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Educational Psychologist

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Examining the Academic Motivation of a Diverse Student Population: A Consideration of Methodology

Tim Urdan & Kathryn Bruchmann

To cite this article: Tim Urdan & Kathryn Bruchmann (2018) Examining the Academic Motivation of a Diverse Student Population: A Consideration of Methodology, Educational Psychologist, 53:2, 114-130, DOI: 10.1080/00461520.2018.1440234

To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/00461520.2018.1440234

Published online: 15 Mar 2018.

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Examining the Academic Motivation of a Diverse Student Population: A Consideration

of Methodology

Tim Urdan and Kathryn Bruchmann

Department of Psychology, Santa Clara University

In this article, we review research that has examined the association between race, ethnicity,

culture, and student motivation. We begin by describing potential problems regarding how

race, ethnicity, and culture are defined in research. Next, we review some of the methods that

have been used to examine the associations among race, ethnicity, culture, and several

constructs related to academic motivation (e.g., valuing of education, ethnic identity,

generational status, and other contextual factors). In this review, we highlight how different

methodologies reflect different assumptions, and have led to different conclusions, about

these associations. The article concludes with a consideration of future research questions

and methodology, including important factors to consider when examining the intersection

of race, ethnicity, culture, and academic motivation.

In 1974, Martin Maehr published an article in American

Psychologist titled “Culture and Achievement Motivation”

in which he raised important questions about the dominant

theory of motivation at the time, specifically the idea that

individuals differ in a personality trait called the need for

achievement (nAch; Atkinson, 1957; McClelland, 1961,

1985). Maehr argued that when we think of achievement

motivation as a stable and global trait that some people

simply have more of than others, we overlook important

cultural and contextual variables that affect an individual’s

motivation. Maehr’s focus on contextual influences repre-

sented a broader shift away from conceptualizing motiva-

tion in terms of internal needs and toward a social-

cognitive view that placed a greater emphasis on cogni-

tions (i.e., attitudes, beliefs, goals) and contextual factors

like culture, affordances, and social structures (Weiner,

1990).

Maehr’s article also highlighted how the methods used to

study motivation can shape the conclusions reached about

cultural or ethnic differences in motivation. The needs-based

theories of motivation that were dominant in the 1950s and

1960s (Atkinson & Feather, 1966; McClelland, 1961) posited

that achievement motivation was driven partly by uncon-

scious needs, such as nAch, and should therefore be measured

using projective measures like the Thematic Apperception

Test. The shift to a social-cognitive framework ushered in a

change in methodology as well. If motivation was guided by

conscious factors like beliefs and goals, self-report measures

like surveys could be used to measure these constructs. This

shift altered the way that researchers thought about the influ-

ence of race, ethnicity, and culture on motivation. The needs-

based theories focused on the stability of nAch and assumed

that projective measures tapped into this immutable need.

This belief led to the conclusion that any differences between

cultural groups in nAch were due to broad and stable differen-

ces between cultures in their emphasis on hard work and

achievement (McClelland, 1961). In contrast, social-cognitive

theories argued that motivational beliefs were less stable than

needs and could be changed by altering conditions in the

achievement context (Maehr, 1974; Weiner, 1990).

Despite the adjustment in focus from nonconscious

needs to cognitive factors, and Maehr’s call to researchers

to pay closer attention to the cultural influences on motiva-

tion (Maehr, 1974; Maehr & Nicholls, 1980), there is still a

relative dearth of information on the role that culture and

ethnicity play in motivation. This may be due to the nature

of psychological research. Psychologists often favor the

search for universals, a theory of motivation (or personality

or development, etc.) that applies to everyone, regardless of

culture (Zusho & Clayton, 2011). But there is also evidence

that our lack of understanding about cultural and ethnic dif-

ferences in motivation is due, in part, to the methods that

Correspondence should be addressed to Tim Urdan, Department of

Psychology, Santa Clara University, 500 El Camino Real, Santa Clara, CA

95053. E-mail: [email protected]

EDUCATIONAL PSYCHOLOGIST, 53(2), 114–130, 2018

Copyright � Division 15, American Psychological Association ISSN: 0046-1520 print / 1532-6985 online

DOI: 10.1080/00461520.2018.1440234

researchers have used. For example, most of the research

examining student motivation has used middle-class White

participants (Graham, 1992). Graham analyzed the articles

published in six top American Psychological Association

journals over 20 years and found that the number of articles

that included African American samples actually declined

over that period. More recently, researchers have noted that

we still lack understanding of how ethnicity and culture

affect student motivation (e.g., Schutz & DeCuir-Gunby,

2017; Zusho & Clayton, 2011). This is an important gap in

our knowledge because many researchers believe that the

persistent achievement gap that exists between different

ethnic and cultural groups in the United States can be

explained, at least in part, by differences in academic moti-

vation (e.g., Cohen, Garcia, Apfel, & Master, 2006; Ste-

vens, Olivarez, & Hamman, 2006).

Overview of the Article

The purpose of this article is to consider how the various

methodologies that have been used to examine ethnic,

racial, and cultural differences in academic motivation

have influenced our understanding of these differences.

Each methodology, whether it be self-report surveys,

experimental designs, qualitative research, or measures of

nonconscious processes, contributes to our understanding

of the similarities and differences between groups, but

each one also reflects the beliefs of the researchers about

the nature and underlying mechanisms of ethnic and cul-

tural differences. A primary goal of this article is to con-

sider how the strengths and limitations of each method

have shaped our view of cultural and ethnic similarities

and differences in motivation. We begin with a discussion

of the terminology used to understand the concepts of

race, ethnicity, and culture, and how this terminology can

cloud our understanding of how they intersect with moti-

vation. Then we turn our attention to the various method-

ologies that have been used to examine the effects of

culture and ethnicity on academic motivation and how

these methodologies have influenced what we know, and

do not yet know, about these effects. We conclude the arti-

cle with a consideration of some future directions that

research on this topic might take to extend our understand-

ing of it.

DEFINING TERMS: RACE, ETHNICITY, AND CULTURE

One of the challenges of researching the influence of cul-

ture and ethnicity on student motivation is that the opera-

tional definitions of race, ethnicity, and culture are neither

clear nor universal. Race is often defined as a categorical

variable that is assigned to individuals by others and is

thought to have its basis in genetics. In contrast, ethnicity is

rooted more in identity and may be multifaceted. 1 A person

with ancestors from Ireland and Mexico may perceive their

ethnicity to be both Irish and Mexican, or White and His-

panic. Culture overlaps with both race and ethnicity and

refers to the shared values, beliefs, customs, and experien-

ces of any group of people. Culture does not, by definition,

have to apply to either race or ethnicity. For example, refer-

ences to specific eras like the culture of the 1960s are not

tied to race or ethnicity. In addition, culture is not some-

thing that exists solely within the individual; it is a charac-

teristic of the environments in which the individual

functions. But to the extent that members of the same racial

or ethnic groups share common values, beliefs, and experi-

ences, they may also have distinct cultures. The practice of

operationally defining race, ethnicity, and culture in moti-

vation research is difficult for several reasons, including

conflation of the terms, oversimplification of the constructs,

and intersectionality of multiple identities.

Conflation of Terms

Researchers examining differences based on race, ethnicity,

or culture often use these terms interchangeably, creating

confusion about whether any differences that are found are

due to race, ethnicity, or culture. One of the most common

methods of examining the association between race and stu-

dent motivation is to simply treat race as a categorical,

independent variable and examine group differences. Race

is assessed by asking students to select from a limited list

of choices (e.g., Black, White, Hispanic, Asian). This is a

method that has often uncovered differences between

groups, but are these differences really racial? Might they

more likely be due to ethnic or cultural factors? Does it

even matter whether we call it racial, ethnic, or cultural?

