Journal of American Indian EducationVolume 34 Number 3
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EXPLORING NAVAJO MOTIVATION IN SCHOOL SETTINGS Dennis M. McInerney and Karen Gayton Swisher American Indian/Alaska Native children appear to be at a particular disadvantage with regard to academic achievement and school retention. A large number of publications express concern at the drop out rate and poor performance of these students at both the school and college levels (Backes, 1993; Bowker, 1993; Colardarci, 1983; Deyhle, 1992; Eberhard, 1989; Greenbaum & Greenbaum, 1983; Hornett, 1989; Macias, 1989; More, 1989; Pavel, Swisher & Ward, 1994; Platero, Brandt, Witherspoon & Wong 1986; Rindone, 1988; Rhodes, 1988, 1989; Swisher & Deyhle, 1989; Wauters, Bruce, Black & Hocker, 1989). Many factors have been cited as determinants of this unsatisfactory situation. These factors range across demographic variables such as home background and geographical isolation, educational variables such as inappropriate curriculum and negative teacher expectations, socio-economic factors such as ill health and poverty, and biological and cultural factors such as a mismatch between native learning styles and motivation and that fostered by a western-oriented school system. (See in particular Greenbaum & Greenbaum, 1983; McShane, 1983; Platero et al., 1986; Tippeconnic, 1983). Beliefs about Navajo motivation in school settings are often based upon little more than folkloric tradition passed on from teacher to teacher. The accepted wisdom, in the words of one teacher at Window Rock High School, is that Navajo students are "docile . . . no, cooperative, but not motivated." Huffman, Sill and Brokenleg (1986) state that "Earlier studies have offered a variety of explanations for the low academic achievement among Native Americans. Most common among these explanations have been inadequate primary and secondary education, low achievement motivation, low competition motivation, and low family value on education" (p. 32). It is also commonly thought that mainstream schools and teachers value mastery, future time orientation, competition and success, individuality and aggression, while their pupils, in contrast, value harmony, present time orientation, maintenance of the status quo, anonymity, and submissiveness (Duda, 1980; Platero, et al., 1986; Tippeconnic, 1983). Navajo children are often stereotyped as lacking the motivation and the cognitive processes needed to achieve. It is also believed that they come from homes which lack the socialization practices needed to inculcate achievement values in children. As a result these children suffer culture clash which predisposes many to drop out of school. In past years, however, psychometric-based research, which might have generated such "hard data," has fallen into disrepute among indigenous minorities, largely as a result of two factors. First, many cultural minorities rightly desire to repossess their intellectual capital, that is, they desire to have ownership of research within their communities (Robbins & Tippeconnic, 1985). Psychometric research has become identified with white researchers and "outsiders" and as such is often looked upon unfavorably. Second, poorly developed psychometric research studies, which failed to be culturally sensitive, did not produce data and interpretations that were able to be validly applied to explain minority educational performance and underachievement. Very often these models of research resulted in findings which seemed to blame the victim. Better models of research were needed (McInerney, 1988, 1990, 1991, 1992). The evidence that cultural groups within many social settings (such as employment and schooling) appear to be motivated by different forces has intrigued psychologists, sociologists and anthropologists for many years (Pederson, 1979) and has stimulated the search for better models to guide cross-cultural research (Berry, 1980; Duda, 1981; McClelland, 1961; Maehr, 1984; Triandis, 1980). The research literature is rich with case studies, ethnographies, surveys and experimental studies on a vast range of cultural groups based on these and other models. Each of these models presents some notion of what motivation and motivated behavior is in particular contexts. The notion of motivation is, however, difficult to operationalize psychometrically in cross-cultural settings if one is restricted to a generalized universal construct on one extreme (i.e., everyone is presumed to be motivated by the same forces irrespective of cultural background) or to a particularistic view at the other extreme (i.e., motivation is species specific, and there are no generalities) (Brislin, 1983; Lonner, 1980; Van de Vijver & Poortinga, 1982). The dilemma of examining what are universal qualities of motivation (thereby allowing some comparison across groups) and what are culturally specific qualities (thereby paying specific attention to the distinctiveness of groups) has been termed the etic-emic dilemma in cross-cultural research (Church & Katigbak, 1988a, 1988b; Davidson, Jaccard, Triandis, Morales & Diaz-Guerrero, 1976; Davidson & Thomson, 1980; Segal, 1986). One danger inherent in using a psychometric approach is that an assumption may be made by researchers that items and constructs developed and standardized on one particular cultural group are etic, that is, broadly universal when in fact there is no attempt made to demonstrate the applicability of the constructs or instruments used to new groups. A second danger inherent in using a psychometric approach is the potential inability of an instrument designed to measure general constructs (the so-called etic dimension) to generate culturally specific information (the so-called emic dimension) to particularize etic constructs within