The relationships between the motivational beliefs, course experiences and achievement of postgraduate students

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Research and Development in Higher Education Vol. 33 : Reshaping Higher Education

July, 2010, 654 pages
Published by
M. Devlin, J. Nagy and A. Lichtenberg
ISBN
0 908557 80 9
Abstract 

While there is considerable knowledge about the relationship between student motivation and achievement, few studies have examined the relationships between student motivation, their course experiences and academic achievement at the postgraduate level. This paper is based on the findings of the initial correlation analysis of the data on motivational beliefs and course experiences of the 368 postgraduate students in five different subject areas enrolled in day and evening classes at the University of the Punjab, Lahore Pakistan. A questionnaire was developed by adopting scales from the Motivated Strategies for Learning Questionnaire (MSLQ) and the Course Experiences Questionnaire (CEQ) to measure the motivational beliefs and course experiences of students. Academic achievement was measured using the achievement score in the final examination of the course in which the data was collected. The results of the study indicated that students’ achievement scores were positively correlated with their self-efficacy for learning and performance and negatively correlated with test anxiety; whereas the course experience factor and learning community were significantly correlated with achievement score. Significant correlations were also found among almost all motivational beliefs and course experience factors. These preliminary results will provide the basis for more sophisticated further analyses of the data.

Keywords: motivational beliefs, course experiences, achievement