State Assessments at an Urban High School: Using Extrinsic Motivation

The purpose of this qualitative research study was to discover the influence of a student achievement program implemented at one large urban high school that employed extrinsic motivation to promote student achievement on state assessments. Using organismic integration theory as the theoretical framework, 19 randomly selected students participated in structured interviews with their responses analyzed by the organismic integration theory taxonomy. This study invites a discussion of the use of extrinsic motivation to influence student attitude and behavior toward state assessments.