specific cultural groups. One theoretical model with clear and significant implications for methodological improvements in cross-cultural research on motivation and which addresses the etic-emic issue is Maehr's Personal Investment Model (Maehr 1984; Maehr & Braskamp, 1986). In its broadest interpretation the mode conceptualizes motivated behavior as being determined by three etic variables incentives, sense of self, and facilitating conditions. Personal incentives of behavior in a situation refer to the motivational foci of activity; importantly, what the person defines as "success" and "failure" in a particular situation. Maehr proposes four personal incentive systems which are hypothesized to be universal: task motivation (such as experiencing adventure, novelty or working to understand or improve at something), ego motivation (such as doing better than others or leading the group), social solidarity motivation (such as pleasing others and being concerned for others' welfare) and extrinsic rewards motivation (such as working for recognition or a prize or reward of some kind). The second etic component is defined by Maehr as sense of self, which refers to the more or less organized collections of perceptions, beliefs, and feelings related to who one is. Sense of self is presumed to be composed of a number of components such as sense of competence, sense of autonomy and sense of purpose, each contributing to the motivational orientation of the individual. The third component, facilitating conditions, refers to the behavioral alternatives that a person perceives to be available and appropriate (in terms of sociocultural norms and external factors such as geographic location and socio-economic status that exist for the individual) in a given situation. Facilitating conditions have been discussed in a wide range of publications dealing with Navajo dropouts and will not be considered in this paper (see Platero et al., 1986; Swisher, Pavel & Hoisch, 1991). This research deals with the personal incentives and sense of self components of the model. Our research has three aims. First, we wish to demonstrate an effective and valid use of psychometric research within an indigenous community. Second, we wish to validate the etic dimensions of the Maehr model for use with the Navajo group and to establish the emic content of these etic dimensions. Third, we wish to elicit information descriptive of the Navajo group specifically related to the determinant of their school motivation, and to compare our findings with commonly held beliefs about Navajo motivation in school settings. The research therefore addressed the following questions:
Subjects Window Rock High School, the site of the research study, is located in Fort Defiance, a few miles from the tribal headquarters in Window Rock. Approximately 825 students are served in grades 9 to 12 in this comprehensive high school accredited by the North Central Association. Not surprisingly, 98% of the student body are Navajo. The High School is a modern school with impressive teaching facilities. In addition to the regular program that might be found in any Arizona high school, Window Rock High School also offers Navajo Culture and History, and Navajo language along with Spanish and French as foreign languages. Advanced Placement classes in English, Math, Social Studies, and Computer Programming are also offered. One-fourth of the student body is enrolled in the computer programming class. As a result of a video productions class, short news articles written by students have been aired on a public service program called News 101, broadcast over two major channels in New Mexico and Arizona. At the time of the survey eight of the academic teaching staff at Window Rock High School were Navajo and 52 were Anglo. The principal of the High School was Navajo. The support staff were mainly Navajo. Five hundred and twenty-nine students from grades nine through 12 were surveyed. There were 249 male students and 280 female students, and the average age was 16 years. Approximately 7.4% of the sample listed multiple tribes or other tribes as their tribal affiliation. Ninety-one percent of the students lived on the reservation (with 61% living in a village and 30% on rural properties). Nineteen percent of the subjects spoke their native language exclusively at home, 5% spoke their native language and English, while the remainder spoke English exclusively at home. Fourteen and one-half percent of the subjects had fathers who occupied professional positions, 2% occupied clerical sales positions, 5% occupied special Indian affairs-related positions, while 41 % were in skilled, semiskilled or unskilled positions. The remainder were unemployed, on welfare or retired, or details were not supplied. Of the mothers, 15.4% were in professional positions, 16. 1 % occupied clerical sales positions, 7% occupied special Indian affairs-related positions, and 15% were in skilled, semi-skilled or unskilled positions. Data were not available on 46% of the subjects' mothers (presumably a large number of these were homemakers or worked in the home). Fifty-six per cent of the sample lived with both the mother and father, 29% with the mother alone, 6.7% lived with the father alone, and 7% lived with relatives. Seventy-two per cent of the subjects' fathers had completed grade 12 with 38% completing some level of college work. Seventy-five percent of the mothers had completed grade 12 with 41 % completing some level of college work. Sample Representativeness Materials The Inventory of School Motivation (ISM) was devised to reflect components of Maehr's Personal Investment model and to investigate the nature of school motivation in cross cultural settings (McInerney, 1988; McInerney & Sinclair, 1991, 1992). The Inventory is broad enough to