| The purpose of the study was to examine the relationship of social, cultural and personal factors to achievement motivation in predicting academic achievement of Chinese senior high school students. Specifically, the study sought to examine the internal control of success and failure, self-concept of ability, family socioeconomic background, and perceived value of grades which represented respectively, the internal psychological, cognitive, cultural, and social motivational factors in predicting academic performance among Chinese high school students.;The sample for this study was 449 eleventh grade high school students from a private urban high school in Kaohsiung City which is in the southern part of Taiwan. Six scales combined in a questionnaire form were administered to collect the data. The scales translated into Chinese were: (1) Children's Academic Motivation Inventory (Hughes, et al., 1989), (2) Intellectual Achievement Responsibility Questionnaire (Crandall et al., 1965), (3) Self-Concept of Ability (Brookover, et al., 1965), (4) Importance of Achieving Higher Grades than Others Scale (Brookover, et al., 1965), (5) Perceived Evaluations of Student's Academic Ability by Parents Scale (Brookover, et al., 1965), (6) Social Desirability Scale (Crowne & Marlowe, 1964). Additionally, family socioeconomic background was measured by the responses indicating parents' educational levels and occupations. The academic achievement level was measured by the cumulative grade point average for all academic subjects.;Multiple regression and discriminant analyses were utilized to analyze the data. The results of the study were concluded as following: (1) Students who have stronger beliefs in internal responsibility for academic successes and failures tend to be high in achievement motivation; (2) Students who do not consider their abilities to be high tend to have high level of achievement motivation; (3) Students who emphasize solely higher grades attainment to be the first priority in school do not have high achievement motivation; (4) Family socioeconomic background is not a valid predictor for achievement motivation; (5) Students from higher family socioeconomic background tend to have higher academic achievement; (6) Students perceiving high parental evaluation of academic ability have the tendency to have high regard for achieving higher grades than others. |
