Academic achievement is one of the most important indicators of

learning and understanding in all educational systems. Academic

achievement is undoubtedly a research after the heart of educational

psychologists. In their attempt to investigate what determines academic

outcomes of learners, researchers have come with more questions than

answers. Therefore, identifying factors affecting students' performance in

this course and determining the size of these effects can be critically

important in helping students improve their academic achievement. In

recent time, literature has shown that learning outcomes, academic

achievement and academic performance could be determined by such

variables as: family, school, society, and motivation. The purposeof the

present study was to test the relationship between self-esteem,

achievement goals and academic achievement among the primary school

children.

The study explores the effect of achievement motivation on anxiety

and academic achievement of children. The Test Anxiety Scale for

Children (Sarason, Davidson, Lighthall and Waite, 1958), General Anxiety

Scale for Children (Sarason et al, J 958) and Achievement Motivation

Scale (Robinson and Argule, 1961 cf. Cohen, 1976) were administered to
183 primary school children reading in classes III through V. Children were

grouped into high and low achievement motivation groups on the basis of

median split on achievement motivation score. These groups were

matched on motivational levels. The findings showed that children with

high n-ach performed better academically and possessed significantly low

level of test anxiety. However, they failed to differ in general anxiety. A

disordinal interaction was observed between education and achievement

motivation level on test anxiety. It was further observed that academic

achievement of class III children was negatively correlated with general

anxiety and positively with test anxiety. In case of class IV and V children,

academic achievement was negatively correlated with both general and

test anxiety. The low achievement motivation children of class V showed

significant and positive correlation between academic achievement and

test anxiety.

Educational achievement of students demands urgent attention to

attain their goals. A numerous researches have been conducted to

contribute to determine the predictors of educational success of college

students. A research work always takes the advantages of the

information and the knowledge that had been accumulated in the past as
a result of constant research endeavour by mankind. According to Koul

(2009) research can never be undertaken in the isolation of the work that

has already been done on the problems related to the study propose by

any researcher. Every researcher reviewed the related literature from the

different resources that includes research journal, articles, books,

magazines, encyclopedias, dissertations, abstracts, international year

books, theses and most important in the present era the internet access.

The detailed account of review of related literature pertaining to

variables under study, namely academic achievement, parental

encouragement, achievement motivation and intelligence is presented

here under.

Programmes designed to identify and support children with

outstanding talents, or having a persistent problem of dropout and

underachievement, or programmes to attain a minimum level of learning

and competency, education for all and so on have attracted attention of

educationists on academic achievement of children and factors

associated with it. Academic achievement of children includes both

cognitive and non-cognitive aspects. Generally, academic achievement is

considered as marks or grades obtained in a written examination, which

is nothing but the capacity of a child to recall from memory the answers

to questions. The academic achievement of children is effected by many

social and psychological factors and makes a discrepancy between

expectations and real achievement of children. Numerous instances can

be cited where actual performance of children differ widely from their

own expectations and those of their parents and teachers. The reason

behind it may be present in the current examination system, decline of an

academic climate, and so on. In this way academic achievement is

invariably the outcome of the combined efforts of children, teachers,

school management and the social climate. The importance of children's

ability in achievement is unquestionable. Research findings show that the

academic achievement of children is influenced by the level of motivation

to achieve higher standards. This is an acquired motive which grows

under the effective control of an individual's experience in certain realms

of social interaction. Its presence in children itself is determined by

various factors such as sex, race, and social class (Bartel, 1971; Feather

and Simon, 1973; Horner, 1978; and Mohanan, Kuhu and Shaver, 1974). It

is observed that children with a high self-concept have high achievement

motivation which significantly contributes to their academic achievement

(Mishra, 1992a). The sex and achievement motivation of children also

affects their academic achievement. Female children have a higher

achievement motivation and they secure higher marks in comparison to

their male counterparts (Mishra, 1992b). Panda (1990) observed that

children with an anxiety trait have a negative relationship with their

school achievement. Low anxiety children were better in serial verbal

learning tasks as compared to high anxiety children (Purandare, 1984).

The achievement motivation of children is effected by their age, and their

parent's educational level (Ahluwalia, 1985). The children's grade was

also revealed as an effective variable on achievement motivation. Need

for achievement is correlated significantly with intellectual efficiency,

introversion-extroversion, mathematics achievement (Singh, 1986), and

socioeconomic status (Mansuri, 1986; Singh, 1986; Tripathi, 1986).

