Elsevier

Journal of Adolescence

Volume 88, April 2021, Pages 146-161
Journal of Adolescence

Profiles of maladaptive school motivation among high-ability adolescents: A person-centered exploration of the motivational Pathways to Underachievement model

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.adolescence.2021.03.001Get rights and content

Highlights

  • Person-centered analysis used to identify risk profiles among high-ability students.

  • Evidence found for two distinct theorized maladaptive motivational profiles.

  • Profiles correspond with (dis)engagement and underachievement outcomes of students.

  • Results confirmed by student, parent, teacher, and objectively measured perspectives.

Abstract

Introduction

The Pathways to Underachievement model (PUM; Snyder & Linnenbrink-Garcia, 2013) is a person-oriented framework identifying two distinct patterns of self- and value beliefs that help explain underachievement among cognitively highly able students. This framework was developed to clear up inconclusive findings from variable-centered underachievement research, but has not been previously empirically tested.

Methods

The present study aimed to test the PUM by investigating (a) whether the predicted motivational profiles are evident among a sample of high-ability students (IQ ≥ 120) beginning secondary school in Flanders, Belgium (N = 403, Mage = 12.2 years, 60.5% males) and (b) whether these profiles relate to students’ (dis)engagement from and (under)achievement in school, as assessed by the students, their parents and teachers, and school grades. Latent profile analysis was performed on five motivational dimensions: academic self-concept, self-worth contingency, task value beliefs, entity beliefs, and attainment/utility value, and outcomes were compared across profiles using the BCH method.

Results

Latent profile analysis identified four profiles, each involving a distinct patterns of motivational variables. Two of the profiles exhibited maladaptive variable patterns consistent with the distinct profiles theorized by the PUM. Furthermore, profile differences in (dis)engagement and (under)achievement outcomes generally corresponded with the predictions of the PUM across multiple perspectives.

Conclusion

This study found distinct maladaptive motivational profiles that were each linked to the outcomes hypothesized by the PUM. These findings establish empirically that there are qualitatively different types of high-ability underachievers, which supports the Pathways to Underachievement model and gives momentum to person-oriented analysis within underachievement research.

Introduction

Although cognitively high-ability students have the capacity to excel academically, underachievement, generally defined as a discrepancy between ability and actual achievement (Reis & McCoach, 2000), is a common phenomenon among these students. Despite increased recognition for the importance of developing intellectual gifts into talents for the benefit of individuals and society (Gagné, 2004; Subotnik et al., 2011), recent studies have identified between nine and twenty-eight percent of cognitively gifted students as underachieving during compulsory education (White et al., 2018). The causes of gifted underachievement are varied and have been linked to a wide range of variables, including poor motivation (Abu-Hamour & Al-Hmouz, 2013), low academic self-concept (Figg et al., 2012) and an entity mindset on giftedness and intelligence (Snyder et al., 2014). The fact that some of these variables have shown relatively small or even inconclusive relationships with (under)achievement (i.e. Costa & Faria, 2018; Dixon et al., 2006; McCoach & Siegle, 2003), however, raises the question of whether certain variables have differential effects in combination with other variables (Snyder & Linnenbrink-Garcia, 2013). A person-oriented approach may be a more precise way to explore these relationships, as this approach allows for the exploration of patterns of variables rather than variables in isolation (Bergman & Magnusson, 1997).

Snyder and Linnenbrink-Garcia (2013) developed a person-oriented theoretical model proposing two distinct patterns of self- and value beliefs that help to explain underachievement among high-ability students. In this study, this model is referred to as the Pathways to Underachievement model (PUM). This study aimed to test the Pathways to Underachievement model by using a person-oriented approach to explore profiles of relevant key variables from each of the hypothesized pathways among high-ability students beginning secondary school. Further, the study tested whether these profiles are related in expected ways to the disengagement and underachievement of these students.

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Person-oriented techniques can identify motivational belief patterns within ] individuals and group individuals with similar patterns, allowing researchers to identify which patterns are related to outcomes of interest (Laursen & Hoff, 2006). A person-oriented approach has been put forth in the literature as complimentary to a variable-oriented approach in examining how motivational factors can combine to shape educational outcomes (Wormington & Linnenbrink-Garcia, 2017). Person-oriented approaches are appropriate when variables are expected to have interactive effects with other variables, resulting in unique developmental types of individuals (Bergman & Magnusson, 1997). As current theoretical models postulate specific combinations of interacting motivational variables underlying (under)achievement outcomes among high-ability students (i.e. Siegle et al., 2017; Snyder & Linnenbrink-Garcia, 2013), person-oriented approaches are particularly appropriate for investigating questions surrounding the motivation and (under)achievement of these students.

