Motivational Orientations in Relation to Academic Performance among Adolescents

Psychological theory has traditionally been more concerned with intrinsic than extrinsic motivation, in attempts to explain behaviors such as exploration and challenge seeking, which has no clear external reinforcements. Conceptions of extrinsic motivation include orientations toward money, recognition, competition and the dictates of other people. Similarly, conceptions of intrinsic motivation include challenge, enjoyment, personal enrichment, interest and selfdetermination. Investigation into stable intrinsic and extrinsic orientations can have important consequences for psychological research. A great deal of social psychological research has documented striking differences in task performance between intrinsically and extrinsically motivated individuals. Therefore, the present investigation was aimed to study External and Internal Motivational orientation in relation to the academic performance among adolescents. For this purpose Motivational orientation was assessed by using Work preference Inventory by Amabile et al. (1994) and for academic performance, student's last year aggregate percentage was taken. The test was administered on 110 students (55 males and 55 females) in the age range of 18-21 years. Descriptive statistics and Correlational analysis was used to analyze the data. Results will be discussed.