Children with high level of socioeconomic status were found to have a

significantly high achievement motivation. The academic performance of

children is positively and significantly related with their achievement

motivation. The present study is aimed to ascertain whether a child's

academic achievement and anxiety vary in terms of achievement

motivation of children, and to explore correlation among these variables

so as to see dependability of various measures.

Active engagement in school is critical to student educational

success (Finn & Rock, 1997; Wang & Holcombe, 2010). Youth must be

actively engaged with their school education in order to acquire the

knowledge and skills required for a successful transition into

postsecondary programs and careers (Wang & Eccles, 2012a, 2012b).

School engagement is also a malleable state that can be shaped by school

context, therefore holding tremendous potential as a locus for

interventions (Appleton, Christenson, Kim, & Reschly, 2006; Jimmerson,

Campos, & Grief, 2003). Currently, and particularly at the secondary level,

increasing student engagement is an explicit goal of many school reform

efforts aimed at addressing problems of student boredom and alienation,

low achievement, and high dropout rate (Marks, 2000). In order to

promote school engagement, we must first better understand the school

factors that influence student engagement. Self-determination theorists

suggest that individuals seek experiences that ful fill their fundamental

needs and identities through their interaction with the environment.

According to this view student engagement in school is influenced by the

degree to which they perceive that the school context meets their

psychological needs (Connell & Wellborn, 1991; Deci & Ryan, 2000;

Krapp, 2005). Stage-environment fit and expectancy-value theorists

(Eccles et al., 1993; Roeser, Eccles, & Sameroff, 1998) further argue that

the failure of schools to meet the psychological needs of adolescents

often leads to declines in academic motivation and interest, which in turn

contributes to decreased school engagement and poor academic

performance as adolescents transition to middle school. Most of the

extant research, however, has failed to capture the dynamic and

interactive nature of engagement. Specifically, few empirical studies have

focused on how school characteristics interact with and influence various

forms of school engagement simultaneously. Moreover, research has not

yet fully explained the actual process that accounts for the effect of the

school environment on student engagement. It is unclear whether

various aspects of the school environment influence the behavioral,

emotional, and cognitive engagement differentially and whether the

associations between the school environment and engagement are

mediated by more fundamental motivational beliefs within the student.

Therefore, there is a critical need for research that takes an integrative

motivational approach to investigate the contextual and psychological

factors that predict school engagement (Fredricks, Blumenfeld, & Paris,

2004). Such research could contribute to the knowledge base that

informs effective school practices and to the efforts of researchers and

educators who do the important work of identifying the optimal

developmental correlates of school engagement. In this study we adopt a

multidimensional perspective, using a large-scale sample of ethnically

diverse students to investigate the longitudinal associations among

school environment, achievement motivation, and school engagement

during the middle school years. In particular, we expand on previous

research by examining whether school environment influences student

engagement in school both directly and indirectly through achievement

motivation and whether these associations differ by student gender,

ethnicity, and academic ability. The study of school engagement as a

multidimensional construct, and as an interaction between the individual

and the school environment, will aid in identifying the particular school

characteristics that foster student engagement and increase our

understanding of the mechanisms through which they operate.

 The Achievement Motivation Scale (Robinson and Argule, 1962,

cf:Cohen, 1976) has been widely used in Indian conditions

(Mohanty,1985; Nayak, 1992; Panda, 1990; Rath, 1991; Ray, 1982; Santra,

1991;). The test is found to be a suitable tool for measuring achievement

motivation of children based on success and failure experiences. The

split-half reliability was established and it was found to be around 0.54 in

Indian conditions (Panda, 1990). The effect of n-ach as revealed in these

studies is, in itself, an indication of the discriminate validity of the test.

The scale was used here with the sole purpose to classify children under

high and low achievement motivation groups.

Achievement motivation is a primary condition to achieve

something. It is a strong motive characterized by ambition, high level of

energy, strong desire for independence. It is a stable learned

characteristics in which satisfaction comes from striving for and achieving

a level of excellence. Achievement Motivation is a drive to excel in

learning tasks combined with capacity to experience tried in

accomplishment, Eggen Manchak, (1994). The concept of Achievement

Motivation was first popularized by Murray (1938). Later David

McClleland and Atkinson concentrated on the study of achievement

motivation. People who strove for excellence in a field for the sake of

achieving and not for some reward are considered to have a high need

for achievement. This need has labeled as n-achievement for

convenience. So the need for achievement or n-Ach was defined as the

desire or tendency to do things rapidly and to accomplish something

difficult to master, manipulate, organize physical objects, human beings

or ideas. This is to do things rapidly and independently as possible to

overcome obstacles and obtain a high standard to excel oneself to rival

and surpass others and to increase self-regard by the successful exercise

talents (Murray,1938). The theory of achievement motivation is

concerned with the interaction of personality and the immediate

environment as a contemporary determinant of aspiration, efforts and

persistence when an individual expects that performance will be

evaluated as success or failure in relation to some standard of excellence.