Searching for differences between broad and ill-defined

groups can be problematic. To say that students differ in aca-

demic motivation by race suggests that there may be some

unchangeable, biologically based differences between the

groups. In addition, these broad group comparisons ignore the

wide variability within groups, including differences in how

much students identify with their racial or ethnic groups

(Phinney, 1990; Wakefield & Hudley, 2005). If the differen-

ces between groups are due more to how group members think

about and identify with their ethnicity, the use of the term race

may mask a more complex association between motivation

and identity. On the other hand, it may be important to exam-

ine broad differences between racial groups because regard-

less of the variabilities in ethnic identifications within each

group, members share a common experience based on how

they are perceived by others. For example, African Americans

1 We note that there is disagreement and discussion about whether race

and ethnicity should be considered interchangeable or separate constructs.

See Hudley and Irving (2012) for an excellent discussion of the overlap

and distinction between race and ethnicity.

MOTIVATION, METHODS, AND CULTURE 115

have all been subjected to stereotypical thinking and incidents

of racism by White people, regardless of differences in socio-

economic status (SES), appearance, and ethnic identity

(DeCuir & Dixson, 2004). Perhaps it is this experience that

contributes to any observed, group-level differences in aca-

demic motivation (Graham & Hudley, 2005). To the extent

that differences between racial groups are influenced by

shared experiences of stereotyping and racism, this would be

an example of a cultural effect rather than a race effect.

We highlight two points from this discussion. First,

researchers will often use one term, like race, when what

they are really measuring is something else, like ethnicity.

Second, the differences in terminology matter because they

suggest different processes at work. Indeed, these different

terms, and the processes that they represent, have a long

history in psychological research. When Jensen (1969) or

Herrnstein and Murray (1994) discussed race differences in

mental ability, they focused on the biological, genetic

aspect of race and emphasized the unchangeable nature of

these race-based differences. But when other researchers

point to nonbiological factors, such as negative stereotypes

(Steele & Aronson, 1995), low teacher expectations (Delpit,

2006), or beliefs about what are appropriate academic

beliefs and behaviors (Fordham & Ogbu, 1986) as the sour-

ces of differences in academic achievement, they are

highlighting mutable beliefs and experiences that are asso-

ciated with ethnic identification and shared cultural experi-

ences and beliefs. Because the terms race, ethnicity, and

culture have different meanings and a history of different

usages, it is important to articulate the differences between

these terms and to use them appropriately.

Oversimplification of Constructs

If we think of ethnicity as an aspect of identity, we under-

stand that it has the same dynamic properties as identity

(Nurius & Markus, 1990). For example, the salience and

valence of one’s ethnic identity may fluctuate depending on

a number of variables, including whether one is in the

majority or minority in a given school or classroom, the

demands of the tasks and students’ confidence in their abili-

ties to complete the tasks, and the nature of the social envi-

ronment in the classroom (Armenta, 2010; Guyll, Madon,

Prieto, & Scherr, 2010). Although one’s ethnic label may

be relatively stable, the effects of that identity may fluctuate

depending on situational factors, as well as within the group

of students who share the same ethnic label.

Similarly, research that has focused solely on differences

between cultural groups, broadly defined, may not adequately

capture some of the nuances involved in the dynamic nature

of a classroom. Although students may bring a set of cultur-

ally determined beliefs, values, and behaviors to the class-

room, those influences combine with the “culture” of the

classroom to create an emergent and situation-specific subcul-

ture that influences student motivation (Nolen, Horn, & Ward,

2015). Students who are in classrooms that are not welcoming

of their home culture (e.g., frown upon the student’s manner

of speaking) may exhibit different motivational tendencies

than they would in classrooms that embrace their native cul-

ture. Rather than thinking of culture as a static determinant of

student motivation, it may be helpful to think of the student’s

culture as one of several factors that interact in specific class-

rooms and schools to create an emergent culture that affects

engagement, belonging, and valuing of school.

Intersectionality

Many students have strong connections with multiple

groups, including their ethnic or cultural group. For a sec-

ond-generation Asian American student, ethnicity may cen-

tral to his identity, but so too may his status as a child of

immigrants. Similarly, for an adolescent Hispanic female

student, both gender and culture may be salient aspects of

her identity. Recently, researchers have focused on the

intersectionality of race or ethnicity and sexual orientation

(e.g., Warner & Shields, 2013); lesbian, gay, bisexual, and

transgender youth of color are thought to have unique expe-

riences not just because of the societal prejudices against

their race and sexuality but also because they are less likely

to be accepted into their own ethnic or religious groups

(Pew Research Center, 2013). When researchers examine

the effects of culture or ethnicity on student motivation, it

is important to consider the intersectionality of the multiple

aspects of identity for many students. By focusing only on

ethnicity and culture, and not the intersection of different

identities, a deeper understanding of the association

between culture and motivation is difficult to achieve.

METHODS OF EXAMINING ETHNIC AND CULTURAL VARIATIONS IN MOTIVATION

The interplay of race, ethnicity, culture, and academic moti-

vation has been examined using a variety of methodologies,

each with its own strengths and limitations that are recog-

nized by any research methods textbook (e.g., Morling,

2015). Whereas surveys allow researchers to collect informa-

tion from large samples and directly access students’ attitudes

and perceptions, students cannot always accurately report

their motives and correlational data generally do not allow

for causal claims or identifying mechanisms. Experimental

methods are good for isolating mechanisms but often lack

ecological validity and can be difficult to replicate. Detailed

qualitative investigations often produce rich descriptions of

how motivational processes operate in specific situations for

specific individuals, but samples are often small and results

might not generalize to other situations or to the broader pop-

ulation. Addressed less frequently, and of particular impor-

tance for this article, is how the methods that researchers use

reflect their assumptions about the populations they study

116 URDAN AND BRUCHMANN

(DeCuir-Gunby & Schutz, 2014). In addition, the results that

these methods produce can shape or reinforce beliefs about

students. Research on student motivation has often failed to

consider the specific sociocultural history and experiences of

marginalized and stigmatized groups, and this has lead to an

incomplete and sometimes inaccurate understanding of the

motivation of students from these groups (e.g., Ladson-Bill-

ings, 1999; Lopez, 2017; Rodgers & Summers, 2008). For

example, survey methods that classify students into broad

groups (e.g., African American, Hispanic, Asian American,

White) and then compare the group means on some variable

like goals or self-efficacy can promote the idea that the groups

are monolithic, with little variation within each group. Given

this tendency, it is important to understand that methods that

reinforce such a view tell only part of the story, and other

methodologies may provide evidence of important variabil-

ities within each group.

In this section of the article, we illustrate how different

methods have been used to examine the associations among

race, ethnicity, culture, and motivation. Research on

students’ academic values, ethnic identity, generational sta-

tus (i.e., the so-called immigrant paradox; Coll & Marks,

2012), and contextual factors like racism, stereotypes, and

teacher expectancies have all employed multiple methodolo-

gies that have produced complex patterns of results. These

examples are all indicative of how complex the intersection

of race, ethnicity, culture, and academic motivation is, and

how beliefs about the nature of motivation and of different

populations of students are reflected in our methods of study-

ing these associations. We should note that our goal is not to

promote some methodologies and demean others. Neither

do we want to suggest that any single study should be able to

fully capture the complex associations between ethnicity,

culture, and motivation. Rather, we hope to illustrate how

much our understandings of these associations are influ-

enced by the methods that have been used to study them.