The Pathways to Underachievement Model (PUM) combines insights from a broad range of motivational theories. Specifically, it draws heavily on expectancy-value theory (Wigfield & Eccles, 2000), self-worth theory (Covington, 1992), and theory and research on implicit beliefs about the malleability of intelligence (Dweck et al., 1995). Within expectancy-value models, the importance of competence beliefs (“Can I do this task?”) and value beliefs (“Why do I want to do this task?”) for academic choices and achievement is highlighted. Value beliefs can encompass perceptions such as the task's usefulness (utility value), importance (attainment value), and interest (intrinsic value). Competence beliefs include academic self-concept, or the perceptions that students have about their academic abilities. Self-worth theory (Covington, 1992) states that an individual's sense of self-worth is affected most by experiencing success and failure in domains such as schooling that are central to the self; academic self-worth contingency can be conceptualized as the degree to which an individual's self-worth is affected by these success and failure experiences (Crocker & Wolfe, 2001). Regarding theory on implicit beliefs, an entity mindset is the belief that intelligence or giftedness is fixed and cannot be changed (Blackwell et al., 2007). Students with a fixed mindset are inclined to not recognize the role that effort plays in achievement, and they attribute failure to lack of ability. Within the PUM, the motivational constructs from these various theories are incorporated, resulting in two distinct and specific pathways leading to underachievement.

In the Maladaptive Competence Beliefs pathway, students are focused on protecting their self-worth and gifted image, even at the ultimate cost of achievement (Snyder & Linnenbrink-Garcia, 2013). They are theorized to be characterized by high levels of academic self-worth contingency and entity mindset, beliefs that develop in the context of achieving highly with minimal effort within an under-challenging environment in early education. Because of the attention that they receive due to their cognitive ability and achievement, students in this pathway would develop a sense of self that is closely tied to being academically the best, implying that their self-worth may be affected by their academic success or failure (i.e., high academic self-worth contingency). Because they do not need to put forth much effort to achieve, they would be more prone to receive feedback on their ability (i.e., person-centered feedback) rather than on their efforts, and they are likely be considered as “gifted” by their peers, parents, and teachers. Both of these circumstances would increase the likelihood of students developing a fixed view of intelligence and ability (i.e., an entity mindset). The transition to secondary school could evoke a decrease in academic self-concept, and may even be experienced as a personal crisis by students in this pathway, as the increased challenge would call into question their image as effortless high achievers, and a higher ability peer group would imply they are no longer clearly the best student in the class.

When facing threats to their self-worth, according to the PUM students with a Maladaptive Competence Beliefs motivational profile may respond with disengaging coping mechanisms that eventually lead to their underachievement. They may choose to protect their gifted image and their sense of self-worth by disidentifying with (emotional disengagement) and withdrawing effort (behavioral disengagement) from school, so that any subpar achievement can be attributed to factors other than their ability. Each of these coping mechanisms would lead to the continued decrease in the students’ academic self-concept, and would eventually result in their underachievement.

In the Declining Value Beliefs pathway, lack of appropriate educational challenge in earlier levels of education would cause students to develop a low value for academics (Snyder & Linnenbrink-Garcia, 2013). If schoolwork is too easy, students may perceive it as “busy work” and find it boring and/or useless. These students would not be motivated by their schoolwork and would thus have high levels of task value amotivation. These students would also see schoolwork as personally unimportant (low attainment value) and irrelevant to their life and personal goals (low utility value). Because of these factors, they would be unlikely to apply much effort to schoolwork, although they would probably be able to achieve well in lower levels of education despite the lack of effort. Peers and parents may consider these students as gifted, but the students would not integrate this label into their core self-image, so they are not likely to have a high degree of academic self-worth contingency.

As education progresses, the cost value of succeeding academically also increases. Higher levels of education entail increased levels of challenge and/or work volume that often require increasing levels of effort to achieve academic success. Students in the Declining Values pathway would not be willing to pay the price of increasing amounts of time and effort for something that they are not interested in and do not value highly. They would respond by disengaging both emotionally and behaviorally from school rather than applying the heightened level of effort required to succeed, which would lead over time to their underachievement.

