BSI Report
Academic Motivation Among Santa College Students Using the
Academic Motivation Scale
(Spring 2012 – Spring 2013)
Many educators are concerned about their students’ persistence, retention, and success in community
colleges. Most would agree that motivation is a key factor in student success and may even offset some other
disadvantages a student may have. Academic motivation is a specific type of motivation directly related to
interest in school. In order to influence student success, perhaps it is important investigate student academic
motivation to understand the levels of academic motivation of students.
There are many theories of motivation, but perhaps the most fitting in understanding student motives is
the Self-Determination Theory (Ryan and Deci, 1985). The Self-Determination Theory proposes two main types
of motivation, intrinsic and extrinsic, that have several sub-types. Intrinsic motivation is defined as being
internally driven, whereas extrinsic motivation is externally driven. In other words, when a behavior is acted
out because of an internal reason, like pleasure, the motivation is said to be intrinsic. On the other hand, when
the reason for acting is due to an external reason, like working for money, the motivation is said to be extrinsic
(Ryan and Deci, 2000). There are several types of intrinsic and extrinsic motivation.
Intrinsic motivations included To Know, To Accomplish, and To Stimulate (Vallerand, J. R., Pelletier, G.L.,
Blais, R.M., Briere, M.N., Senegal, C., & Vallieres, F.E., 1992; Ryan and Deci, 2000). To Know is defined as being
motivated to do something for the pure enjoyment of learning. To Accomplish is motivation where pleasure is
acquired through the act of completing or accomplishing a goal. Finally, To Stimulate is where the pleasure is
based in physiological arousal of the nervous system, and it is this arousal that acts to motivate the organism
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(Vallerand et al., 1992; Ryan and Deci, 2000). However, the source of one’s motivation could be external to the
individual.
Extrinsic motivation includes External, Introjected, Identified, and Integrated (Ryan and Deci, 2000). When
individuals are motivated completely by an outside source, like money, they are externally motivated. If the
motivations are related to the individual’s ego, then this motivation is Introjected. For example, wanting to
out-perform a peer as to gain status in the peer group would be an introjected form of motivation because it is
ego-involved. Students who study because they recognized that studying involves many important skills that
are needed for later success have identified that act as valuable and therefore are willing to study. Identified
motivation is still considered extrinsic because the behavior is engaged in is because of an external reason, like
later school success. Finally, the last extrinsic type of motivation is closely related to intrinsic. Integrated
extrinsic motivation is where an individual engages in a behavior because this act becomes important to the
individual’s values. This behavior may appear as internally driven, but this once externally driven behavior has
been integrated into the person’s value system so it may appear as intrinsic, but is still considered extrinsic
motivation (Ryan and Deci, 2000). Many aspects for the Self-Determination Theory could have important
implications for educators as this theory relates to student success. Some researchers have specifically
measured academic motivation.
The Academic Motivational Scale (Vallerand et al., 1992) was developed to identify the many types of
motives students may have for attending school. Ryan and Deci (2000) have noted that understanding student
motives can be very useful in an educational setting. Being able to identify the level and types of motivation
students have may be useful in understanding students and perhaps developing intervention strategies to
impact student success. The Academic Motivation Scale (AMS) has been validated cross-culturally (Vallerand
et al., 1992). However, there does not seem to be research in the literature using the AMS on a Latino
population.
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The current study investigates the nature of motivation among Santa Ana College students in hopes to
identify those students who may benefit from supplemental instruction and potentially develop a system for
early detection of potential at-risk students. Several hypotheses were devised. The rationale for the first three
hypotheses is derived from self-determination theory highlighting the importance of motivation to student
success (Ryan and Deci, 1985; 2000). The first hypothesis is that students who persisted in the course would
have higher intrinsic motivation scores compared to students who dropped the course. The second hypothesis
is that students who persisted in the course would have higher extrinsic motivation scores compared to
students who dropped the course. The third hypothesis indicated that students who persisted in the course
would have a higher grade point average (GPA) compared to students who dropped the course. The fourth
hypothesis proposed that students defined as basic-skills students would not differ in the level of motivation
compared to non-basic skills students. Students should not differ in motivation simply based on their position
in the academic track. The fifth hypothesis indicated that non-basic skills students would perform better than
basic skills students. The rationale for this hypothesis is based on academic experience. The more academic
experience (i.e. completed transfer level courses) a student has the more skills a student develops which
would translate to better academic performance.
