I believe that there are several key issues that must be considered if we are to
understand developmental changes in motivation for school-related learning. First,
we need to get as complete a picture as possible of the nature of the developmental
changes we seek to understand. Second, we need to understand the nature of
individual differences in these developmental trends. Third, we need to understand
the psychological and social influences on both the general developmental trends and
the individual differences in these developmental trends. Both of these articles help to
move our field forward on one or more of these questions. I focus my discussion of
these three fundamental issues, relating my comments on each of the articles to this
discussion.