Potential reciprocal relationship between motivation and achievement: A longitudinal study

Abstract

Among the non-cognitive factors that influence academic achievement, intrinsic motivation has been found to be a potential reciprocal factor. The present study aims to determine the causal relationship between other types of motivation and academic achievement. For this purpose, a large-scale data survey, the National Education Longitudinal Study of 1988 (NELS88), was used. The results revealed that test-taking motivation and achievement were bi-directional influences in that grade 10 mathematics scores greatly predicted grade 12 test-taking motivation and that test-taking motivation predicted subsequent mathematics scores with a smaller effect. Moreover, although intrinsic motivation was found to predict subsequent mathematics scores, no bi-directional influence was captured. The results indicate that intrinsic motivation greatly promotes academic achievement and that there is a potential reciprocal relationship between the extrinsic motivations and academic performance of students.