Achievement-Motivation Patterns Among Low-Income Anglo-American, Mexican-American, and Negro Youth.

This project was designed to study the relationship between ethnic-racial factors and patterns of achievement motivation in males raised in low-income families. Anglo-Americans, Mexican-Americans, and Negro Americans have been depicted as possessing achievement-orientation styles that are characteristially different from one another. The subjects were 605 males aged 13 to 16. Of this number, 425 were living in welfare families, and the balance were nonwelfare. Data collection was conducted with subjects individually. Interviewers were male college graduates in their midtwenties, and assigned to subjects on the basis of ethnic-racial matching. Of necessity, Mexican-American interviewers were bilingual. Indexes utilized were (a) level of aspiration; (b) Thematic-Apperception Test; (c) Edwards Personal Preference Scale; (d) performance inventory; (e) achievement tests; and, (f) grade-point-average. Compared with Anglo-American and Mexican-American subjects, Negro subjects ranked high on interview measures of achievement motivation but scored low on measures of achievement performance in school situations. In contrast, Mexican-American subjects did significantly less well on interview measures of achievement orientation but exceeded Negro and white subjects in school performance as measured by grade-point average. (Author/JM)