Browsing by Subject "koulutemperamentti"

Objectives. Previous research has pointed out various predictors of school achievement. Along with cognitive capacity, school achievement is associated with female gender, beneficial socioeconomic status, school temperament and school motivation. The aim of this study is to bring together various findings of previous research of qualities influencing school achievement, and to find out whether school motivation is connected with school grades after controlling for pupil's gender and self-rated temperament. It is important to thoroughly understand school motivation, because among other things it has also been associated with effective use of learning strategies. Through vaster understanding of school motivation it is possible to find ways to motivate pupils in risk of social exclusion. Methods. This research is based on a vast Finnish SITRA school study. This study uses a subsample of 3 040 pupils between ages 13 and 19 from 64 different schools forming a geographically representative sample of Finnish speaking ninth graders. Pupils provided self-rated answers for temperament surveys DOTS-R and TABC-R as well as to school motivation survey created for the use of the SITRA project. Their latest grade point average was also self-reported. The data was analyzed using linear regression analysis. Results and conclusions. As the main result, school motivation explained 38 % of the variation of school grades, when the pupil's gender and self-rated temperament were controlled. Girls got better school grades than boys. However in regards to school motivation, there was no difference between the genders. There were differences between temperament traits between boys and girls, however ideal school temperament traits were divided to both genders evenly. All school temperament traits were correlated with school motivation. The strongest positive connection was found with persistence and the strongest negative connection with impulsivity. There may be a common factor, school environment for example, explaining the strong correlation between school temperament and school motivation. All results are in line with previous evidence.