Motivation for School Achievement: Measurement and Validation

Abstract

An objective instrument for assessment of motivation for school learning is reported along with evidence of its validity. Rural ninth-grade students in Appalachian Kentucky constituted the sample for studying relation, ships among variables of school motivation, willingness to compete, and achievement in reading, mathematics, and language. Students in general mathematics and in algebra classes were asked to volunteer for an academic type of contest. Later the mean motivation score of volunteers exceeded the mean for non-volunteers significant at the .01 level of confidence. Algebra students’ mean motivation score was significantly higher than the mean for general mathematics students (P > .001). Three months after the motivation scores were obtained scores on the California Achievement Test were collected. Product-moment correlations between motivation scores and achievement scores ranged from .604 to .718.

Although other writers have reported correlations between objective measures of motivation and teachers’ marks, no previous correlations with achievement test results could be found for comparison. Correlations with GPA’s tend to be in the range .32 to .55 which is considerably below the range resulting from this study. Data collected in this project supported hypotheses that the objective measure of school motivation would predict levels of utility for competition and achievement. It is concluded that for the sample of students involved the test presented is reliable and has validity for the prediction of willingness to try and levels of achievement as measured by a standardized test.