In the PUM, specific motivational beliefs are not investigated individually, but as synergetic constructs that can become disadvantageous when they combine with other beliefs and contextual factors in distinct ways. For instance, in the Maladaptive Competence Beliefs pathway an entity mindset becomes detrimental when combined with a high degree of contingency of self-worth on academic success. In the Declining Value Beliefs pathway, a low level of task value for education results in withdrawal of effort when the level of academic challenge or volume increases, such as in the transition to a new level of education.

By taking a precise and combinative approach in hypothesizing about risk factors and motivational variables, the PUM has the potential to clarify the role of variables that have shown ambiguous relationships to underachievement outcomes in previous research. For example, although low academic self-perceptions have been identified as a risk factor for underachievement among high-ability students (Figg et al., 2012; Ritchotte et al., 2014), this finding is not consistent across studies (Dixon et al., 2006; McCoach & Siegle, 2003). Underachieving high-ability students have also been found to vary considerably in regards to the degree to which they value academics (McCoach & Siegle, 2003). The distinct pathways theorized by the PUM could potentially clarify these findings, as students in the Low Value Beliefs pathway could maintain high academic self-concept while having low value for academics, while students in the Maladaptive Competence Beliefs pathway could simultaneously have high value beliefs and low academic self-concept.

The PUM also has the potential to further illuminate how additional risk factors combine with self and value beliefs to influence (under)achievement outcomes. A recent meta-analysis conducted in the general student population (secondary and higher education) failed to find a consistent negative effect of an entity mindset on achievement (Costa & Faria, 2018). This study also found a large degree of heterogeneity in outcomes of entity mindset across studies, suggesting that the effect between mindset and achievement outcomes could be moderated by other factors. Experimental studies have suggested that academic self-worth contingency could be one of these factors, as academically contingent students primed with entity beliefs experienced lower self-esteem and a higher degree of negative emotions following failure experiences (Niiya et al., 2004). Academic self-worth contingency isn't always associated with negative outcomes, however, as highly contingent students have been shown to exhibit resilience if they also have high self-esteem (Park et al., 2007). In the PUM, students with Maladaptive Competence Beliefs experience a decline in academic self-concept and school engagement because of their high level of academic self-worth contingency and entity beliefs. Utilizing a person-oriented approach can help bring clarity to the combinative effects of entity mindset, academic self-worth contingency, and academic self-concept, and help explain why these variables appear to have detrimental effects for only a subset of students.

In addition to combining insights from motivational theories, the PUM also captures the current understanding of (dis)engagement and (under)achievement presented in current prominent theoretical models (Landis & Reschly, 2013; Siegle et al., 2017; Skinner et al., 2008). Engagement is a multi-dimensional construct that can encompass, among other processes, students' behavioral efforts and emotional reactions towards school activities (Fredricks et al., 2004). Conversely, disengagement can entail students’ behavioral passivity and negative emotions towards school. Previous research among secondary school students has linked both deficient value and ability beliefs to both types of disengagement (Legault et al., 2006), and it also suggested differential disengagement outcomes depending on the type of motivational deficit: while inadequate ability beliefs and task value beliefs were both linked to behaviors such as less time spent studying, low ability beliefs related uniquely to academic anxiety and lower performance, while low value beliefs were associated with indifference towards academics and increased problem behaviors (Legault et al., 2006). Disengagement has been pinpointed as a particularly useful construct in identifying high-ability students at risk for future underachievement, as these students are often able to achieve at levels comparable to their peers for years, with achievement problems surfacing only in later stages of education (Landis & Reschly, 2013).

Most work in gifted underachievement has focused on differences between achieving and underachieving students (i.e. Preckel & Brunner, 2015; Ziegler & Stoeger, 2004), and does not differentiate between types of underachieving students. Although typologies of gifted underachievers are more typical in theoretical and qualitative work, the small amount of person-oriented quantitative work that has been done to date has not established distinct types of underachievers (Figg et al., 2012; Ritchotte et al., 2014). One person-oriented study investigating the validity of the Achievement Orientation Model among middle school students (Ritchotte et al., 2014) found just two profiles of gifted students, one characterized by underachievers with less positive attitudes regarding self-efficacy, task meaningfulness, school environment, and self-regulation skills, and one with highly achieving students demonstrating positive attitudes towards these constructs. Another study seeking to differentiate between conventional underachieving and selectively consuming gifted secondary school students on basis of school-related attitudes and motivational factors did not find any statistically significant differences between the two groups (Figg et al., 2012).

