ABSTRACT
Utilizing the Programme for International Student Assessment 2012 Shanghai dataset (N = 5,177), this study examines the relationship between school disciplinary climate aggregated from mathematics classrooms and student mathematics learning outcomes, including mathematics achievement and intrinsic and instrumental motivation to learn mathematics, from the perspective of the self-determination theory of academic motivation. The results of the analyses demonstrate challenges to reach high in the three outcomes simultaneously in general. Meanwhile, a strict school disciplinary climate might hurt students’ intrinsic and instrumental motivation, although it is beneficial to students’ mathematics achievement in general. However, the differential effect sizes of school disciplinary climate on students’ intrinsic and instrumental motivation to learn mathematics depending on their differences in achievement levels suggest the possibility of cultivating high-performing and motivated learners in a strict school disciplinary climate and its exacerbation of the hurts to low-performing students’ mathematics motivation in Shanghai schooling.
