Early motivational orientation profiles and language comprehension skills: From preschool to Grade 3

•Children display different motivational orientation profiles in early education settings.•Individual differences of motivational orientation seem to remain constant across age groups prior to school.•Belonging to a motivational profile is found to be predictive of language comprehension.•6-year-old children with task-oriented profiles showed later on the most adaptive motivation levels toward learning.

This study examines children's early motivational orientation profiles and their probability of belonging to a certain motivational profile group from preschool to kindergarten. We also explore the extent to which previous language comprehension skills act as indicators of a child's subsequent motivational profile at the individual level and how motivational orientation profiles among 6-year-old children are reflected in Grade 3. Altogether 130 children were assessed at ages 4, 5, and 6, of which 82 were followed up to Grade 3. Three groups of children with distinctive motivational orientation profiles-task-oriented, undifferentiated, and task-avoidance-were identified using latent profile and latent transition analysis. Motivational profiles were relatively stable across ages: 58% of the children displayed identical profiles from age 4 to age 6, and most of the changes in group membership were directed toward neighboring groups. The results further showed that an increase in language comprehension skills was associated with moving into a task-oriented profile between ages 4, 5, and 6, respectively. Moreover, children who had a task-avoidance profile at age 6 showed less task orientation and more task-avoidance orientation in Grade 3 than those with a task-oriented profile. We also discuss the importance of assessing developmental changes in motivational tendencies among pre-readers.