Values

In his critique of McClelland’s (1961) argument that differ-

ences in achievement motivation are found at cultural and

societal levels, Maehr (1974) argued that different cultural

and ethnic groups differed in where they chose to invest

their motivated energy, in part because of differences in

values. Maehr argued that African American students may

value athletic accomplishments more than academic

accomplishment and therefore choose to invest their time

and energy in athletic pursuits. Other researchers have

argued that students in certain cultural or ethnic groups

value education less than students from other groups. For

example, Ogbu (Fordham & Ogbu, 1986; Ogbu, 1992) and

his colleagues have used ethnographic methods (i.e., inter-

views, observations in the field) to reach the conclusion

that many African American students view high academic

achievement as a form of “acting White.” Similarly,

segmented assimilation theory, which was based in large

part on qualitative research, argues that immigrants and the

children of immigrants from marginalized groups (e.g.,

Hispanic, Black) often choose to assimilate with other low-

income and marginalized students in their schools and

neighborhoods, leading to an oppositional stance toward,

and lower valuing of, academic effort and achievement

(Portes & Zhou, 1993; Zhou, 1997).

These different theories about the academic values of

marginalized students, sometimes supported by studies with

relatively small samples, painted a picture of African Ameri-

can and Hispanic students, particularly those living in eco-

nomically depressed neighborhoods, as not valuing school

or academic achievement. Researchers using self-report sur-

veys, however, have found that African American and His-

panic students report attitudes toward school—including

values, expectations for success, self-esteem, and percep-

tions of control—that are similar to or more positive than

White students (Goldsmith, 2004; Graham, 1994). The find-

ing that African American and Hispanic students have more

favorable attitudes about school, despite having lower aver-

age levels of achievement than White students, has been

dubbed the attitude-achievement (Michelson, 1990) or

engagement-achievement (Shernoff & Schmidt, 2008) para-

dox. More nuanced approaches to the measurement and defi-

nition of academic values revealed that African American

students’ values may be more complicated. Michelson

(1990) found that the attitude-achievement paradox disap-

peared for African American students when attitudes were

assessed with survey questions asking about concrete atti-

tudes that are directly tied to community experiences rather

than more abstract attitudes that might refer to the dominant

societal view that education is the key to success and upward

mobility. For example, when African American and White

students were asked about limited job opportunities for peo-

ple like them, even if they did well in school, or experiences

of family members being treated unfairly regardless of their

level of education, they found less positive attitudes among

African American than among White students.

Graham, Hudley, and Williams (1992) used a peer nomi-

nation process to examine the values of students from differ-

ent ethnic groups. They reasoned that students’ values could

be ascertained by determining whom students admired and

respected. They found that girls and White boys admired

and respected high-achieving students but minority boys

least admired and respected high-achieving boys. Although

students of all ethnic and cultural groups say they value aca-

demic achievement on self-report measures, the peer nomi-

nation process seemed to indicate that minority boys did not

admire or respect studiousness in their male classmates. 2

2 It is worth noting that there is quite a long history of research that has

found that White male adolescents tend to be admired more for their physi-

cal and social prowess more than their academic achievements (see Cole-

man, 1961; MacLeod, 1987).

MOTIVATION, METHODS, AND CULTURE 117

The research on academic valuing illustrates how the

methods used to examine the phenomenon affect the inter-

pretation of the results. Although some methodologies point

to ethnic or cultural differences, survey studies often pro-

duce few differences. These results challenge the assump-

tions of those who believe that ethnic and cultural groups

differ in their values and demonstrate the strengths of sur-

vey research. However, students know they are supposed to

believe that school is important, so they tend to say that

they do, even if they are not trying particularly hard to suc-

ceed. More subtle methods of assessing values, such as the

peer-nomination process (Graham, 1992), provided differ-

ent information about group differences. Similarly,

researchers who have looked at within-group variability

have also found differences among students in their aca-

demic values (e.g., Portes & Fernandez-Kelly, 2008), dif-

ferences that were difficult to discover when simply

comparing the means of students from different cultural

and ethnic groups on self-reported values.

Ethnic Identity

Researchers have also used a variety of methods to examine

the associations among aspects of ethnic identity and aca-

demic motivation for students. The multidimensional

model of racial identity includes four dimensions that are

represented in identity at a given point in time (Rivas-

Drake, Hughes, & Way, 2008; Sellers, Smith, Shelton,

Rowley, & Chavous, 1998). These dimensions are salience

(how conscious people are of their ethnicity in a given situ-

ation), centrality (the role of ethnic identity in people’s

overall identity), regard (how people feels about their eth-

nic group and how others seem to regard their ethnic

group), and ideology (beliefs about how members of peo-

ple’s ethnic group should think and behave). In addition to

these four dimensions, researchers have also examined how

ethnic and cultural minorities have formed identities that

combine their native cultural or ethnic identity with that of

the dominant culture (Berry, 1980; Berry, Phinney, Sam, &

Vedder, 2006; LaFromboise, Coleman, & Gerton, 1993;

Phinney, 1990). This research has revealed four patterns of

cultural integration: full assimilation to the dominant cul-

ture, full separation from the dominant cultural, bicultural

identity, and marginalized, in which minorities do not feel

as if they identify with either their native culture or the

dominant culture.

Research on assimilation patterns has employed a vari-

ety of methods, including qualitative methods (e.g., Mir-

amba & Velasquez, 2012) and survey methods (e.g.,

Fuligni, Witkow, & Garcia, 2005). Much of this research

has found that student motivation and achievement are

enhanced when students identify strongly with their ethnic

heritage (centrality) and feel positively about their ethnic

group (regard; Altschul, Oyserman, & Bybee, 2008). Sur-

vey data revealed that students who have a strong and

positive ethnic identity have more positive attitudes about

school (Fuligni et al., 2005). Using profile analysis, Cha-

vous and her colleagues (2003) found that African Ameri-

can students who were high in centrality and positive

regard for their ethnic group had higher levels of attach-

ment to school, valuing of school, and self-efficacy than did

students with low centrality and regard scores. Similarly,

qualitative research with various cultural and ethnic groups

has found that students who are able to maintain a strong

connection with their native culture while assimilating use-

ful aspects of the dominant culture (e.g., learning the domi-

nant language) have stronger motivation and achievement

profiles than students who feel marginalized from both cul-

tures or remain fully separated from the dominant culture

(Gibson, 1988; Ogbu, 1992; Suarez-Orozco & Suarez-

Orozco, 1995). However, as ethnic minority adolescents

become more integrated into the dominant culture, they

may grow more distant from their native ethnic values and

behaviors, potentially creating conflict with members of

their cultural group (Gonzalez, Fabrett, & Knight, 2009;

Padilla, 2006).

There is evidence that the benefits of a strong ethnic

identity are not absolute and that there may be costs associ-

ated with it. Low-income Latino adolescents who devel-

oped an ethnic identification with both the larger society

and their home culture had relatively high academic

achievement, but these associations depend on other factors

such as the SES of the family, socialization practices of the

parents, and the home obligations of the adolescent students

(Fuligni & Tseng, 1999). Using a combination of survey

and experimental methods, Armenta (2010) found that stu-

dents who are members of stigmatized ethnic or cultural

groups experience worse stereotype threat effects if they

have a strong sense of ethnic identity.

