psycho-motivation
Uploaded by professorzo on Mar 10, 2014
Chirkov and Ryan (2001) presents in this article a cross-cultural comparison analysis between Russian and U.S adolescence student’s effect towards perceived autonomous-support and control from parents and teachers. Thus, this article examines the relationship between academic motivation and well-being to that of a student’s perception of socialization, whether it is autonomous or controlling. Using a concept known as self-determination theory, which posits that autonomy is a universal human need, the authors predicted that Russian students will perceive parents and teachers as more controlling than the U.S. Furthermore, the researchers predicted that both Russian and U.S students would report higher intrinsic motivation and well-being. Drawing from a variety of methods such as means, covariance structure analyses, questionnaires, and scales, researchers were able to operationalize and prove their hypothesis.
Section C.
Critique:
Even though the authors did address the authoritarian culture of Russia, it is clear that the authors did not have an accurate understanding of the Russian culture in that they sought to employ western instruments and impose individualistic paradigms upon a highly collectivistic society. While the authors do take the position that ther e are some universal needs and values that are not limited by cultural differences, autonomy is not one of them. It is widely accepted within the scientific community that the need for autonomy is predominately a western value, and so any attempt to extrapolate this cultural norm into a collectivistic society demonstrates a rather ethnocentric bias on the part of the researchers. Admittedly, one can find traces of autonomous beliefs, values, and behaviors within a variety of social context, but limiting ones scope to cross-sections of the population does not depict an accurate picture of the society as a whole.
Moreover, the population size was too small and the authors only accounted for a single high school. The lack of a large sample size presents a credibility issue with respect to statistical analysis and cultural relevance. The authors relied on self-reports, which can also skew research results due to exaggeration and misperceptions.
This was a correlation research design to measure the relationships between internal and external sources of motivation and well-being regarding Russian and U.S adolescence students. The sample was obtained by selecting 236 students from Russian and U.S high schools. Researchers selected Russian students because their culture is traditionally authoritarian and would provide a great comparison to the U.S culture.
The participants were between the ages of 16 to 19 years...