intrinsic and extrinsic motivations student

In addition to the role of task complexity, whether or not motivations influence performance also depends on the tendency of the environment to encourage or discourage their development and expression (McClelland, 1985; Deci & Ryan, 1985). For example, if students are given tasks that do not allow creativity or if students' creative task-solutions are not appropriately recognized, then intrinsic and extrinsic motivations may have different relationships with academic performance.

In cross-cultural comparisons, researchers have found that students in Hong Kong had lower fluency, flexibility, and originality scores than students in North America (e.g., Jaquish & Ripple, 1984, 1985). However, Spinks et al. (Spinks, Lam, & Van Lingen, 1996a) argued that creativity has a different meaning and value in the Chinese culture and, thus, a cross-cultural comparison using imported tests may not be valid. In particular, they argued that a child who has learned through socialization not to ask questions, not to produce answers unexpected by the teacher, and not to produce unusual responses to an ambiguous stimulus, will have a natural resistance to provide fluent, flexible, and original responses to a creativity test.

Consequently, Spinks et al. (1996a) adopted an indigenous approach and investigated the implicit views that teachers in Hong Kong have of their ideal and creative pupil. They administered a list of 60 person descriptors to primary school teachers. Teachers were asked to rate the importance of the descriptors for defining first the ideal pupil and then the creative pupil. A total of 15 descriptors for the ideal student and 27 for the creative student had a mean rating of 4 or higher on a 5-point Likert-type scale. Only six of these descriptors were in common between the ideal and the creative student: flexible, active, self-confident, cheerful, willing to try, and good thinker. The ideal student matched closely the everyday representation of the good Chinese child, characterized by adjectives such as selfdisciplined, respectful of parents, responsible, diligent, humble, not selfish, and obedient. The creative child matched closely the universal definition of creative person (Torrance, 1965), characterized by adjectives such as curious, assertive, talented, active, energetic, independent, questioning, bold, and individualistic. Spinks et al. concluded that the great divergence between teachers' views of the ideal and creative student indicates that the Hong Kong education system does not promote the development of creativity. In turn, they defined the situation as paradoxical because the Hong Kong business world seeks individuals with creative thinking skills and consistently finds that these skills are lacking among those who graduate from the local universities, whereas they are present among those who graduate from overseas universities.