In one example of research using both surveys and an

Implicit Association Test (IAT), Urdan and Munoz (2012)

found that Hispanic college students differed from White

college students on measures of ethnic identity and aca-

demic self-concept. Whereas the correlation between ethnic

identity and academic self-concept was positive for White

students, there was no correlation between these two con-

structs for Hispanic students. For academically successful

Hispanic students attending a majority-White university,

where negative stereotypes about the academic abilities of

Hispanic students may be activated, there may have been a

psychological decoupling between the cultural and aca-

demic components of identity (cf. Armenta, 2010). Using

IATs, the researchers found that Hispanic students in the

sample held implicit associations linking academic success

more strongly to being White than to being Hispanic. Urdan

and Munoz argued that these stereotypical implicit associa-

tions may partially explain the decoupling of cultural and

academic identities among Hispanic college students.

Related work by Devos and Cruz Torres (2007) tested how

these concepts relate on an implicit level. The more

118 URDAN AND BRUCHMANN

students identified as Latino/a, and the stronger their

implicit stereotype that Latinos are not as academically suc-

cessful as Whites, the less strongly the students implicitly

identified with academic achievement. These studies dem-

onstrate that students from stigmatized groups can have an

implicit “schism” in their identities. Although they might

not explicitly endorse stereotypes about their group, and

although they explicitly might have a positive academic

self-concept, these implicit measures can be more predic-

tive of behavioral outcomes and self-stereotyping (e.g.,

Lun, Sinclair, & Cogburn, 2009) than explicit measures.

This research reveals the value and importance of differ-

ent methods of studying the phenomenon. Although survey

data and qualitative research reveal that students belonging

to ethnic and cultural groups that are in the minority or non-

dominant position in society benefit from having a strong

and positive ethnic identity, research that has examined

moderators of the association between ethnic identity and

academic motivation and achievement has discovered a

more complex association. Whereas a strong ethnic identity

generally has positive effects on the academic motivation

of minority students, there are situations where these bene-

fits are eliminated or reversed. This research indicates the

value of combining methodologies (e.g. self-report and

nonconscious processes) and considering specific situa-

tional factors when trying to understand how ethnic identity

is associated with academic outcomes for minority students.

Generational Status and the Immigrant Paradox

Often, the children of immigrants are compared to native-

born children on variables including academic achieve-

ment, attitudes toward school, delinquency, and mental

health. Although immigrant families must try to overcome

a number of obstacles, including learning a new language

and dealing with the stresses associated with acclimating to

a new culture, first- and second-generation students often

achieve at rates that are similar to, or exceed, those of their

same-culture peers who are third generation or more

(Fuligni & Tseng, 1999; Kao & Tienda, 1995). Some have

referred to this as a paradox because it goes against conven-

tional wisdom that students with lower SES, less educated

parents, and less familiarity with the United States would

perform as well as students from native-born families in

school (Coll & Marks, 2012).

Some research has examined differences between gener-

ational groups broadly, without distinguishing between eth-

nicities or countries of origin. For example, data from the

PISA 2003 study (Organization for Economic Development

Co-Operation and Development, 2006) revealed that across

all of the countries included in the study, immigrant stu-

dents had motivational profiles that were as strong or stron-

ger than native-born students, but they tended to perform at

lower levels. Similarly, Urdan (2004) found that across cul-

tural groups, third-generation students had lower levels of

achievement and approach-oriented goals and a weaker

sense of obligation to help the family than did first- and sec-

ond-generation students. Other research has focused on

generational status differences within single cultural

groups. Among Latinos in the United States, immigrant stu-

dents were more likely than their native-born peers to say

that they valued education but were less likely to be

enrolled in school and did not expect to go as far in school

(Pew Hispanic Center, 2008). Perreira, Fuligni, and Ptoch-

nick (2010) found that Latino ninth graders in North Caro-

lina—who were more likely to be immigrants—had a

stronger belief in the usefulness of education and rated the

intrinsic value of education higher than Latino ninth graders

in Los Angeles—who were more likely to be native born—

even though they felt higher levels of discrimination.

These survey data generally indicate that students who

are more closely tied to the experience of immigration tend

to have more positive attitudes about school than do stu-

dents from who are more removed from the immigrant

experience. Researchers have found that immigrants and

the children of immigrants may be more motivated to suc-

ceed because they recognize the sacrifice their parents

made to immigrate, feel a sense of obligation to make them

proud, and are better able than their more acculturated

third-generation peers to maintain the values of the family’s

native culture while also taking advantage of opportunities

in the United States (Coll & Marks, 2012; Fuligni, 1997;

Gibson & Bhachu, 1991; Suarez-Orozco & Suarez-Orozco,

1995). Although evidence regarding the achievement bene-

fits of being a first- or second-generation student are mixed,

most of the research suggests there are motivational bene-

fits (Duong, Badaly, Liu, Schwartz, & McCarty, 2016), and

these motivational benefits may be tied to a strong sense of

connection and obligation to the family (Urdan, 2004).

However, some research suggests that a sense of family

obligation may actually undermine academic motivation in

certain circumstances. For example, girls in families with

traditional gender roles are often expected to spend a con-

siderable amount of time assisting parents with cooking,

caring for younger siblings, and completing household

chores, and their parents may value higher education less

for their daughters than for their sons (Gibson, 1988). The

stronger the sense of family obligation (particularly to help

out with immediate family needs) is, the lower their moti-

vation to achieve in school may be. Similarly, children who

feel a strong need to contribute to the family financially

may forego college, or even high school completion, for the

sake of working full time. Tseng (2004) found that although

immigrant students from several different cultures placed

greater emphasis on family obligations than did nonimmi-

grant students, and these beliefs were related to higher lev-

els of academic motivation, academic achievement was

actually undermined by the greater family demands than

was experienced by nonimmigrant students. Among Lati-

nos, the most common reason given for dropping out of

MOTIVATION, METHODS, AND CULTURE 119

school was the need to support the family, and this reason

was much more likely to be given by Latino immigrants

than by native-born Latinos (Pew Hispanic Center, 2008).

Taken together, the research on the association between

generational status and academic motivation and achieve-

ment reveals a complex association that depends on a vari-

ety of factors, and our understanding of this phenomenon

has been influenced by the methods employed to answer

them. Whereas broad comparisons of different generational

groups using survey data have revealed that immigrants

and the children of immigrants often have motivation pro-

files that are equal to or better than their native-born or

third-generation peers, research that has taken a finer

grained analysis approach and has searched for potential

differences among students within the same generational

group has found that the immigrant experience has a com-

plicated effect on academic motivation that depends on

numerous factors. These include the intersectionality of

gender roles and cultural expectations, the dominant values

of the peer culture in the schools and neighborhoods where

the children of immigrants reside, and the resources, both

financial and social, that parents provide for their children

(Fernandez-Kelly, 2008; Valadez, 2008).

Threats “in the Air”

In his seminal article introducing the concept of stereotype

threat, Steele (1997) argued that for stigmatized groups,

stereotypes represent an omnipresent threat that is “in the

air.” He meant that for the performance of a stigmatized

group member to be inhibited, the person did not need to

experience overt acts of prejudice or discrimination while

trying to perform. Rather, the threat of fulfilling the nega-

tive stereotype is naturally present in the achievement situa-

tion, and its presence is enough to undermine performance

whether or not the students are aware that their cognitive

resources are being diverted away from performance on the

task. Researchers have posited that several factors exist in

achievement contexts and affect the motivation and perfor-

mance of students in different ethnic and cultural groups.

