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Study on the effect of motivation in students academic achievement: Case study to students of higher education

Bobolaki Foteini

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Summary

Factors which influence university students’ academic achievement are studied extensively in the international bibliography. Apart from personal intelligence and skills equally important for a high academic achievement are the factors that indicate motivation. In modern bibliography about motivation there is an abundance of theories which study goals, outcomes and ways that are used for the desired outcomes, which are usually quantitative methods. Nevertheless, these theories lack the ability to explain the different levels of motivation in students and why this occurs. However, this limitation is not applied to the self-determination theory as a qualitative theory which studies the types of direct environmental motivation and therefore different levels of motivation can be explained.Various results have successfully shown that high levels of self-determination play an important role in the increase of students’ academic achievement, in learning strategies,in studying efforts and in decreasing students’ burnout during the learning process (Fen et al, 2016). Particularly, self-determination theory (Self-Determination Theory-SDT) is a macroscopic motivation theory which was introduced by Deci&Ryan (1985) and distinguishes the goal-oriented behavior or outcomes and indicates the regulatory processes through which outcomes are successfully achieved predicting different contents and processes. Furthermore the concept of inner psychological needs is used as a basis to incorporate the differences between goal contents and regulatory processes and predictions which arise out of these differentiations (Ryan&Deci,2000). Psychological development and well-being without the fulfillment of needs that give goals their psychological strength and the influence which leads regulatory processes for the achievement of human goals cannot be accomplished. According to this self-determination theory there are three basic psychological needs which should be satisfied in order “what” (the content) and “why” (the process) of the goal achievement to be understood so there will be activation, progress and success in different aspects of human life. These needs are: Need for autonomy: This need is referred to free will – where the person feels free to make his/her own choices and has the opportunity to get involved in activities because of his/her own desire and personal interest in contrast to pressure by external factors (people or situations). (note: The meaning of autonomy isn’t defined as the meaning of independence in relation to a person’s personality due to Greek terminology, but on the contrary it is identified with the English definition of self initiation). Need for competence: The person’s feeling of being capable to cope with deeds or responsibilities that he/she has undertaken therefore increasing his/her self-esteem. Need for relatedness: This need satisfies one’s desire to be respected and related with others and feeling their care and compassion. The main purpose of this master thesis is to inquire the multiple factors that influence personal academic achievement . In particular an empirical survey will be conducted through a paper-based questionnaire which will be distributed to Greek university students that happen to be the sample of this present postgraduate study.This questionnaire, apart from the demographic characteristics,will include a scale of self-determination theory so as to meet the main goal of this master thesis. Students’ average progress evaluation will be measured via the 1-10 scale .Questions concerning the correspondence of motivation to the actual performance e.g the frequency of attending lectures to an overall interest in his/her studies etc., as the survey of (Feri et al., 2016) . The results of this survey suggested that the factorsthat lead studentswith a high level of autonomy motivation to poor academic results should be investigated furtherThe data’s collection and analysis will collected and analysed through the IBM SPSS statistics 21 software and Microsoft Office Excel.

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