McClelland (1966) has rightly said, if in a given country the students in the

schools or universities have concern for excellence, that country will show

a considerable amount of progress. So the progress of a country depends

upon its youth /students and, to a great extent, depends upon their

academic attainment. Since Eysenek (1953), research works have been

reported on human motivation or achievement motivation and its

concomitant effect upon classroom learning.

Motivation is generally regarded as the drive to achieve targets and

the process to maintain the drive. Motivation provides an important

foundation to complete cognitive behavior, such as planning,

organization, decision-making, learning, and assessments (Pintrich &

Schunk, 1996). Spence and Helmreich (1983) defined achievements as

task-oriented behavior. Performances of individuals are often compared

against standards or with others for assessments. The differing

perspectives of scholars result in various definitions of achievement

motivation. The original definition of achievement motivation was from

Atkinson (1964), who defined it as the comparison of performances with

others and against certain standard activities. Atkinson and Feather

(1966) suggested that achievement motivation is a combination of two

personality variables: tendency to approach success and tendency to

avoid failure. Bigge and Hunt (1980) defined achievement motivation as

the drive to work with diligence and vitality, to constantly steer toward

targets, to obtain dominance in challenging and difficult tasks and create

sense of achievement as a result. This definition consists of three

elements: the stimulation of personal capabilities, constant efforts with

drive and obtaining of sense of satisfaction.

Achievement motivation forms to be the basic for a good life.

People who are oriented towards achievement, in general, enjoy life and

feel in control. Being motivated keeps people dynamic and gives them

self-respect. They set moderately difficult but easily achievable targets,

which help them, achieve their objectives. They do not set up extremely

difficult or extremely easy targets. By doing this they ensure that they

only undertake tasks that can be achieved by them. Achievement

motivated people prefer to work on a problem rather than leaving the

outcome to chance. It is also seen that achievement motivated people

seem to be more concerned with their personal achievement rather than

the rewards of success.

Achievement motivation is a stable learned characteristic in which

satisfaction comes from striving for and achieving a level of excellence.

Achievement motivation is a drive to excel in learning tasks

combined with the capacity to experience tried in accomplishment.

People who strive for excellence in a field for the sake of achieving and
not for some reward are considered to have a high need for achievement.

This need has labeled n-achievement for convenience.

Motivation is an integral part of every learning process. It manifests

itself in our efforts to learn new skills, to improve and demonstrate them.

A beneficial dispositional motivation may contribute to a child’s

willingness to deeply engage in solving a task and to persist in the face of

difficulties. However, research on structure and effects of goal

orientations remains to be done as regards primary school pupils. The

situation of children at risk for developing school difficulties is of special

interest to us. The emphases lies on social (e.g., having an immigrant

background) and cognitive at-risk factors (e.g., reduced working memory

capacity) that often have been linked to less successful academic

development. In addition, work-avoidance goals of primary school

children and their potentially detrimental effects are being investigated.

Motivational developments cannot be understood without taking

the learning context into consideration. It is increasingly recognized that

the learning context is an important factor in explaining students’

motivation for school and their learning outcomes (Pintrich, 2004).

Therefore, this dissertation focused on how different aspects of the

learning context, in particular innovative learning and the classroom

composition, are related to developments in students’ motivation during

upper primary school. In comparison to more traditional learning

environments, innovative learning environments in which students get a

more active role in their learning process are believed to foster students’

motivation. In this dissertation, it will be addressed whether aspects of

innovative learning are indeed related to developments in motivation.

Moreover, not much research has addressed the question whether

innovative learning is similarly beneficial for different student

populations. Many schools in the Netherlands are quite homogenous in

classroom composition, which implies that students from groups that on

average lag behind in school – students with ethnic minority or socio-

economically disadvantaged backgrounds – are often taught among

students with similar backgrounds. The extent to which teachers adopt

innovative teaching practices may be related to the characteristics of

their classroom population. In order to examine whether these aspects of

the learning context may contribute to existing achievement gaps and to

a potential decline in motivation during upper primary school, a second

aim of this dissertation was therefore to examine to what extent

classroom composition and innovative learning are related to

developments in motivation and achievement.

