Achievement and motivation of Latino/a high school students in the Southwest

In the United States, high school retention for both Latinos/as and non-Latinos has been an issue of concern to policy makers. The dropout rate of high school students in the American Educational System has had a devastating effect on the markets due to the current trends in the global economy requiring trained manpower. The importance of high school completion has received national attention in the United States. This attention has recently become the focus for academic research in relation to the perceived importance of retention and the contribution of students who have completed a high school degree, especially among Latino/a will be used as the core descriptor for students of Spanish and Latin American descent, such as Mexican American, Puerto Rican, Cuban, Colombian, Dominican, Hispanic and others of Spanish ancestry or descent) high school students (US Census, 2010). Students of Latino/a decent are one of the largest and fastest growing populations of ethnic minority groups in the American public schools; they are also the ethnic minority with one of the highest high school dropout rates (Hill & Torres, 2010).;The purpose of the study is to explore the differences and similarities among Latino/a high school students level of motivation for achievement, interpersonal strengths, work habits, and gender differences in a school that has 98% of the students on the free lunch program and 99% of the students are Mexican American. Analysis of variances, t-tests, and a regression analysis was used to analyze the data using the Achievement Motivation Profile (AMP; Mandel, Friedland, & Marcus, 1996) and demographic information. The findings from this current study revealed no statistically significant differences in means with motivation for achievement, interpersonal strengths, work habits and gender. Only the subscales of cooperation from interpersonal strengths scale and the subscale team player from the work habits scale indicated significant mean differences and correlations. Suggestions are made for future research.