Some of these constructs, such as stereotype threat and

implicit attitudes, occur mostly beneath the level of con-

scious awareness. Others, like belonging, teacher expecta-

tions, and racism, can occur at both the explicit and implicit

levels. We consider several approaches that researchers

have taken to examine how these contextual factors affect

student motivation and achievement.

Stereotype threat. Research about stereotype threat and associated interventions has tested the effects of exter-

nal factors experimentally. One experimental manipulation

of threat is to emphasize the stereotyped domain, without

mentioning the stereotype. Steele and Aronson (1995)

described an assessment as either being “diagnostic of intel-

lectual ability” or simply as a “laboratory tool for studying

problem solving”; because there is a stereotype about the

intellectual ability of African Americans, this subtle manip-

ulation was enough to create threat and negatively affect

the performance of African American participants, and to

activate their racial identity. Another common manipula-

tion is to make a person’s stigmatized group membership

more salient; this can be done by asking people to fill out

demographic information before a stereotype-relevant task

(Steele & Aronson, 1995) or by being the only person of a

certain racial or ethnic group in a room (Keller & Seka-

quaptewa, 2008). Finally, threat can be induced overtly by

explicitly stating the group stereotype (e.g., Pronin, Steele,

& Ross, 2004). These various manipulations have been

able to provide causal evidence that stereotypes affect stu-

dent performance. When threat is activated, African Ameri-

cans and Latino/as perform worse on intellectual tasks

(e.g., Schmader & Johns, 2003), females perform worse on

math and spatial abilities tasks (e.g., Good, Aronson, &

Harder, 2008), and immigrant students (Appel, WEber, &

Kronberger, 2015) and low-SES students (Croizet, Desert,

Dutrevis, & Levins, 2001) perform worse academically.

People experiencing stereotype threat are also more likely

to withdraw effort or practice from stereotype-relevant per-

formances (Stone, 2002), disengage from stereotyped

domains (Steele & Aronson, 1995), and avoid future per-

formances (Brodish & Devine, 2009).

Similarly, experimental manipulations designed to

remove the effects of stereotype threat emphasize how the

context can influence a student’s motivation. Many inter-

ventions are focused on eliminating the cues that trigger

stereotypes from the classroom; for example, removing

demographic questions results in better performance from

stigmatized populations (e.g., Steele & Aronson, 1995). In

addition, research demonstrated that providing a same (vs.

different) race role model can mitigate threat effects for

African Americans (Marx & Goff, 2005; see also Marx,

Ko, & Friedman, 2009). Other interventions have focused

on highlighting identities within the self that are not associ-

ated with negative stereotypes (e.g., Shih, Pittinsky, &

Ambady,1999). Gaither, Remedios, Schultz, and Sommers

(2015) had African American and White biracial partici-

pants write about their mother’s or father’s ethnic identity

(or not write anything) before completing items from the

GRE; participants who had written about a White identity

demonstrated a stereotype lift and performed even better

than the control group.

Overall, stereotype threat research demonstrates the

power of using experimental methods in testing the associa-

tions among ethnicity, culture, and motivation. This work

demonstrates that academic performance and motivation is

affected by the external expectations and stereotypes about

a student’s ethnic or cultural group. Researchers who use

these methods are operating under the assumption that any

racial or cultural differences in motivation are because of

the influence of societal-level stereotypes that are activated

120 URDAN AND BRUCHMANN

in the achievement situation. This research also illustrates

the utility of using experimental methods to examine a phe-

nomenon that is difficult to capture with self-report meth-

ods. Because students are often unaware of the influence of

stereotype threat or the factors that activate it, asking stu-

dents to report on their experience of stereotype threat

would not be fruitful. One limitation of stereotype threat

research and other experimental work is that findings may

be difficult to replicate outside of a lab setting. Neverthe-

less, this type of experimental work offers a different under-

standing of the influence of culture and ethnicity on

motivation than correlational (i.e., survey) and qualitative

methods.

Belonging. Research on feelings of belonging uses several different methodologies to study it, including exper-

imental methods. For example, Walton and Cohen (2011)

speculated that African American students attending pre-

dominantly White colleges might attribute loneliness dur-

ing the first few months of college to their ethnicity rather

than to it being a normative experience for 1st-year college

students. They reasoned that by shifting the attributions of

African American 1st-year students away from their ethnic-

ity as the cause of their loneliness, the motivation and

achievement of these students would improve. First-year

African American students did benefit from an experimen-

tally manipulated shift in attributions in a manner that Cau-

casian 1st-year students did not, presumably because the

Caucasian students were not attributing their loneliness to

their ethnicity. This experiment was especially interesting

because the manipulation was subtle and occurred without

any explicit reference to ethnicity. A methodology based

on a more explicit discussion of ethnicity may not have

worked to reduce feelings of alienation among these Afri-

can American students.

Survey research has often found no differences between

ethnic and cultural groups in feelings of belonging in the

school or classroom (e.g., Faircloth & Hamm, 2005),

although some of this research has found that the associa-

tion between belonging and motivation may be stronger for

marginalized groups (e.g., African American, Hispanic)

than for majority groups (Becker & Luthar, 2002; Gutman

& Midgley, 2000). Wang and Eccles (2012) found that feel-

ings about belonging in school during the adolescent years

declined more steeply for African American than for White

students, and this decline was associated with lower educa-

tional aspirations.

Qualitative studies using interviews and observations of

students have revealed some of the potential reasons that

students of color experience reduced feelings of belonging.

For example, schools can marginalize immigrant students

through well-intended programs and practices including by

placing them in English as a Second Language programs

that isolate them from the majority of students in the school

(Gitlin et al., 2003) or by encouraging them to make

decisions about college that are at odds with their cultural

values (Valadez, 2008). Ethnographic research found that

for many students of color, feelings of connection and

belonging in school are undermined by perceptions that

some teachers are racist and that White students are favored

(Phelan, Davidson, & Cao, 1991). Similarly, qualitative

research on culturally responsive teaching has repeatedly

argued that teachers of students of color often marginalize

these students by promoting White cultural norms and val-

ues above those of the students of color in their classrooms

(e.g., Delpit, 2006; Irvine, 2003).

The combination of methods that have been used to

understand belonging has revealed the complex dynamic

for students of different ethnic and cultural groups in differ-

ent situations. Experimental methods demonstrated that

feelings of belonging could be altered by subtly shifting

attributions for lack of belonging from ethnicity to a norma-

tive, 1st-year college experience. To understand the struc-

tural factors in the learning environment that might affect

feelings of belonging for students who were not members

of the dominant or majority cultural or ethnic group, ethno-

graphic methods were needed. The different methods repre-

sent different assumptions among the researchers about

where the source of belonging perceptions lie (i.e., internal

to the student or external in the learning context), and the

combination of methods has provided a better understand-

ing of the complexity of the belonging construct.

Teacher beliefs and expectations. There is also is a long history of research examining how teachers’ expecta-

tions of student success can affect student achievement.

Although the early experimental and qualitative research

was not designed specifically to examine differences in

teacher expectancy effects according to the ethnicity of stu-

dents (Brophy & Good, 1970; Rosenthal & Jacobson,

1968), subsequent research has found that teachers often

hold higher expectations of academic success for White

and Asian American students than for African American

and Hispanic students. McKown and Weinstein (2008)

found that teachers were more likely to hold differential

expectations for their students based on their ethnicity or

culture in classrooms only where students perceived that

teachers treated high achievers differently than low achiev-

ers. Other research has found that teacher expectations of

students of different ethnic groups depend on the ethnicity

of the teacher. African American teachers hold higher

expectations of their African American students than do

non–African American teachers. These differences are larg-

est among mathematics teachers and for expectations about

African American male students (Gershenson, Holt, &

Papageorge, 2016).

