A Measure of Students’ Motivation to Learn Sciencethrough Agricultural STEM Emphasis

摘要

There is an increased demand for motivated high school students to enter postsecondary STEMfields. Agriscience education is an innovative curriculum that can motivate students and sparkinterest in STEM. To recruit students to such programs, we must understand what motivates them.The purpose of this study was to determine how the secondary agriculture students conceptualizedtheir motivation to learn agriscience. A descriptive-correlational research design was utilized witha modified version of the Science Motivation Questionnaire II (SMQ II) used as the surveyinstrument. Overall, students were found to have moderate levels of motivation in agrisciencecourses. Grade motivation and self-efficacy were found to be the motivational constructs thatmeant the most to students. Students were least motivated by self-determination. Getting an A andthe chance to receive higher grades in their agriculture science courses were found to be the highest motivators. Researchers found that there were no significant correlations between gender or grade level and motivation to learn science. Females generally had higher motivation within selfdetermination and grade motivation than males. Additional research is needed in this area todetermine what factors may exist that are preventing highly efficacious females from choosingSTEM careers.