Another important and effective factor on academic achievement in

this study is Achievement goals. Achievement goals” stands for a

comprehensive semantic system of situations or contexts which have

cognitive, emotional, and behavioral outcomes and learners use them to

interpret their performances (Dweck & Legget, 1988; Kaplan & Maehr,

1999). The concept of achievement goals generally denotes the students’

reasons for doing tasks (Braten & Stromso, 2004). Recently, Elliot et al.

(Elliot & Church, 1997; Elliot & Harachkiewicz, 1996) has proposed a three

dimensional framework of achievement goals. According to this view, the

students with performance-approach goals assume the activity they do to

achieve a goal and demonstrate themselves to others a competition.

Moreover, these students tend to emphasize demonstrating their skills in

comparison with others. Further, those who adopt performance-

avoidance goals concentrate on avoiding lack of skills in comparison with

peers and classmates and their attention is on avoiding failure. Finally,

the outcome of such a goal setting is feeling inefficient. At last, those who
adopt mastery goals insist on elaborating their skills, learning, and

mastery.

Achievement Motivation Level of Primary School

considered as marks or grades obtained in a written examination,

which is nothing but the capacity of a child to recall from memory the

answers to questions. The academic achievement of children is

effected by many social and psychological factors and makes a

discrepancy between expectations and real achievement of children.

Numerous instances can be cited where actual performance of children

differ widely from their own expectations and those of their parents

and teachers. The reason behind it may be present in the current

examination system, decline of an academic climate, and so on. In this

way academic achievement is invariably the outcome of the combined

efforts of children, teachers, school management and the social climate.

The importance of children's ability in achievement is unquestionable.

Research findings show that the academic achievement of

children is influenced by the level of motivation to achieve higher

standards. This is an acquired motive which grows under the effective

control of an individual's experience in certain realms of social inter-

action. Its presence in children itself is determined by various factors

such as sex, race, and social class (Bartel, 1971; Feather and Simon,

1973; Horner, 1978; and Mohanan, Kuhu and Shaver, 1974).

It is observed that children with a high self-concept have high

achievement motivation which significantly contributes to their academic

achievement (Mishra, 1992a). The sex and achievement motivation of

children also affects their academic achievement. Female children have

a higher achievement motivation and they secure higher marks in

comparison to their male counterparts (Mishra, 1992b). Panda (1990)

observed that children with an anxiety trait have a negative relationship

with their school achievement.

The achievement motivation of children is effected by their age,

and their parent's educational level. The children's

grade was also revealed as an effective variable on achievement

motivation. Need for achievement is correlated significantly with

intellectual efficiency, introversion-extroversion, mathematics

achievement and socioeconomic. Children with high level of

socioeconomic status were found to have a significantly high

achievement motivation. The academic performance of children is

positively and significantly related with their

achievement motivation.

Achievement motivation was found to be significantly related to

their home environment. This implied that the pupils' motivation to do

well in academic work is to some extent dependent on the nature of their

home environments. No sex differences were found in the pupils'

academic achievement motivation. The academic performance of boys

was found to be significantly higher than that of girls in the papers on

Mathematics and Science and Agriculture. No significant differences were

found between the mean scores of boys and girls in all the other

examination papers and academic achievement motivation.

The study showed that the academic achievement motivation of

the urban pupils was significantly higher than that of the rural pupils. The

results also showed that pupils from the rural area performed better than

pupils from the urban area in all the papers in the Mock Examination. The

fact that the academic achievement motivation of the urban pupils was

higher, one would have expected their performance to be better than

that of the rural pupils. However, this was not the case. This implied that

there are other factors other than the academic achievement motivation
that contributed to the observed differences in academic performance of

the urban and rural pupils. Nevertheless, the findings suggested that the

pupils' academic achievement and academic achievement motivation are

somehow influenced by their locality.

It was concluded that academic achievement motivation is among

the variables that can be attributed to the variations in the performance

among primary school pupils. The home environmental factors did not

seem to play a significant role in the academic performance of pupils. The

other major conclusion on the findings was that the pupils' home

environment is to some extent accountable to his motivation to achieve

success in academic work. The sex of the pupil influences his performance

only in Mathematics and Science and Agriculture. The geographical

location of the pupil is a determinant factor of academic success and

academic achievement motivation among pupils as suggested by the

findings.

In relation to these findings it was recommended that, in order to

minimize the variations in performance among pupils the investigated

factors must be carefully considered. Ways of creating a more favorable

home environment and motivating pupils must as well be sought.

 Finally, some suggestions for consideration in future research were

made. For example, it was noted that there is need to carry out a

research that would cover a larger sample drawn from all over the

country. It was also suggested that there is a necessity to investigate on

other factors that influence academic achievement motivation.