There is evidence, from both quantitative (i.e., survey)

and qualitative data, that (particularly White) teachers hold

prejudicial views toward students of different cultural and

ethnic groups than their own (Fordham, 1988; Ladson-

MOTIVATION, METHODS, AND CULTURE 121

Billings, 2006). These beliefs have been found to under-

mine the motivation and achievement of African American

students (Ladson-Billings, 2006; Spencer, 1999). Teachers

report feeling less comfortable and efficacious when work-

ing with students of different cultural and ethnic back-

grounds, and this may undermine optimal motivation of

these students (Dee & Henkin, 2002; Rios, 1996).

Student performance and motivation can also be influ-

enced by instructors’ implicit attitudes. In one study, van

den Bergh, Denessen, Hornstra, Voeten, and Holland

(2010) measured the explicit and implicit prejudice of ele-

mentary school teachers and correlated responses with

students’ standardized test scores. Although the teachers’

explicit prejudice was not related to student performance,

their implicit prejudices about minority students were. The

more negative teachers’ implicit attitudes toward a group,

the larger the racial achievement gap. The authors argue

that teachers’ implicit expectations about students’ ability

levels might influence how they interact with the student

and lead to worse performance. Consistent with this idea,

Kumar, Karabenick, and Burgoon (2015) demonstrated that

the more teachers show implicit preference for White stu-

dents, the less likely they are to promote mutual respect of

cultures in their classrooms. Recently, Jacoby-Senghor,

Sinclar, and Shelton (2016) demonstrated how the implicit

attitudes of a teacher can influence student outcomes in a

lab setting. They found that the implicit racial bias of White

participants in the role of teacher predicted the learning out-

comes of participants who were in the role of student.

Teachers with low implicit prejudice produced no differ-

ence in outcomes for African American and White students.

However, when the participants in the role of teacher

showed a high implicit prejudice, African American stu-

dents performed significantly worse than White students.

Jacoby-Senghor and his colleagues even tested this experi-

mentally by randomly assigning participants to watch a

video of a teacher with high versus low implicit prejudice;

participants of any race who saw the high implicit prejudice

video performed worse. Taken together, these studies dem-

onstrate the importance of measuring both implicit and

explicit attitudes of teachers.

Racism. In this section on contextual factors, all of the subsections have involved racism in its various forms. Ste-

reotype threat is about negative stereotypes, often about

culture, race, or ethnicity, that exist at the societal level.

Research examining feelings and consequences of belong-

ing among students of color has often focused on racism

and biases that exist at the structural level of schools and

that can marginalize students from minority cultures and

ethnic groups. Research on teacher expectancies has identi-

fied how conscious and unconscious biases that teachers

have can influence students. In addition to these various

examinations of racism and bias, there is also a body of

research that has examined the prevalence and

consequences of direct and specific acts of racism targeting

nonmajority students.

One argument posits that when students perceive that

they are the targets of racist acts, they experience increased

levels of stress that can direct cognitive and emotional

resources away from their educational endeavors (Levy,

Heissel, Richeson, & Adam, 2016). In both the short term

and long term, such stressors can undermine academic

motivation and achievement. Research has found that stu-

dents of color report that they frequently experience overt

and subtle racism at school in both secondary (DeCuir &

Dixson, 2004) and postsecondary (Biasco, Goodwin, &

Vitale, 2001; Johnson & Arbona, 2006) levels, particularly

in schools with student populations that are predominantly

White (Landrine & Klonoff, 1996). These incidents can

cause students of color to feel marginalized and socially

isolated, thereby making it difficult to persist in school

(Rankin & Reason, 2005).

Studies of racism in school have taken various

approaches. Several studies use self-reports from students

(surveys, interviews, focus groups) to gain information

about students’ perceptions of racist incidents at school,

such as racist comments from teachers and other students

or microaggressions like being excluded from small groups

in class or teachers asking Hispanic students if they are ille-

gal immigrants (Harwood, Choi, Orozco, Browne Huntt, &

Mendenhall, 2015; Sue et al., 2007). Other research has

focused on the Eurocentric school curricula (Asante, 2007),

discipline practices that often result in harsher punishments

for African American and Hispanic students than for White

students (Morris & Perry, 2016), and other policies and

practices in school that may have disparate and more nega-

tive impacts on students of color, such as dress codes (e.g.,

forbidding headscarves or hoods) or manners of speaking

(e.g., speaking in one’s native language or nonstandard

forms of English). Several researchers have argued that the

common experience of racism and bias calls for an

approach to the study of the phenomenon that explicitly

acknowledges the effects of racism on students of color

(e.g., DeCuir & Dixson, 2004), a point we describe in more

detail in the next section.

SUMMARY

Research in educational psychology, and in the social sci-

ences more broadly, has always grappled with several criti-

cal tensions. How do we understand general trends or

potential universal phenomenon while exploring the effects

of situational factors? How do we gain information about

the shared experiences of populations while also paying

attention to important variations within each population?

How do we make sense of the ways that individuals’ atti-

tudes, goals, and self-beliefs affect behavior while also rec-

ognizing that behavior is influenced by factors beneath the

122 URDAN AND BRUCHMANN

level of conscious awareness? And what methods do we use

for conducting our research when we know that each

method has both strengths and limitations? As the literature

that we reviewed in this section demonstrates, the methods

that different researchers use to examine the same phenom-

ena often lead to different conclusions about the nature of

these phenomena.

The same critical tensions that exist in social science

research apply to the study of the associations among race,

ethnicity, culture, and academic motivation. But the conse-

quences of the research examining these associations is dif-

ferent from other social science research because of the

history of racism and stigmatization that some racial, eth-

nic, and cultural groups have experienced and continue to

experience. For example, research models that compare the

means of one ethnic group against the means of another eth-

nic group (e.g., comparing the self-efficacy levels of Afri-

can American and White high school students) can provide

important information about how these groups differ, on

average. However, they can also reinforce existing stereo-

types, contribute to perceptions that the two ethnic groups

are more different than alike, and create the misperception

that ethnic groups are monolithic (Gallimore &

Goldenberg, 2001; Yee, Fairchild, Weizmann, & Wyatt,

1993). Similarly, research that relies on a single type of data

(e.g., self-report) can lead to misperceptions about the

importance of other kinds of data that may not have been

included (e.g., observations or nonconscious factors).

No single study will include all of the research questions

and methodologies necessary to capture a phenomenon as

complex as the interplay between race, ethnicity, culture,

and motivation. Clearly, a combination of methodologies

employed across a wide range of researchers is needed to

understand this phenomenon. The point of our brief review

of this research was to highlight how our assumptions and

conclusions about the effects of ethnicity and culture on

motivation influence the research questions that researchers

develop and the methodologies they employ to examine

them. Given the history of racial tensions, discrimination,

and marginalization of several ethnic and cultural groups in

the United States and elsewhere, it is important to consider

what assumptions about different ethnic groups are being

reflected in the research methods used to understand ethnic

and cultural influences on motivation and how the results of

the research conducted with these methodologies may chal-

lenge or reinforce existing assumptions and biases.