reflect the global dimensions of the model in a variety of cultural settings. Inventory questions relate to the following dimensions of the Personal Investment model, each of which has two elements; 1) sense of self, sense of competence (e.g., I can do things as well as most people at school), sense of purpose (e.g., it is good to plan ahead to complete my schooling); 2) ego: competitiveness (e.g., winning is important to me), group leadership (e.g., I often try to be the leader of a group); 3) extrinsic: recollection (e.g., having other people tell me that I did well is important to me), token rewards (e.g., getting merit certificates would make me work harder at school); 4) social solidarity: social concern (e.g., it is very important for students to help each other at school), affiliation (e.g., I try to work with friends as much as possible at school); 5) task: task involvement (e.g., the more interesting the schoolwork the harder I try), and striving for excellence (e.g., I try hard to make sure that I am good at my schoolwork). Items were answered using a Likert-type scale from strongly agree (1) to strongly disagree (5). Approximately nine questions targeted each dimension of the model. Questions were randomly assigned throughout the form and contained twenty-four negative items to guard against response bias. The inventory was field tested with 35 American Indian students at the Phoenix Indian Center. On the basis of this field work and advice received from Indian education specialists, some wordings were altered to make the items more interpretable to the group to be surveyed. As a final check on the cultural validity of the instrument used for Navajo students, items which performed poorly under factor analysis were deleted. Administration of the Survey Validation of the etic-emic dimensions The reduced set of items was subjected to a principal-axis common-factor analyses using varimax rotation setting the NFACTFOR to 12 (other solutions produced less satisfactory factor structure). This analysis resulted in ten theoretically interpretable factors accounting for 40.8% of the variance in these items. The derived factor structure gives clear support for the etic nature of the theoretical framework. Factors were named based on the content of the items with factor loadings that exceeded .30. The following factors were derived: striving for excellence, sense of competence, recognition, social concern, affiliation, group leadership, sense of purpose for the future, sense of purpose for schooling, competition, and task involvement (a doublet). Items defining the scales derived from the factor analysis loaded on targeted dimensions. There was no discernible pattern among items defining token rewards and consequently these items were dropped after the initial factor analysis. Table 1 illustrates the theoretical dimensions which received confirmation for the Navajo sample. Table 2 presents items defining the scales and their factor loadings. To test the internal consistency reliability of the scales Cronbach's alphas were calculated for each scale. There was an acceptable level of reliability for each of the scales (with the majority of obtained coefficients being in excess of .70). To simplify scale structure, a small number of items which loaded on two factors were allocated to only one scale for which the item had strongest empirical loading and face validity. Table 1 Dimensions of relevance to Navajo students drawn from the Personal Investment Model
Table 2 Factor loadings, Cronbach's alpha, means, standard deviations for each of the scales drawn from the ISM for Navajo students
Determining the Important Predictors The predictor variables in the analyses were the ten scales drawn from the Inventory of School Motivation. As a check on the multicollinearity of the predictor variables, zero order correlations were calculated for each of the predictor variables. The Seeking for Excellence scale correlated with a number of other predictors (r < .6) with .35 as the average correlation across the scales. Levels of correlation among the other predictor variables were very low in most cases. (A correlation matrix is presented in Appendix 1). As it was thought that there might be an interaction of age with the predictor variables, ten interaction terms were constructed for the ten independent variables with the dummy variable age (grouped as sixteen or younger = 1, and seventeen or older = 2), i.e., those who had arrived at the minimum school leaving age and those who had not (see Aiken & West, 1991). These interaction terms, together with the ten independent variables and age were utilized as predictor variables for each of the dependent variables in a series of multiple regression analyses to ascertain whether the interaction effects contributed significantly to the prediction of the criterion variables. Seven criterion variables were used for the multiple regression analyses. Four of these, school confidence, affect to school, intention to complete school, and perceived value of school were constructed scales based upon a five-point Likert scale from strongly agree to strongly disagree. Items comprising these scales, and each scale's reliability estimate (Cronbach's alpha) are presented in Table 3. The final three variables were demographic, viz, desired occupation after leaving school, elicited from the students at the time of the survey and graded on a six-point scale based upon the occupational prestige of the nominated occupation; grade point average (GPA) and days absent for the enrollment period in which the survey was conducted (drawn from school records). The enrollment period consisted of 177 days and only those students who had completed 170 days or more schooling for the period were included. There were very little missing data.
