Abstracts Education

The effects of perceived environmental factors and adolescents' motivation on achievement mediated through study strategy in the U.S. and Korea

by Jisuk Park

The purposes of the present study were to examine whether the "family-value orientation" was an independent dimension from ego orientation and to explore a conceptual model that looks at the effects of perceived parental and teacher's factors and adolescents' motivation on achievement mediated through study strategies. A second purpose was to examine whether the underlying meanings of constructs are different across two groups. A total of 322 10th grade students enrolled in high schools in Korea and the United States (175 Korean and 147 American students) participated in this study. Confirmatory factor analysis showed that family-value orientation, a new dimension of achievement motivation, was a separate factor from ego orientation in both samples. Even though an equal number of constructs held across the two groups, the results of multiple-group confirmatory factor analyses suggested that the underlying meanings of those constructs were different in culturally relevant ways. The results of structural equation modeling were consistent with a conceptual model in which parents' task intrinsic support indirectly affects deep-processing strategy use, mediated through task orientation, in both the American and Korean groups. Implications of these findings for both intentional theory and the measurement of motivational constructs in different cultures are discussed.