Students Who Seem to be Unmotivated May have Attention Deficits

Abstract

A child or adolescent with school problems whose parents have concerns about motivation, such as, “seems lazy,” or, “could do better if he/she tried,” may have an attention deficit. This paper presents the results of analyses of a brief questionnaire constructed for parents to detect such a behavioral pattern. A 12-item scale, which we called the “Seems Unmotivated” scale, had an alpha of 0.88. Crosstabulations and analyses of variance demonstrated the power of this scale to identify children with attention deficits. In a child with perceived motivational difficulties, the possibility of an attention deficit should be considered.