RECOMMENDATIONS AND FUTURE DIRECTIONS

All of the methods and constructs just described have pro-

vided valuable information, but they have also highlighted

important caveats and limitations of the research in this

area. In this concluding section of the article, we synthesize

across research programs and results to focus on a few

important lessons learned from this research and to suggest

future directions.

Be Mindful of the Assumptions

Throughout the history of research that has compared the

motivation of different racial, ethnic, and cultural groups,

assumptions of the researchers about the existence and

nature of these differences have guided the research ques-

tions that are examined, the methods used to examine those

questions, and the interpretations of the results. In recent

years, a number of researchers have argued that simply

comparing different ethnic and cultural groups on tradi-

tional measures of motivation and achievement is not

enough to develop a full understanding of the motivation

and achievement of an increasingly diverse student popula-

tion (DeCuir-Gunby & Schutz, 2014). A reconsideration of

traditional motivation constructs is needed to consider how

race, ethnicity, and culture, within current and historical

contexts, affects the meaning and influence of these con-

structs for different students (DeCuir-Gunby & Schutz,

2017).

Several examples exist of research that carefully recon-

siders assumptions about motivational processes by apply-

ing knowledge about the experiences of minority students.

Rodgers and Summers (2008) evaluated a model proposed

by Bean and Eaton (2000) regarding student retention at the

college level. In their analysis of the model, Rodgers and

Summers argued that the experience of African American

students at predominantly White institutions may be quite

different than the experience of White students, therefore

altering the role of motivational beliefs (e.g., self-efficacy,

attributions, goals) and attitudes about the institution in the

retention of African American students. Lopez (2017)

examined teacher-expectancy effects on Latino students.

Unlike traditional research approaches that have compared

teacher expectancies of students from different cultural and

ethnic groups, Lopez examined how teachers’ critical

awareness of the experiences of their students, specifically

how some groups have been marginalized by biases in soci-

ety and schools, influenced their expectancies of students

and their use of asset-based pedagogy. She found that

teachers’ critical awareness raised their expectations of

their Latino students, which in turn increased the achieve-

ment of these students and fostered the development of pos-

itive ethnic and academic identities.

The call by some researchers to reevaluate the assump-

tions and interpretations that have typically guided exami-

nations of race, ethnicity, and culture in motivation

research has not prescribed any particular research method-

ology, although some have noted the value of qualitative

and mixed-methods research (DeCuir-Gunby & Schutz,

2014). Instead, the focus has been on the adoption of

research models and paradigms that place a greater empha-

sis on understanding the social-historical influences on the

MOTIVATION, METHODS, AND CULTURE 123

identities and experiences of students of various ethnic and

cultural backgrounds. Critical race theory has the specific

goal of countering existing narratives created by the domi-

nant culture and creating new narratives that lead to change

in both the story and the systems that perpetuate racism in

school (DeCuir & Dixson, 2004; Ladson-Billings, 1999).

Rather than thinking of race or ethnicity as a demographic

variable to be used as a moderator in statistical analysis,

perspectives like critical race theory place race, ethnicity,

and the social-historical context of racism at the center of

the analysis. Such approaches raise questions about the

assumptions and interpretations that have guided existing

research and offer a method of reimaging motivation con-

structs to better understand the academic motivation of stu-

dents of color (DeCuir-Gunby & Schutz, 2014).

In qualitative research, there is a tradition of researchers

explicitly stating their biases and assumptions and consider-

ing how those biases may shape the methods they employ

and how the data are interpreted (Levitt et al., 2018).

Although quantitative research has the air of objectivity, it

is clear that researchers’ assumptions and biases affect their

choices of methodologies and their interpretations of the

data (e.g., Rajendron, 2001). When researchers use surveys

to examine differences between ethnic groups, for example,

they assume that the self-report data are valid, that the ques-

tions on the survey will be interpreted the same way by

members of different ethnic groups, and that differences

found reflect important distinctions between entire groups.

As we have illustrated, these assumptions are often called

into question by subsequent research that has employed dif-

ferent methods and reflected different assumptions. It

would perhaps be a worthwhile exercise for researchers to

identify and state their potential biases and assumptions

and how those may have guided their choice of methodolo-

gies, regardless of whether the research employs qualitative

of quantitative methods.

Culture Is Complex and Multidimensional

Most researchers agree that culture represents a set of

shared beliefs, values, and customs, but in the context of

students within the United States that definition of culture

is not entirely satisfying. Because the United States is a

multicultural society, students frequently operate in multi-

ple cultural spaces, and the salient aspect of one’s cultural

identity can change in any situation. Is the wealthy His-

panic daughter of two college-educated, U.S.-born parents

more similar, culturally, to the daughter of immigrant farm

workers or to the daughter of wealthy White parents with

whom she attends school? Students share beliefs, values,

and customs or norms with different groups that can each

have distinct cultures.

Because of the multidimensionality of culture, we can-

not assume that all students who share a cultural back-

ground will have the same experience in school, or the

same motivational processes. Not all African American stu-

dents experience stereotype threat when they take tests in

school. Not all Chinese American students have a collectiv-

ist view that causes them to put family obligations ahead of

personal, individualistic goals. There is considerable evi-

dence that within a single culture (e.g., Mexican Ameri-

cans), students’ motivational orientations vary significantly

as a function of their generational status (Fuligni & Tseng,

1997; Urdan, 2004). Similarly, as we noted earlier when

describing research on stereotype threat, many students are

multiethnic and identify with multiple cultural groups.

Issues of intersectionality are also important to consider.

For example, there is evidence of gender differences in

associations among ethnic identity, experiences of discrimi-

nation at school, and academic motivation for African

American students (Chavous, Rivas-Drake, Smalls, Griffin,

& Cogburn, 2008). All of this suggests that it is important

to remember that cultural groups are not monolithic, and

there is often wide variability in the motivational beliefs,

values, and responses to environmental cues within a cul-

tural group. Research examining variability within ethnic

and cultural groups, and the motivational effects of belong-

ing to multiple groups, is needed.

Motivation Processes Are Both Conscious and Nonconscious

There are both conscious and nonconscious processes

involved in student motivation. Much of the research exam-

ining cultural differences in student motivation has focused

on self-reported beliefs, values, goals, and expectancies,

and this research has sometimes revealed differences across

cultural groups (e.g., McInerney, 1995) and other times

revealed similarities (Graham, 1994). Although students’

self-reports are a useful window into their motivational pro-

cesses, it is important to recognize that there are factors

affecting student motivation, many of them tied to culture,

that occur beneath the level of consciousness. Similarly,

students’ explicit attitudes about school and academic

achievement may be affected by implicit associations,

either theirs or their teachers’, that link high academic

achievement with certain ethnic or cultural groups more

than others. Although IATs have been criticized for their

pairing of multiple concepts, which can make results diffi-

cult to interpret (e.g., Blanton, Jaccard, Christie, & Gon-

zales, 2007; Fiedler, Messner, & Bluemke, 2006), and for

the scoring algorithms, which some argue are arbitrary

(e.g., Blanton et al., 2007), they also provide useful infor-

mation about processes that are not accessible with self-

report measures (e.g., Greenwald, Nosek, & Banaji, 2003).

