Motivation And Student Performance Essay

CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

BACKGROUND

Academic achievement represents performance outcomes that indicates the extent to which a person has accomplished specific goals that were the focus of activities in instructional environments, specifically in school, college and university ( Steinmayr, Meibner, Weidinger & Wirthwein 2015). It is important because it promotes success later in life ( Areepattamannil & Freeman 2008) and also in current life as well. Most universities in Ghana require good academic achievement as their benchmark thus students are encouraged to enhance or strengthen their learning styles or skills to their acquired knowledge in order to succeed in the field they are offering. In most universities in Ghana,

According to Green, Nelson, Martin and Marsh (2006), students with positive attitude and high motivation are more likely to demonstrate self-regulatory and achievement oriented behaviors and also more likely to perform well in their academics. Graham and Weiner defined motivation as the study of why people think and behave as they do. As determined by Abraham Maslow, when the need for love and belongingness are met, individuals can then focus on higher level needs of intellectual achievement. At this stage, the urge to learn increases (Woodfolk, 2004). According to Deci and Ryan, motivation is a spectrum from which at one end individuals motivate themselves (intrinsic) to the other end where individuals are being motivated by someone or something else (extrinsic). With the former, the individual performs the actual behavior because they enjoy doing it or it could just be as a result of the way something turns out in the end. As for extrinsic motivation, the anticipation of some kind of reward or to avoid some kind of punishment could be the reason for something that somebody does. With the two correlated component being intertwined, it will predict whether students will perform in their academics because people are innately rewarded by competence and control and they need to self-regulate their behaviors to reach these goals (Brenson, 2000). Simply put, we are motivated to