For six of the seven criterion variables, the set of ten interaction terms constructed to evaluate potential effect of age, did not contribute significantly to the prediction equation. Results for these six criterion variables are presented on the basis of the multiple regression analyses for the ten predictor variables drawn from the ISM entered as a single block for each criterion. For the seventh criterion variable, intention to complete school, there was a significant interaction (F(10,397) = 1.951, p = .037, R2 [2 superscripted in original document] Change = .04). Results for this latter analysis are based upon backward elimination of variables when all variables are entered into the equation. Table 4 presents the findings of the multiple regression equations when the predictor variables are entered as a single block (SPSSx, Regression). Clearly the scales drawn from the Inventory of School Motivation are useful for predicting the range of criterion variables included. In all cases the equation is able to account for a significant level of variance in each of the criterion variables. Table 3
Further evidence of the usefulness of the scales is derived from the information that for each criterion variable a different pattern of predictors is significant. School confidence is best predicted by striving for excellence, sense of competence, and group leadership. The other variables contribute little to the equation. Perceived value of schooling is best predicted by sense of purpose for the future, and sense of purpose for schooling. Affect to school is best predicted by striving for excellence, social concern, and sense of competence. Desired occupation is best predicted by sense of competence, group leadership, sense of purpose for schooling, and task involvement. Grade point average is best predicted by sense of competence and sense of purpose for schooling. And lastly, absence is best predicted by striving for excellence and sense of competence. Key predictor variables are sense of competence, sense of purpose for schooling, and striving for excellence in schoolwork, each of which was significant in a number of equations. Variables that contributed little to the predictive power of the equations for these six criterion variables were affiliation, competitiveness and recognition. Table 4
Of the twelve predictors for the intention to complete schooling the best predictors are sense of purpose for future, sense of purpose for schooling, recognition, and social concern. However, the interaction term (AgeXSPF) is a very strong predictor. Follow-up analyses with the separate groups indicate that sense of purpose for the future is a stronger predictor of intention to complete school for the younger group.
