Investigating student motivation at the confluence of multiple effectiveness strivings: A study of promotion, prevention, locomotion, assessment, and their interrelationships

A recent theory of motivation (Higgins, 2012b) proposed that examining individuals' concomitant strivings to be effective in (a) achieving valued outcomes, (b) exerting control over the means they employ during goal pursuits, and (c) having accurate understandings of themselves and their experiences is critical for mapping interindividual differences in motivation effects. To investigate this proposition, we collected data from two independent samples of secondary-school students and conducted latent profile analyses. The results indicate that six motivation profiles, which accounted for the complex interrelationships among motivation orientations measuring these key effectiveness strivings, were consistently identified in the two samples. The analysis of between-profile differences in a set of outcomes that reflect motivation in learning and achievement settings highlighted how multiple motivations interact to shape specific cognitive and affective manifestations.