A motivated exploration of motivation terminology

The purpose of this review was twofold. First, we wanted to identify fundam ental terms within the motivation literature associated with the study of a cademic achievement or academic development. Having identified these terms with the help of experts in the field of motivation, we wanted to document how motivation researchers defined and used these terms within their progra ms of research. To accomplish these purposes, over 120 achievement motivati on articles were reviewed, and 68 met the criteria for inclusion. Various a spects of these studies, including definitions of terminology, framing vari ables (e.g., age/grade or domain/task), as well as patterns in language use were charted and analyzed. Based on these analyses, we derived several int erpretations, extracted conceptual definitions, and overviewed specific con ceptual issues relevant to emerging trends in motivation terminology. Final ly, implications for future research and practice are forwarded. (C) 2000 A cademic Press.