The Relationship between Intrinsic Motivation and Academic Achievement of Male and Female Students at University Level in Pakistan: A Case Study

Psychologists and educators believe motivation as a significant factor that has an effect on student learning and accomplishment. It is a general argument that suitable motivational orientations make learning easy while unsuitable ones obstruct it. Intrinsic motivation is a kind of motivation that approach from individual factors within a person rather than merely from some outside motives. Intrinsic motivation shows learners commitment in learning for its personal interest. In Pakistan, perhaps little research has yet been done in this field. The study was conducted to find the relationship between intrinsic motivation and academic achievement of students at university level in province Punjab, Pakistan. The main objectives of study were, to finds out profiles of students with respect to intrinsic motivation and academic achievement, to find out difference among male and female students on intrinsic motivation and academic achievement. The population of the study comprised of 600 male and female students studying in universities of Punjab, Pakistan. The sample consisted of 300 male and 300 female students of universities selected through multistage sampling procedure. In order to measure intrinsic motivation of students, an adapted version of Harter’s (1981) intrinsic motivation scale was used. Academic achievement of students was measured through their university results. The scores on each variable were calculated and summarized through mean and standard deviation scores. The significance of difference between mean scores of male and female and BA and B.Sc students on the study variables were calculated by t-test (two-tailed). The relationship between intrinsic motivation and academic achievement was computed by using Person ‘r’. The results of the study revealed no gender difference. Both male and female were found to be equal in intrinsic motivation and academic achievement.