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Abstract
Online credit recovery programs are increasing in popularity as high schools face ongoing pressure to improve graduation rates and reduce dropout rates. Despite their exponential growth, there is little research regarding the effectiveness of online credit recovery programs, student success outcomes, student persistence into post-secondary education and student motivation in online credit recovery courses; moreover, there is no set model and regulatory oversight from district to district. The purpose of this descriptive study was to determine if there is a relationship between student motivation type (intrinsic, extrinsic motivation: identified regulation, extrinsic motivation: external regulation and amotivation) and grades earned among students enrolled in online credit recovery courses. The sample for this study was drawn from one school district in a southeastern state serving over 32,000 students in over 55 schools. The population for this study included all students aged 16 or over enrolled in an online credit recovery course at the research high school during the spring of 2019. From the population, the researcher used a convenience sample consisting of all students enrolled in the research high school’s online credit recovery program. The primary data collection instrument used was the Situational Motivation Scale (SIMS), developed and validated by Guay, Vallerand, and Blanchard (2000). This 16-item self-reported inventory contains four items per subscale, and it is designed to measure intrinsic motivation, extrinsic motivation: identified regulation, extrinsic motivation: external regulation, and amotivation in both laboratory and field settings. A one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) and face-to-face semi-structured student interviews were conducted in order to answer the research questions. Results of the analysis indicated that there were no statistically significant differences between males and females regarding the grades they earned in online credit recovery courses. Additionally, there was no statistically significant impact of motivation type on student grades; however, there was a statistically significant impact of grade level on students’ grades. Finally, most students were extrinsically motivated, specifically through external regulation followed by those who were extrinsically motivated with identified regulation.