Negative Effects of Traditional Middle Schools on Students' Motivation

We discuss the decline in early adolescents' academic motivation after the transition to middle grade schools and review work on how school and classroom environments in traditional middle grade schools could be responsible for these declines. We suggest that there is often a mismatch between characteristics of the classroom environment in traditional middle grade schools and early adolescents' developmental level. We present results of a comprehensive longitudinal study examining the influence of school and classroom environmental factors such as teacher discipline and control practices, teacher-student relations, opportunities for student decision making, teachers' sense of efficacy, and between-classroom ability grouping on student motivation. In general, results indicated that middle grade school math teachers, in comparison to sixth-grade elementary school teachers, control students more, provide them fewer decision-making opportunities, and feel less efficacious. Between-classroom ability grouping also increased in middle grade schools. Many of these changes related to declines observed in students' motivation in middle school.