, the daughter may say, “I see a
picture of me and my brother playing on the swing set”. If the family wants more of a
challenge, they can take turns describing objects without actually saying what they are.
Then, the other would guess or ask for more clues. This game will actually be completed
during the session. Of course, the consultant can encourage the family to try the game in

the backyard or elsewhere if they ever want to.

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The second game for today, involves ﬁlling out creativity circles. Pass out sheets
of 8.5 x 11 paper that have 6 rows of circles containing four in each row. Then, explain
that the objective is to creatively ﬁll out the circle sheet together, with the child as the
leader and the parent as the inspirational consultant. Provide a few example sheets that
highlight various patterns and objects derived from the circles. Circles can be ﬁlled out
individually, in clusters, or in one grand design. Give the parent and child an extra circle
sheet in case they want to ﬁll out more than one. Invite them to share their circles in the

next session.

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Session 6

After greeting the family, collect learning goals sheets and review. If the goals
are actual learning goals, provide compliments. If some of the goals are performance-
avoidance or performance approach goals, provide informational/corrective feedback. If
learning goals or goal sheets are missing, ask about barriers to completing the goals. If
necessary role play problem situations, otherwise problem-solve in general.

Collect Inspirational Motivational Style in Action and Parent-Child Play.
Discuss the vignette and the play. Compliment the parent(s) for implementing the style
and doing the play. Ask if I can see the creativity circles they created. Make speciﬁc
compliments on any of the circles or conglomerations of circles that you ﬁnd intriguing,
creative, or novel. Encourage them reminding them of the psychological and
educational beneﬁts of IMS and the games.

The way you say it- In this scenario the parent had a stressful day and feels a
little tired and crabby. The parent knows the child has a big social studies test tomorrow,
and is surprised to ﬁnd the child laying on the couch watching television at 7 pm,
especially considering that the child did not get home from an after school activity until
dinner time. As you know, the permissive parent would either not notice or just ignore
the situation, hoping the child would grow on his or her own. This role play will contrast
the inspirational style with the controlling style, since both parents want to actively
inﬂuence the child to study.

Controlling- walks in the room without thinking and asks, “Aren’t you supposed
to be studying for your big social studies test?” (controlling question- parent already

knows the answer and expects certain response). The child says, “I’m watching this

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movie, all my friends are watching it tonight”. The parent says, “I don’t care what your
friends are doing (disregards something important to the child), get up there and start
studying right now, I don’t want you to blow it tomorrow (performance avoidance
orientation)”

Discuss this scenario (e.g., could parent identify with this one), then point out the
three most controlling components (i.e., controlling question, disregarding and
disparaging child’s point of view, and encouraging a performance avoidance orientation.

Now model the inspirational consultant: Wait until advertisement, so that the
television is less mesmerizing to the child. Then, say “How much time have you taken to
study for your social studies test tomorrow?” The child answers, “about a half hour”.
You say, “I remember that you told me that this is an important test that covers a lot of
things you’ve learned this quarter”. The child agrees, but says, “I really want to watch
this show, all my friends are going to see it”. You say, “this show sounds important to
you, but social studies is also important because it enables us to understand why people
act the way they do and how to improve society.” Pause. “I’ll tell you what, if you want,
you can record the movie so that you can watch it tomorrow. I know you would prefer to
watch the show now, but the people that become great in this life are those who face their
challenges head on. “But, I don’t feel like studying”. I know how you feel, but life is
just like farming. The farmers can only expect to harvest the fruit and grains in the fall if
they sowed fruit and grain seeds in the spring. It would be easier for the farmers to relax
and watch television or just go for hayrides, but the wise farmers remind themselves of
the harvest they want and then they go out and plant the seeds. Also, the farmers can

help themselves enjoy what they are doing now by focusing on the fresh air, the beauty of

117

the sky, and good exercise they get. In the same way, you can focus on the beauty of the
way people get along, and appreciate the good mental exercise that you get while
studying. So you can consider your studying tonight as seed time, and look for the
harvest later.” Point out that I used acknowledgement of feelings, patience, and the
farming analogy. The farming analogy can help the child reframe his/her view of
homework from performance avoidance to performance approach and Ieaming goals.

Reverse roles.

Handouts: hand out the 5 new My New Learning Goals for Tonight sheets and
thank the family for their continued participation and encourage them in terms of reaping
a motivational harvest; hand out Inspirational Motivational Style in Action and Record of
Parent-Child Play (point out that the sheet once again list the IMS components that are
particularly relevant to the educational game).

Introduce Joy Juicer Words (Sher, 2002). This game is simple but fun. Also, it
helps to practice one’s vocabulary. Ask the parent(s) and child to simply take turns
uttering joyful words. Any word that makes you feel happy is good whether it is a
synonym for joy or not. See how long you can go and also see how long you can go
without laughing! Ask the family to try it again later in the week, especially if they need
an energizer.