Method
Participants
The sample included 101 students enrolled in Psychology 100 classes in Spring 2012. There were 58 female
and 43 male participants. The ethnicity included 77.8% Latinos, 13.9% Euro-Americans, 5.9% Asian-Americans,
2% identified as Other, and 2 respondents did not identify their ethnicity. The age of the sample ranged from
17 to 47 years ( x = 22.55, s = 5.70). The range for the number of semesters completed was 0 to 14 semesters (
x = 3.12, s = 5.37). The range of the number of hours of work each week on average was 0 to 65 hours ( x =
23.80, s = 17.72).
Materials and Procedures
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The AMS was used to assess academic motivation. AMS is a 37-item survey measuring both academic
motivation and several other demographic variables. The AMS measures intrinsic and extrinsic motivation and
all the subscales (To Know, To Accomplish, To Stimulate, External, Introjected, Identified, and Amotivation).
All, except amotivation, have been previously defined. Amotivation is a subscale that measures student’s
tendency not to be motivated. For example, one item demonstrating amotivation is question five, “Honestly, I
don't know; I really feel that I am wasting my time in school.” In contrast, an item measuring intrinsic
motivation is question two, “Because I experience pleasure and satisfaction while learning new things.” The
survey was administered on the first day of class for the Spring 2012 semester. Students were instructed to
take the survey titled “Why I Go To College,” which was not part of their class grade nor would it be used to
evaluate class performance. However, students were instructed to provide their student identification number
on the survey. Then the students were tracked over the course of the semester until the course was
completed. Several key factors, such as dropping the class and class performance, were monitored and
recorded along with the AMS data for all the students. The main group comparison was based on students
who persisted in the course for the complete semester and students who dropped the course within the
established college drop deadline. However, several other comparisons were made. The sample was arranged
in several different categories for comparison – Basic Skills Students vs. Non-Basic Skills Students, Passing
Students vs. Failing Students, and Latinos vs. Non-Latinos. A basic skills student was defined as not having
completed a transfer level Math or English course at the time of taking the current course. Several variables
(e.g. Actual GPA, completion of transfer courses etc.) were obtained through the RSCCD Research Department
and represent data that was not student self-reported.
Results
A t-test analysis was used to compare the different mean scores for each comparison group. There were no
significant differences between students who persisted (PER) in the course compared to students who
dropped the course (DRP) on intrinsic motivation ( x PER = 61.65; x DRP = 68.72) or extrinsic motivation ( x PER =
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71.14; x DRP = 73.00), or GPA ( x PER = 2.35; x DRP = 1.95). There was a difference between students who
dropped ( x = 4.09, s = .30) and students who did not drop ( x = 5.12, s = 2.79) on the amotivation subscale, t
(64) = 2.74, p = .008. There were no significant differences on intrinsic and extrinsic motivation scores
between Basic Skills students ( x INT = 63.35; x EXT = 71.42) compared to Non-Basic skills students ( x INT = 63.05;
x EXT = 72.88). However, there was a significant difference between these two groups on GPA ( x BSI = 1.94; x
NBS
= 2.57), and final course grade ( x BSI = 43.34%; x NBS = 57.26%), with Non-Basic skills students showing a
higher GPA and final course grade, tGPA (98) = 3.28, p = .001 and tGRD (98) = 2.23, p = .027, respectively. There
were no significant differences between students who identified themselves as Latino compared to all other
ethnicities on intrinsic motivation ( x LAT = 64.20; x OTH = 60.25), extrinsic motivation ( x LAT = 73.13; x OTH =
68.33), final course grade ( x LAT = 49.06%; x OTH = 48.91%), or GPA ( x LAT = 2.15; x OTH = 2.13). There was a
significant difference between self-reported GPA ( x SER = 2.83) and actual GPA ( x ACT = 2.29) within the overall
sample, t (77) = 6.16, p < .01.
Discussion
The main three hypotheses were not supported. Using the Self-Determination Theory (Ryan and Deci 1985),
the researcher proposed that students who do not complete the semester length course would have different
levels of motivation compared to students who did complete the course. Surprisingly, this was not supported
for either intrinsic or extrinsic motivation (hypothesis one and two). In other words, both groups of students
had equivalent levels of motivation. This seems inconsistent with Ryan and Deci’s (1985) overall theory of
motivation, suggesting that high levels of motivation are necessary for student success. If the selfdetermination theory is accurate, then other factors must be at work to explain these results.
First, the AMS was administered the first day of the semester and perhaps student motivation is at its
highest point because students at the beginning of the semester have not encountered any performance
setbacks in the course which could lead to questioning one’s own motivation. Therefore students initially selfreported motivation may be inflated. Perhaps students also wanted to cater to the instructor and present
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themselves in an idealized way given that the survey was not truly anonymous (students provided their school
identification number). There could be real differences in what student report and what they actually do.
