School Culture, Motivation, and Achievement. Project Report.

After defining school culture in terms of Organizational Culture, after Maehr and Braskamp (1986), this document presents three related studies, each based on data from a 1989 statewide assessment effort by the University of Illinois and the Illinois State Board of Education. The studies explore the relationship between school culture, motivation, and achievement. The first uses data collected from 9,693 high school juniors and examines school characteristics and family background in relationship to student motivation and academic achievement in specific subjects. The second study, drawn from the responses of 4,002 10th-grade students, explores the viability of the causal model in which school culture affects motivation, which, in turn, affects achievement. Also discussed are the influence of peer and family achievement pressure on motivation and achievement. The third study uses the same database as the second and examines the relative influence of the five dimensions of school culture--namely, accomplishment, power, recognition, affiliation, and overall sense of purpose--on student motivation. Lastly, the degree to which student ethnicity, enrollment orientation, and education of parents influence the effect the different facets of school culture have on motivation is discussed. Included are 3 figures and 14 tables. (66 references) (CLA)