It is important to recognize the explicit and implicit

influences on student motivation for several reasons. First,

it reminds us to be cautious about how we interpret data

that are strictly explicit. Student self-reports and researcher

observations of motivational processes are influenced by

124 URDAN AND BRUCHMANN

biases and nonconscious processes. Although it is tempting

to think that student motivation flows directly from their

beliefs, and that cultural variations in student motivation

reflect differences in these motivational beliefs, there is

much evidence that processes beneath the level of con-

scious awareness influence motivation and behavior (Kaku,

2014; Muryama, Izuma, Aoki, & Matsumoto, 2017). Sec-

ond, it reminds us that for a full understanding of student

motivation and the cultural factors that influence it, reliance

on a single research methodology will not suffice. Although

experimental methods, self-report data, and observational

data all have their limitations, all are needed to provide dif-

ferent pieces of information. A specific methodology may

be appropriate for answering a specific research question

(e.g., experimental manipulations to examine the effects of

stereotype threat), but it is important to avoid overgeneral-

izing the results from research using a single methodology

to reach conclusions about the broad motivational orienta-

tions of students from specific cultural or ethnic groups.

Given the complexity of motivation, ethnicity, culture, and

their intersection, it is important that researchers continue

to use various methodologies at our disposal without put-

ting too much faith into, or directing too much scorn

toward, any single methodology. It is also important to

heed the advice of several scholars who study cultural influ-

ences on student motivation that whichever methods we

employ, we must take care to ensure that the measures we

use are meaningful and valid for the populations that are

included in the research (DeCuir-Gunby, Schutz, & Harris,

2017; King & McInerney, 2014; Zusho & Clayton, 2011).

Motivation Is Both Static and Dynamic

According to situated, person-in-context models, student

motivation emerges within specific contexts and situations

as factors internal to the student (e.g., personality, prior

experience, beliefs, cultural norms) interact with the

demands, affordances, and constraints within the learning

environment (Hickey, 2003; Nolen & Ward, 2008). These

models tend to emphasize the dynamic and changing nature

of motivation within situations (e.g., Praetorius, McIntyre,

& Klassen, 2017), and researchers are developing method-

ologies to measure student motivation with more frequent

measurements within individuals to track changes in things

like heart rate, eye movements, and clicks on a computer to

infer variations in engagement and attention (Dirk &

Schmiedeck, 2016).

While attending to the fluctuations in motivation that

occur within classrooms and tasks, it is also important to

note the more stable aspects of motivational processes. Stu-

dents develop attitudes, goals, and motivational beliefs that

lead them toward or away from specific subjects and school

in general, and these attitudes can be difficult to change

(Urdan & Argueta-Vogel, in press). Some of these stable

attitudes are closely tied to cultural factors. For example,

Valadez (2008) found that many of the Hispanic high

school students in his ethnographic study reported that their

college aspirations were influenced as much or more by cul-

tural values of family as they were by their level of aca-

demic achievement.

Taken together, these results reveal something about the

strengths and weaknesses of different methodologies used

to examine cultural influences on student motivation. We

certainly need to understand how motivation emerges in

specific contexts and situations, and a combination of real-

time data collection (e.g., through observations, think-aloud

protocols, eye-tracking software, and data collected from

student activities on the computer) can provide important

information about situation-specific changes in student

engagement and behavior, including potential differences

between and within cultural and ethnic groups. But it is

also important to obtain information about stable factors

that influence motivation, including culturally influenced

attitudes, beliefs, identifies, and goals, and to understand

how the stable and situation-specific variables combine to

influence the motivation and culture interaction.

Application of Research to Practice Needs to Proceed With Caution

As we have noted, research has revealed important differen-

ces between ethnic and cultural groups on some motivation

variables. But we also know that there are differences

within cultural and ethnic groups, so it is important to avoid

applying pedagogical practices or policies based on stereo-

types about entire groups. To avoid this trap of pigeonhol-

ing students based on cultural differences, it may be useful

to try to use knowledge of cultural differences to reach gen-

eralizable principles of motivation processes that apply

across cultures. This is the goal of the universalist approach

recommended by Zusho and Clayton (2011) in their cul-

tural analysis of achievement goal theory.

McInerney and his colleagues have used Maehr’s (1984)

theory of personal investment to study the motivation of

students from a variety of cultural backgrounds (King &

McInerney, 2014; McInerney, 1991, 1995). This research

has often followed a model of cross-cultural research pro-

posed by Berry (1980) that involves first applying an exist-

ing measure developed with one culture (e.g., the United

States) to a different culture (e.g., Australian aboriginal cul-

ture) and comparing the results, then looking more closely

into ways that the second culture may have unique motiva-

tional processes that are not captured fully by the measure

developed with the first cultural group, and finally reaching

conclusions about what motivational processes are similar

across cultures (i.e., etic) and which are specific to a partic-

ular culture (i.e., emic). Using mixed-methods designs that

included quantitative (survey) and qualitative (interviews,

observations) methods, McInerney and his colleagues have

found that some motivational processes are similar across

MOTIVATION, METHODS, AND CULTURE 125

cultures (e.g., mastery goals are associated with deeper

learning strategies) but others are associated more closely

with specific cultures (e.g., Filipino students’ emphasis on

social obligation goals, which are not major goals of the

Anglo cultures he studied). This research has articulated

how motivation develops as a result of the interaction

between people’s perceptions of the self, their goals, and

the characteristics of the environment. King and McInerney

(2014) described these three aspects of the motivational

process as “etic shells, and the content of each of these

shells can be fleshed out within each particular culture” (p.

177). Ryan and Deci (2017), in their description of self-

determination theory, made a similar argument. Although

the methods of satisfying the basic needs for autonomy,

relatedness, and competence may look different across cul-

tures, the needs themselves are universal (i.e., the “etic

shells”) and provide a model for understanding motivation.

In searching for universals within cross-cultural or cultur-

ally specific research, it may be important to question our

assumptions about the causes of some results of pedagogical

practices designed to enhance the motivation of specific eth-

nic groups. For example, Columbia University professor

Christopher Emdin has gained notoriety for using rap and

hip-hop to teach low-income, minority high school students

about science. It is a method of instruction called reality ped-

agogy because it uses students’ interests and life experiences

to make school content, particularly science, more meaning-

ful and engaging (Borges, 2016; Emdin, 2011). Emdin rea-

soned that because so many African American and Hispanic

students listen to hip-hop and actively participate in hip-hop

culture, and because rap involves active participation among

the participants, hip-hop would be a useful vehicle for

enhancing the engagement in science class of these students.

He calls his project Science Genius. One interpretation of

this program’s success is that African American and His-

panic adolescents who live in large urban areas relate to hip-

hop. This is a culturally specific interpretation that may

simultaneously overgeneralize (i.e., stereotype) the within-

culture affection for rap and hip-hop while missing the uni-

versal principles such as using prior knowledge to anchor

new information, using variety in pedagogical practices to

increase attention and engagement, using active learning pro-

cesses to increase interest, and using the mnemonic devices

of rhythm and rhyming to increase memory retention.

Although these universal principles take a specific form in

this particular cultural setting, they are principles that can be

applied in any cultural context. 3

Although it is clear that race, ethnicity, and culture exert

important influences on student motivation through both

conscious and nonconscious processes, it is also clear that

culture is not monolithic and that students in the United

States often operate within multiple cultures simulta-

neously. It may be useful to think of an individual student’s

motivation as the result of a set of processes (e.g., the inter-

action of personal identity, goals, and contextual affordan-

ces) that apply across cultures. Such models of motivation

processes include a recognition that within cultures there

may be shared features of identity, goals, and contextual

affordances but also provide space for individuals within

and across cultures to vary.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

We thank James Lai, Birgit Koopmann-Holm, the editors,

and anonymous reviewers for their helpful feedback on pre-

vious versions of this article.

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