Abstract

JIMENEZ HERNANDEZ, María Estela  and  MACOTELA FLORES, Silvia. Una escala para evaluar la motivación de los niños hacia el aprendizaje de primaria. RMIE [online]. 2008, vol.13, n.37, pp.599-623. ISSN 1405-6666.

Given the need to discover children's motivation to learn in Mexico, the Scale of Intrinsic versus Extrinsic Orientation in the Classroom, developed by Harter (1981), was adopted. The participants were 173 students in the second, fourth, and sixth grades of public school. The results showed that the scale has moderate internal consistency; factorial analysis identified three principal factors. The scale permitted evaluating children's general motivation to learn while discovering the motives and perceptions of their skills in schoolwork. Continued work on the validity of the instrument's construction is required, including the formulation of questions in which intrinsic motivation is not contrary to the children's perceived relevance of the teacher's opinion.

Keywords : motivation; learning; evaluation; children; basic education; Mexico.