Introduce Same but Different (Krueger, 2002), as a game to play throughout the
week. Ask the parent to translate the titles of famous books, movies, and television
shows into similar (often silly) words. Then, the child tries to generate the actual title.
Here are some examples that you can ask the family as a whole to solve: “The Three

Little Pigs” :> “The Trio of Small Porkers”; “Beauty and the Beast” :> “Lovely and the

118

Monster”; “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?”:> “Who Wants to Become Very Rich?”;
“The Bachelor” :> “The Single Dude”. The IMS components that are most germane are
using hints/suggestions when the child appears stuck or asks for help, Almost Golden
Silence; reﬂection of the child’s words and emotions; and encouraging effort and
creativity. After awhile, the child can create some of these disguised titles and see if the

parent can solve them.

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Session 7 (Last Session)

Bring in the mirror with a smile. If the family asks just say, “it’s a part of one of
today’s games, I bet you’ll enjoy it”.

After greeting the family, collect learning goals sheets and review. If the goals
are actual learning goals, provide compliments. If some of the goals are performance-
avoidance or performance approach goals, provide informational/corrective feedback.
Thank the family for doing the learning goals and remind them that they will help the
child love Ieaming for a life time and this experience prepared him/her for making similar
intrinsic goals for work and other areas of life. Intrinsic goals in general lead to better
performance, more creativity, and more happiness.

Collect Inspirational Motivational Style in Action and Parent-Child Play.
Discuss the vignette and the play. Compliment the parent(s) for implementing the style
and doing the play.

Explain that there are no more role plays, just real life use of the inspirational
style during the game for today. In the mirror game, the key is warm attention, reﬂection,
complimenting the child for effort, encouraging the child by expressing that you believe
he/she can do it, showing an appreciation for challenge, and an attitude that you and your
child can Ieam from mistakes. Set the mirror up on the ﬂoor and place a sheet of paper
on a clipboard. Ask the parent to go ﬁrst, trying to draw the ﬁrst half of the alphabet.
Then, they switch (give the child a fresh sheet of paper). Ask them to switch again and
ﬁnish the alphabet. As the consultant, encourage an atmosphere a levity and warmth
(e. g., encourage both parent and child in a lighthearted way). If this goes quickly, ask

them both to help each other with the letters they struggled with. Model a resilient

120

attitude, looking at mistakes as information that points to how to improve. For example,
point out how you can often use your mistakes as clues about which way to go.

Thank the parent(s) and the child for their participation in this project.

121

Bibliography for Treatment Manual
Krueger, CW. (2002). 2002 things to do with voueri_ds; New York: Galahad
Books.
Sher, B. (2002). Mama: 300 fugctivities that bring children comfort am

joy, New York: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

122

APPENDIX F

The Parent Questionnaire of Child Motivation to Learn

Please read the following items and circle your answer according to the following scale:
SA = Strongly Agree
A: Agree
N: Neutral
D: Disagree
SD: Strongly Disagree

1. My child likes doing homework
SA A N D SD

2. My child often gets bored with homework
SA A N D SD

3. My child seeks out challenging Ieaming tasks.
SA A N D SD

4. My child set his or her own Ieaming goals.
SA A N D SD

5. My child worries about getting good grades or scores.
SA A N D SD

6. My child gets frustrated when the homework assignment is hard.
SA A N D SD

7. My child likes to read on the weekend.

SAANDSD

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1111 1‘11“

8. My child smiles or looks happy when talking about schoolwork or homework.
SA A N D SD
9. My child sees the value in learning.
SA A N D SD
10. My child complains about doing homework.
SA A N D SD
11. My child works hard at mastering homework assignments.
SA A N D SD
12. My child is very interested in most school subjects.
SA A N D SD
13. My child thinks school is very important.
SA A N D SD
14. My child focuses on understanding his or her homework readings.
SA A N D SD
15. My child rushes through his or her homework, just to get it done quickly.
SA A N D SD
16. My child worries about competing with peers on tests.
SA A N D SD
17. My child likes to practice his or her developing skills.
SA A N D SD
18. My child prefers easy homework.

SAANDSD

124

19. My child says things about learning like “I like this” or “this is neat”.
SA A N D SD
20. My child says things about learning like “I hate this” or “this is a waste of time”.
SA A N D SD
21. My child asks me to give him/her the answer to tough homework questions.
SA A N D SD
22. My child asks for helpful suggestions/clues when the homework assignment is
very hard.
SA A N D SD
23. My child often gets excited when telling me about what he or she learned.
SA A N D SD
24. My child enjoys learning new things.
SA A N D SD
25. My child wants to stay home from school sometimes.
SA A N D SD
26. My child procrastinates when assignments are due.
SA A N D SD
27. My child likes to share what he or she learned in school.
SA A N D SD
28. My child “goes the extra mile” on assignments because he/she is very dedicated
to gaining knowledge.

