Abstract

SANCHEZ DE GALLARDO, Marhilde  and  PIRELA DE FARIA, Ligia. Social Motivations and Academic Achievement of Education Students. Revista de Ciencias Sociales [online]. 2006, vol.12, n.1, pp.158-172. ISSN 1315-9518.

The purpose of this research was to determine the differences between high and low level social motivation (achievement, power and affiliation) groups in relation to academic achievement of first semester students in various careers in School of Education at the Zulia University. It used a descriptive, field based, non-experimental trans-sectional experimental design. The sample was made up of three randomly selected careers, out of a total of 11 offered at that university. Each group was formed by 126 students, between 16 and 43 years of age. The following tests were applied; achievement motivation (MLP), affiliation (MAFI), and Power (MPS), by Romero and Salom (1990) that use a Likert scale with 6 answer alternatives. Descriptive statistics and Student T test were used in order to determinate differences in academic achievement between high and low groups in the achievement, power and affiliation motivations, applying SPSS. Significant differences were found between these groups in the affiliation motivation. The academic achievement was higher in high affiliation motivation.

Keywords : Social Motivation; achievement; power; affiliation; academic achievement.