The Importance of Students' Motivation for Their Academic Achievement - Replicating and Extending Previous Findings.

Ricarda Steinmayr,Birgit Spinath,Anne F Weidinger,Malte Schwinger

doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2019.01730

Ricarda Steinmayr, Birgit Spinath + Show 2 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2019.01730

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Abstract

Achievement motivation is not a single construct but rather subsumes a variety of different constructs like ability self-concepts, task values, goals, and achievement motives. The few existing studies that investigated diverse motivational constructs as predictors of school students’ academic achievement above and beyond students’ cognitive abilities and prior achievement showed that most motivational constructs predicted academic achievement beyond intelligence and that students’ ability self-concepts and task values are more powerful in predicting their achievement than goals and achievement motives. The aim of the present study was to investigate whether the reported previous findings can be replicated when ability self-concepts, task values, goals, and achievement motives are all assessed at the same level of specificity as the achievement criteria (e.g., hope for success in math and math grades). The sample comprised 345 11th and 12th grade students (M = 17.48 years old, SD = 1.06) from the highest academic track (Gymnasium) in Germany. Students self-reported their ability self-concepts, task values, goal orientations, and achievement motives in math, German, and school in general. Additionally, we assessed their intelligence and their current and prior Grade point average and grades in math and German. Relative weight analyses revealed that domain-specific ability self-concept, motives, task values and learning goals but not performance goals explained a significant amount of variance in grades above all other predictors of which ability self-concept was the strongest predictor. Results are discussed with respect to their implications for investigating motivational constructs with different theoretical foundation.

Highlights

Achievement motivation energizes and directs behavior toward achievement and is known to be an important determinant of academic success (e.g., Robbins et al, 2004; Hattie, 2009; Plante et al, 2013; Wigfield et al, 2016)
We focus on selected constructs, namely students’ ability self-concepts, and their task values and goal orientations
Empirical Evidence on the Relative Importance of Achievement Motivation Constructs for Academic Achievement

Summary

Introduction

Achievement motivation energizes and directs behavior toward achievement and is known to be an important determinant of academic success (e.g., Robbins et al, 2004; Hattie, 2009; Plante et al, 2013; Wigfield et al, 2016). The aim of the present study was to investigate whether the seminal findings by Steinmayr and Spinath (2009) will hold when motivational beliefs, task values, goals, and achievement motives are all assessed at the same level of specificity as the achievement criteria. This is an important question with respect to motivation theory and future research in this field. This is important information for interventions aiming at enhancing students’ motivation in school

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