SAANDSD

125

29. My child will often start studying on his/her own.
SA A N D SD
30. My child frowns while studying or when reminded about homework.
SA A N D SD
31. My child likes to play games (e. g., on the computer or with friends or family) that
are learning-oriented.
SA A N D SD
32. My child often chooses to engage in Ieaming tasks beyond school and homework.
SA A N D SD
33. My child really gets “into” his/her homework.
SA A N D SD
34. My child works hard at mastering new concepts or skills
SA A N D SD
35. My child loses interest in his/her homework after a few minutes
SA A N D SD
36. When reminded about homework, my child says things like “do I have to?”
SA A N D SD
37. My child ﬁnds ways to help him or her self become more interested in routine
Ieaming tasks.
SA A N D SD
38. My child will take the extra time to understand something more deeply

SAANDSD

126

39. My child seems nervous about homework.
SA A N D SD
40. My child says things like, “I’ll figure this out” or “I can do this” when faced with
a challenging homework/Ieaming problem.
SA A N D SD
41. Rather than getting upset with mistakes on school-related tasks, my child likes to
Ieam from his/her mistakes

SAANDSD

Note: The following empirically inconsistent items (i.e., item-total correlation with r <.3)
were not considered in the pre- and post-treatment comparisons: 5, 16, 22, 23, 27, and
3 l.

127

APPENDIX G

Froiland’s Inventory of Homework Feelings

Instructions: Read each sentence carefully and decide if you feel that way not at all, very
little, a little, much, or very much. Circle the answer that is the most true for you.

1. I feel good while I work on my homework.
Not at all Very little A little Much Very much

2. My muscles get tight or I get headaches when I do my homework
Not at all Very little A little Much Very much

3. I feel happy when I do my homework
Not at all Very little A little Much Very much

4. I get upset when my parents ask me to do my homework.
Not at all Very little A little Much Very much

5. It feels like time ﬂies by when I do my homework because I have fun.
Not at all Very little A little Much Very much

6. I worry that my parents will be upset if I make mistakes on my homework.
Not at all Very little A little Much Very much

7. When I have trouble with a homework problem, 1 get upset.
Not at all Very little A little Much Very much

8. When I have trouble with a homework problem, I stay calm.
Not at all Very little A little Much Very much

9. I worry that I will not be able to ﬁnish my homework as quickly as I want to.

Not at all Very little Alittle Much Very much

128

10. I feel upset when it’s time to do my homework.
Not at all Very little A little Much Very much
11. I have trouble concentrating on my homework.
Not at all Very little A little Much Very much
12. I know how to help myself feel good when I do my homework.
Not at all Very little A little Much Very much
13. I get tired while doing my homework
Not at all Very little A little Much Very much
14. My stomach hurts when I do my homework.
Not at all Very little A little Much Very much
15. I feel better about my homework after talking to my parents
Not at all Very little A little Much Very much
16. I worry that my answers will be wrong.
Not at all Very little A little Much Very much
17. I feel sure that I will do well on my homework. ’
Not at all Very little A little Much Very much
18. I have trouble sitting still when I do my homework.
Not at all Very little A little Much Very much
19. I feel strong when I do my homework.
Not at all Very little A little Much Very much
20. I worry that my teacher will ﬁnd a lot of mistakes in my homework

Not at all Very little Alittle Much Very much

129

21. I feel happy when my parents talk to me about my homework.

Not at all Very little Alittle Much Very much

Note: The following empirically inconsistent (item-total correlations with r <.3) items
were not considered in the analysis of pre- and post-treatment differences: 6, 14, 15, 21.

130

APPENDIX H

Parent Satisfaction Form for Motivational Consultation

Please read the following items and circle your answer according to the following scale:
SA = Strongly Agree
A: Agree
N: Neutral
D: Disagree
SD: Strongly Disagree

1. The information about learning goals was helpful to me.
SA A N D SD

2. The information about motivating style was helpful to me.
SA A N D SD

3. The role-plays made me feel more conﬁdent about motivating my child to Ieam.
SA A N D SD
4. My child and I enjoyed the game at the end of each session.
SA A N D SD

5. I found the Motivation Booklet to be a useful reference.
SA A N D SD

6. I will continue to encourage my child to use Ieaming goals.
SA A N D SD

7. I plan to continue to use the motivational style.
SA A N D SD

8. The consultant was warm.

SA A N D SD
9. The consultant was organized.
SA A N D SD

10. The consultant seemed to understand families.

SAANDSD

131

APPENDIX I

Name:

 

My Inspirational Learning Goals For Today
Homework assignments (ﬁll in assignments) What I Hope to Learn (learning goal)

1)

2)

3)

How many homework assignments did you have today?

Progress Toward New Learning Goals (for each goal you made above, briefly write
about one thing you became a little better at, one thing that you learned, or one
thing you thought was interesting)

1)
2)

3)

An inspirational learning goal means you try to understand
something more, become better at doing something so that
you can help others someday, or discover something
interesting. Creating your own learning goals will help you
Ieam more and ﬁnd more joy in gaining knowledge!

Note. This goal sheet was printed on blue paper and included a knight in the comer for
boys and an airplane with the name streaming behind for girls.

132

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