Past psychometric research with American Indian children and other minorities has failed to elicit useful information regarding school motivation. First, because many of the studies of motivation fail to establish that the achievement behaviors and cognitive responses being examined are functionally, conceptually and metrically appropriate to the group being examined, programs based on these are of dubious worth. Research in cognitive style differences, for example, and its implications for classroom programs to suit American Indian students has been singularly unsuccessful in demonstrating the effectiveness of curriculum and teaching strategies based on these for improving performance (Kleinfeld & Nelson, 1991). Second, many studies have failed to control for the range of shared experiences between groups, such as mass media, schooling, religion, and work, which should be examined as potential influences affecting school motivation even among remote groups. Third, "esoteric" differences such as hemisphericity often become the focus of research rather than the more ordinary issues of whether school children value education as leading to greater work opportunities, whether students have a positive image of themselves as school learners, like school, have a sense of achievement at school, and whether teachers give students enough supportive feedback and encouragement. Perhaps the major limitation of much psychometric research dealing with indigenous minority group motivation in school settings, from an educational point of view, is that this research has not told us enough about what are the culturally relevant and irrelevant motivational characteristics. Such knowledge is fundamental to the determination of successful teaching strategies, and guidance to teachers about the type of classroom climate most likely to engage the energies and strivings of their Navajo students. Having criticized approaches to cross-cultural research we needed to demonstrate the validity of our approach, and in particular, how psychometric research may elicit culturally valid and useful information for indigenous communities. In the following sections we wish to elaborate on the applied usefulness of the approach. While we believe that the reliability estimates are adequate for each of the predictor and criterion scales, we caution the reader to evaluate our findings (and interpretations) in the context of particular scale reliabilities. We have chosen to include each scale for the extra insight each gives into Navajo motivation in school settings. The Inventory of School Motivation has been able to suggest some of the key correlates of successful and unsuccessful performance for this group of students. Since a number of the findings of this study run counter to commonly held views about Navajo motivation in school settings, we will first of all examine these, before considering the positive findings to emerge from the study. Among the variables that were not found to be major determining factors in the Navajo students' school motivation and achievement were affiliation and competition. Affiliation is commonly thought to be a powerful motive for the Navajo child. It is argued that if schools could adopt strategies which call upon the affiliative drive of Navajo children, then these children would like school more and be more successful. Cooperative learning styles and group work are considered appropriate techniques. However, as schools do not emphasize these, Navajo children are less motivated. While affiliation was clearly identified through factor analysis of the Inventory of School Motivation as a variable for this group, there is no evidence from any of the analyses that it is as potent a motive as the literature would suggest. In fact, affiliation is not a significant predictor for any of the criterion variables. It is generally believed that Navajo students are non-competitive in the school context, and that they withdraw from tasks that are highly competitive or likely to put them above their peers. Being competitive in nature, schools are thought to be culturally inappropriate to the Navajo child. Evidence from this study suggests that level of competitiveness is not a crucial factor in determining the child's attitude to schooling and achievement. Competitiveness is not significantly related to any of the criterion variables. The extrinsic reward component, recognition, gained limited support from the study. Some authors believe that Navajo children need greater recognition from the teacher in order to work well at school. There is some support for the importance of this variable, however, in a converse way to expectations. Recognition is significantly and negatively related to the intention to complete school. It would appear that for the children intending to complete school, recognition is not important. To the extent the children strongly agreed with the intention of completing school, they strongly disagreed with the need for recognition! There are a number of variables suggested in the literature which received support from our research and which confirm the importance of a number of components of the Personal Investment Model to this group of students. These are the task component striving for excellence; the ego component, group leadership; the social solidarity component, social concern; and the sense of self components, sense of competence and sense of purpose. We will examine each of these in turn. Striving for excellence in one's schoolwork is an important predictor of a range of criteria. It is commonly thought that Navajo children lack achievement motivation. A major element of the achievement motive is an individual's desire to do well relative to a standard of excellence. This research indicates clearly that Navajo children can be achievement oriented, and that this orientation is related to school confidence, affect to school and absenteeism. Navajo children who strive for excellence in their schoolwork are more confident, like school more, and spend less days absent from school than their peers who score lower on this dimension. The ego component, group leadership, refers to an individual's need to function in a position of authority through leading a group. Some authors maintain that this is inimical to Navajo students, while others maintain that this quality is one that distinguishes the successful Navajo student from the unsuccessful