A person-centered, mixed-methods approach (self-report surveys, semistructured interviews, school records) was used to characterize and evaluate profiles of intrinsic and extrinsic motivations among 243 third- through eighth-grade students. Cluster analysis suggested four distinct profiles: high quantity (high intrinsic, high extrinsic), primarily intrinsic (high intrinsic, low extrinsic), primarily extrinsic (low intrinsic, high extrinsic), and low quantity (low intrinsic, low extrinsic) motivation. The primarily intrinsic profile showed the most adaptive pattern of responses; the primarily extrinsic and low quantity profiles, conversely, displayed similarly maladaptive patterns. Both quantitative and qualitative analyses suggested that particular combinations of intrinsic and extrinsic motivations may explain students’ academic and emotional functioning in school better than levels of each variable in isolation.
