Value Systems and Achievement Motivation as Related to Academic Achievement of College Students

Abstract

The present study was designed to investigate the relationship of academic achievement with personal value system and achievement motivation. The following hypotheses were formulated to test in this study: The first hypothesis states that academic achievement is directly related to the theoretical, economic, and religious values. The second hypothesis states that academic achievement is inversely related to the aesthetic, social, and political values. And the third hypothesis states that academic achievement is directly related to the achievement motivation. A Bangla version of Alport-Vemon-Lindzey Study of Values and an Achievement Motivation Scales were simultaneously administered to 511 undergraduate college students. The score for each of the six values - theoretical, economic, aesthetic, social, political and religious- was computed separately. The score of each subject on Achievement Motivation Scale was also computed. The relationship of academic achievement and personal value system was analyzed computing correlation between academic achievement score and score of each value sub-scale. The average of the marks of SSC and HSC examinations was considered as the academic achievement score. In the results, positive correlation was found in the case of theoretical, economic and religious values and negative correlation was found in the case of aesthetic and political values. In order to analyze the impact of personal value system on academic achievement the subjects were classified into high, average and low groups on the basis of their score on each of the value sub­scale. Then comparisons were made among three groups on academic achievement score employing F test. The results of the study indicate that there are significant differences among the three groups. The results of t tests reveal that in the case of theoretical, economic and religious values the mean score of high group was significantly higher than those of the average and low groups. The mean score of average group was also found to be significantly higher than that of the low group. Thus the first hypothesis of the study was confirmed by the results. In the case of aesthetic and political values, significant negative correlations were found between the academic achievement score and the score of value sub-scale. The results of ANOV A suggest that there are significant differences among high, average and low groups. The mean score of high group was also found to be significantly lower than those of the average and low groups. The mean score of average group was also found to be significantly lower than that of the low group. However, in the case of social value, no such relationship was found between the score of value sub-scale and the score of academic achievement. Thus the results of the study partially confirm the second hypothesis. The results of the study show that there are significant positive correlation between the score of academic achievement and achievement motivation. In order to analyze the impact of achievement motivation on academic achievement, the subjects were classified into three groups - high, average and low- on the basis of their scores on Achievement Motivation Scale. The results of ANOV A suggest that there are significant differences among the three groups. The results of t tests reveal that the mean score of high group was significantly higher than those of the average and low group. The mean score of average group was also found to be significantly higher than that of the low group. These are the results which confirm the third hypothesis.