student. This study gives support for the latter contention. Group leadership is significantly related to school confidence and desired occupation. It is argued that because of early socialization practices, Navajo children place a high value on social relationships with their family and peer group, and that this is a major factor in their orientation to learning. There is some support for the importance of this variable for these children. Social concern is significantly related to how much children like school, with those strongly agreeing with the dimension also liking school more. Social concern is also related to intention to complete schooling, with those expressing strong social concern being more likely to have the intention to complete schooling. The sense of self components: sense of competence and sense of purpose received strong support from this study. Sense of competence relates to an individual's self-concept for the task of learning, how one assesses one's capacity to learn. Extensive research literature is concerned with self-efficacy and its effects on motivation. It is believed that the degree to which an individual feels competent in an endeavor will directly influence level of motivation and performance in that endeavor. It is also believed that Navajo children lack confidence and self-reliance in the school setting and that this explains, to a large extent, their poor motivation and performance. There is strong evidence that sense of competence is a major determinant of the Navajo student's school confidence, affect to school, grade point average, desired occupation after leaving school and absenteeism. To the extent that Navajo children believe they lack competence, they are not confident at school, dislike school, have limited occupational aspirations, have high absenteeism and lower grade point averages. The converse applies. It is also suggested in much of the literature dealing with Navajo people that they are present and past oriented rather than future oriented; in other words, in the context of this study, they are not goal directed. The goal directed dimension, sense of purpose, measured by two variables (sense of purpose for the future, and sense of purpose for schooling) wrongly predicted a range of criterion variables. Those students who had a strong sense of the purpose of schooling perceived the value of school more highly, had the intention of completing school, desired more prestigious occupations after leaving school and had a higher grade point average than those who were lower on this dimension. Sense of purpose for the future was significantly related to perceived value of school and the intention to complete schooling. Clearly those students who set goals and see a purpose in their schooling are among the more successful students. Students in this study expressed a high value in education, finishing school and going on with further education, which corroborates the findings of Platero et al. (1986, pp. 83-84). Follow-up work with the class of 1990 and 1991 indicates that the vast majority of students surveyed completed high school (although many students did not graduate with the cohort with which they began their schooling). Furthermore, in a vocational education follow-up study of the 1990 cohort (Arviso, 1991) fifty-one out of a class of 182 were freshman in a range of university courses in 1992. Obviously, among all the gloom regarding Navajo lack of school motivation, achievement and the excessive dropout rates, there is a substantial group of successful students. We are then left with the question of why some children from the Navajo community appear to successfully cross the cultural boundaries and do well at school while others fail. The findings of this research may give some insight into this. Perhaps Ogbu's notion of the "alternation mode of classroom learning" (Ogbu, 1992,1983; Ogbu & Matute-Bianchi, 1986) is relevant here, i.e., that some students realize that they can work well in two cultures, that of the school and that of the home, and that in adopting strategies for school success, such as striving for excellence in one's school work and being future oriented, does not necessarily mean acculturation to broadly based white values. On the other hand, those who fail to cross the cultural boundaries of the school may maintain values in opposition to school values in order to preserve and protect an identity which they feel is threatened by such cultural transitions. It would appear that the expectations individuals hold for themselves educationally as they generalize from past experiences and incorporate the more immediate expectations of their community, parents, teachers and peers, profoundly affect motivation and performance levels. It is clear from this research that Navajo children's sense of self, reflected through sense of competence and sense of purpose is critical to their motivation, academic achievement and retention at school. Students who scored high on these dimensions scored low on a number of critical educational criteria and those who scored low on these dimensions are those students most at risk of poor academic motivation and performance, and are most predisposed to dropping out of school. Obviously community values are of paramount importance. If children receive messages from their cultural community that it is good to do well at school, and that one's life chances are enhanced by successful schooling, they will succeed. Conversely, if the community's messages indicate that success at schooling is at best irrelevant, and at worst inimical to one's cultural identity, children will not look to the school as the arena in which to demonstrate their successes. Schools are also critical in values they pass on to indigenous minority students. Sense of self in the school context is influenced by one's expectations of success and performance in key academic areas. Schools, through their policies, programs and administration, must be places where Navajo and other minority group children can experience academic success. It would appear from this study that a difference between the cultural values of the school and child per se is not the essential reason for Navajo children doing poorly at school. The explanation appears to lie on other than cultural levels, and programs can be developed to alleviate poor achievement while essentially allowing the cultural values