Despite its innovative approach and potential for bringing theoretical clarity to the field of gifted underachievement, the PUM has not yet been empirically explored. Snyder et al. (2019) built upon their earlier work by using latent class growth analyses to model trajectories of development in teacher-rated underachievement in Grades 1–6 concurrently with motivational beliefs pertaining to reading, including self-concept, task importance, psychological cost value, and global self-worth, each in a separate model. While this study found that each of the motivational variables was associated with either classes of “sustained” or “growing” underachievement, it did not examine how these variables combine to influence underachievement outcomes, which is key to the PUM. Furthermore, this study was conducted in primary school, while the underachievement pathways in the PUM are hypothesized to occur after shifts to more challenging levels of education.

Given the need for more person-oriented research in clarifying the motivational risk factors for underachievement, particularly among high-ability students, and the promise that such research would have for creating more targeted and presumably effective motivational interventions for these students, the current study sought to empirically test the Pathways to Underachievement Model among high-ability students immediately following the transition to secondary education. Towards these ends, two research objectives were addressed.

First, this study sought to investigate whether there was evidence for the motivational profiles proposed by the PUM by examining whether or not key motivational variables related to the Maladaptive Competence Beliefs profile and the Declining Value Beliefs profile showed the grouping patterns predicted by the theory. If the pathways were correctly theorized, we would expect to find at least two motivational profiles with distinct unfavorable patterns. Specifically, we would expect to find a profile primarily defined by high levels of task value amotivation and low levels of attainment/utility value (corresponding with the Declining Value Beliefs pathway) as well as a profile comprised of students with high levels of academic self-worth contingency and entity mindset, potentially with relatively lower levels of academic self-concept (corresponding with the Maladaptive Competence Beliefs pathway). Furthermore, students in the Declining Values Beliefs profile would be expected to have low levels of academic self-worth contingency and entity mindset. Students in the Maladaptive Competence Beliefs profile would be expected to exhibit higher attainment/utility value and lower task value amotivation than students in the Low Value Beliefs profile. There may be any number of additional profiles with varying degrees of (mal)adaptive motivational patterns, as this is not specified by the PUM. Because many high-ability students do well in school and perform up to their potential, we anticipate to identify at least one adaptive profile, characterized by high scores on motivational resources for achievement and low scores on risk factors.

Second, this study examined whether the identified motivational profiles were associated with students’ (dis)engagement from and (under)achievement in school, as hypothesized in the PUM. We expected the students from the maladaptive profiles to show lower levels of engagement and higher levels of disengagement compared to peers in more adaptive profiles. Although the mechanisms underlying disengagement differ between the profiles in the PUM, we would not necessarily expect the maladaptive profiles to differ quantitatively from each other in regards to these outcomes, as both inadequate ability beliefs and task value beliefs have been linked to disengagement in previous research (Legault et al., 2006). We expect the students in the maladaptive profiles to be more readily identified as underachievers, and to earn lower grades in schoolwork than their high-ability peers with adaptive motivation, although these outcomes may not be as distinct as the (dis)engagement outcomes immediately following educational transition (Landis & Reschly, 2013). We expect that differences in (dis)engagement and (under)achievement outcomes between profiles will be most pronounced from the student perspective, as individual students would have a better grasp of their own emotions and efforts towards school than their parents or teachers, particularly at the beginning of a new school year when the teachers have not spent much time with their new students. If differences between profiles are confirmed by the parent and teacher perspectives, this will further corroborate the PUM.

Section snippets

Respondents

We made use of a large-scale sample (TALENT-study) of 3409 students (Mage = 12.4 years, 50.3% males) beginning the first grade of secondary school, the school year immediately following the transition from primary school. All students from 166 classes within 27 schools, as well as the parents and homeroom teachers of these students, were invited to participate. The study was approved by the ethical committee of the university affiliated with the first author. Prior to conducting the study,

Missing data

The high-ability students in this study hailed from 112 classes within 27 schools (see Table 2 for demographic descriptive data). In total, nine students were removed because of either univariate (n = 3) or multivariate (n = 6) outlier data. In addition, six students were missing data on the motivational variables used to comprise the profiles, and were thus excluded from the analysis. This data was assumed to be missing at random, as the predominant reason for not filling out the questionnaire

Discussion

In this study, we found evidence of the motivational profiles theorized by the Pathways to Underachievement model (PUM) in the profiles that emerged from our data, tentatively supporting the framework and showing promise for person-oriented theory and analysis in gifted underachievement research. Using a person-oriented approach, we have confirmed that there are multiple unique motivational profiles among high-ability students, and that these are associated in the expected way to the

Funding

This work was funded by the Research Foundation of Flanders (FWO), project number S002917N.

Declaration of competing interest

None.

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