These explanations represent some sort of self-reported bias and could explain the inconsistency with the selfdetermination theory. There may be some evidence of self-report bias with the results of the amotivation
subscale. Even though there were no differences in intrinsic or extrinsic motivation, there was a significant
difference in amotivation between students who dropped and the ones who persisted. However, the
difference in scores was not in the direction that one may anticipate. Students who completed the course had
a higher amotivation score compared to students who dropped the class. This finding is hard to explain. How
could students who persisted in the course be slightly less motivated than students who dropped the course?
This may only make sense if there was some bias in reporting. Students were unaware that some survey
questions measured motivation while other questions measured the lack of motivation (i.e. amotivation) and
may have continued to answer in a pattern that reflected high scores, maybe attempting to answer in a way
they thought the instructor wanted. Maybe there are some other inherent characteristics about students who
persisted that is different from students who dropped the course, unrelated to motivation, that could be an
important aspect of student success.
Another interpretation that relates to the lack of differences between the intrinsic and extrinsic motivation
scores is important to consider. There may be some value in explaining these results as if the AMS survey was
accurate and there were minimal self-report biases. One alternative explanation may highlight the subtle
difference between having a high level of motivation, intrinsic or extrinsic, and knowing how to use that
motivation effectively. Perhaps it is possible that students who dropped the course are just as motivated as
the students who persisted. Students who dropped the course may have dropped for other reasons than their
level of motivation. Could there be a circumstance in which someone is motivated, but cannot use that
motivation in an effective way to be successful? Students have to know many things to be successful in school
that may be as crucial as motivation, like how to study effectively, or how to read academically, or how to
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employ effective memory strategies. Students could apply their high level of motivation in all the wrong ways
and still end up dropping the course for poor performance. The disconfirmation of the third hypothesis may
support this line of thinking. The third hypothesis indicated no difference in GPA between students who
dropped compared to students who persisted in the course. So both groups have the same level of motivation
and equivalent GPAs. Even though the difference in GPA was not significant, students who persisted in course
did have a passing GPA, unlike the students who dropped the course. In any case, there may be some
fundamental differences between the students who dropped compared to the students who persisted, and
those differences may not be related to motivation.
The fourth hypothesis was confirmed suggesting that motivational levels do not differ between basic skills
students and non-basic skills students. In other words, students who have completed a transfer level math or
English course do not have difference levels of motivation than students who have not completed those
courses. However, the results of the fifth hypothesis indicated that non-basic skills students did outperform
basic skills students on overall GPA and course final grade. This confirms that more school experience does
lead to greater academic success. More importantly, this also adds support to several of the previous
explanations related to the similar motivational levels between students who drop compared to student who
did not drop. In other words, both groups of students may be adequately motivated to succeed in college, but
one group may initially lack the necessary skills to be successful, that is, until they have progressed through
the educational system and gained some valuable experience. Students who have completed a transfer level
Math or English course appear to be doing something quite different than students who have not achieved
that educational milestone; this difference seems to translate into better performance.
The final results of the study indicated there were no ethnic patterns related to motivation or school
performance (hypothesis five), and there was a difference between student self-reported GPA and actual GPA,
which highlights the disadvantage of self-report inventories. The self-reported GPA was greater, which could
indicate student exaggeration or lack of knowledge about their own standing and performance.
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Limitations and Recommendations
Several limitations to the current study have been noted. First, students self-reported most of the data and
those reports may be biased. The lack of anonymity could have contributed to inflated student motivation
scores. In addition, the operational definition of a basic skills student was limited. Basic skills student was
defined as not having completed a transfer level math or English course. This definition only marks the
student’s current educational accomplishments and may not reflect academic ability.
The current study may have some important insights concerning students who persist and student who do
not, relating to motivation and perhaps other educational factors. However, more research is needed to help
clarify the context in which students do not persist in a class, perhaps beyond motivation.
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References
Ryan , R. M., & Deci, E. L. (2000). Intrinsic and extrinsic motivations: Classic definitions and new directions.
Contemporary educational psychology, (25), 54–67. doi:10.1006/ceps.1999.1020
Vallerand, J. R., Pelletier, G.L., Blais, R.M., Briere, M.N., Senegal, C., & Vallieres, F.E. (1992). The Academic
Motivation Scale: A Measure of Intrinsic, Extrinsic, and Amotivation in Education. Educational and
Psychological Measurement, (52) 1003-1017.
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