of the children to remain intact (see also Ogbu, 1992). For example, initiatives such as developing group rather than individualistic learning situations, avoiding competition, and structuring learning around peer interactions are not without value. There is a growing body of research which suggests that competitive modes of learning are less successful than cooperative modes for all children (see Ames & Ames, 1984; Slavin, 1995), and of course, group learning may be well used to give Navajo children the peer support they might need. However, it is the contention of the present authors that, unless such initiatives are situated within the context of those motivational variables which have been demonstrated in our research to be key predictors of Navajo motivation, they will have little effect on improving the school performance and retention of Navajo children. Many studies (Good & Brophy, 1991; Rosenthal & Jacobsen, 1968a, 1968b) indicate the effect that teacher expectations have on pupil motivation and performance. Many teachers set a low ceiling on indigenous minority student academic performance (for a variety of reasons, including many students' poor attendance) by attributing to them either low ability or low effort characteristics; the students thereby fulfill these expectations with low performance. The present research shows that the school's encouragement and support for the development of a positive sense of self within the school context, in particular a sense of competence and a sense of purpose, together with support for the children's intrinsic motivation to do well in their work, are essential for the success of the children. The research strongly supports the contentions of Chan and Osthimer (1983) and Coburn and Nelson (1987), and the suggestions they make for adapting school programs to the needs of these children. Our research has demonstrated that motivational constructs drawn from the Personal Investment Model have relevance for the Navajo students at Window Rock. Furthermore, the Inventory of School Motivation has been able to suggest combinations of variables that appear most useful in predicting student performance and attitudes across a number of important school criteria. Implications can be drawn from these analyses which suggest programs to elevate the retention and performance levels of Navajo and other minority students. Demonstrably important variables in predicting students' retention, academic performance, valuing of school, and affect to school, are sense of self variables, viz, the students' sense of competence, and sense of purpose, and task motivation (represented by striving for excellence in one's work). Group leadership and social concern also appear to be important. Hornett (1989) suggests that Indian student attrition could be alleviated by institutions recognizing traditional leadership skills (e.g., giving students experience with leadership and social recognition in culturally sensitive ways), by helping the student establish long-range and short term goals and objectives, by giving effective feedback and recognition to students in line with their performance and by helping the students develop a sense of competence, confidence and a positive self image within the school context. Our study emphatically supports such beliefs. Variables which have been considered important by many as key determinants of Navajo children's poor achievement and dropping out of school, such as the supposed mismatch between the school's values of competitiveness, individuality, and extrinsic rewards and the children's values of affiliation, cooperation and noncompetitiveness, were not supported by the findings. Affiliation and competitiveness were not significantly related to any of the criterion variables. Educational researchers must tease out those factors influencing student performance that are culturally rooted from those that are related to the child's role as a student within a mainstream school which has a "context" 'that may well be pancultural. It is the contention of the present authors that the role of a student in mainstream schools primarily presupposes a set of characteristics for success that do not necessarily run counter to, or abbrogate, cultural values. Key values such as sense of competence, sense of purpose and striving for excellence in one's work, are values that appear to be universally important to all students irrespective of cultural status. Other specific cultural values (such as affiliation and non-competitiveness) held by some Navajo students may be irrelevant to success within a mainstream school setting (many Navajo students are very successful at school). Given the right situation in an adaptive school, however, these same values could foster student achievement, and should not be ignored. The usefulness of the Inventory of School Motivation in profiling Navajo motivation in school settings has been demonstrated by this research. A great strength of this approach is the notion that the variables of importance are determined by the group itself, and are variables which, by and large, are capable of manipulation within the school context by competent teachers and school administrators. Much early research on cognitive styles, learning styles, hemispheric preference, and achievement motivation are not heuristic for school pructice, and leave little for the school and teachers to work with in terms of elevating retention and performance among Navajo students. We are grateful to Herb Marsh for assistance with statistical analyses, and James Arviso, the teachers, and students of Window Rock High School for their generous assistance and cooperation. This research was funded in part by an internal research grant through the University of Western Sydney, Macarthur. Dennis M. McInerney is a senior lecturer in educational psychology at the University of Western Sydney, Macarthur, P.O. Box 555, Campbelltown, NSW, 2560, Australia. His specializations are learning and motivational theories as they apply to minority groups in school settings, and cross-cultural psychology. Karen Gayton Swisher is an associate professor in curriculum and instruction and director of the Center for Indian Education at Arizona State University, Box 871311, Tempe, Arizona 85287-1311. Her specializations are learning styles, classroom interactions, and pedagogy.
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