The Content and Dynamics of the Motivational Preferences of Modern Younger Schoolchildren and Younger Adolescents

Abstract

The article presents the results of an empirical study dealing with motivational preferences of children aged 7 to 11.The sample included 526 children studying at comprehensive schools of Moscow region. In order to examine the motivational preferences, a variation of the “Seven-colour flower” method was used. We conducted a comparative analysis of motivations characteristic for modern children and their peers of the Soviet era. It is shown that the motivational preferences of modern school students differ significantly in content, orientation and age dynamics from those of Soviet children of the same age. Modern children are distinguished by the prevalence of personal motivation associated with getting material welfare and self-development; their wishes for other people are mostly addressed to their close relatives. On the contrary, their Soviet peers’ dominating motivation was socially-oriented, with norms and values of their school class community as a priority. The age dynamics of the orientation of motivational preferences is not pronounced in today’s school students. The content and the general structure of motivational preferences revealed in this research reflects objective sociocultural conditions of growing-up in the post-industrial society as well as the change in priorities regulating the work of educational institutions.