Literature review on motivation and performance

S10459-012-9354-3pmcid: pmc3569579how motivation affects academic performance: a structural equation modelling analysisr. Kusurkar, phone: +31-887556819, fax: +31-887553409, email: ucmu@ponding information ► article notes ► copyright and license information ►received 2011 oct 3; accepted 2012 jan ght © the author(s) 2012this article has been cited by other articles in ctfew studies in medical education have studied effect of quality of motivation on performance. Self-determination theory based on quality of motivation differentiates between autonomous motivation (am) that originates within an individual and controlled motivation (cm) that originates from external sources. To determine whether relative autonomous motivation (ram, a measure of the balance between am and cm) affects academic performance through good study strategy and higher study effort and compare this model between subgroups: males and females; students selected via two different systems namely qualitative and weighted lottery selection. Data on motivation, study strategy and effort was collected from 383 medical students of vu university medical center amsterdam and their academic performance results were obtained from the student administration. Structural equation modelling analysis technique was used to test a hypothesized model in which high ram would positively affect good study strategy (gss) and study effort, which in turn would positively affect academic performance in the form of grade point averages. In conclusion, ram positively correlated with academic performance through deep strategy towards study and higher study effort. This model seems valid in medical education in subgroups such as males, females, students selected by qualitative and weighted lottery ds: autonomous motivation, controlled motivation, study strategy, study effort, academic performance, self-determination theoryintroductionmotivation has been shown to positively influence study strategy, academic performance, adjustment and well-being in students in domains of education other than medical education (vansteenkiste et al. Studying motivation particularly in medical students is important because medical education is different from general education in several aspects, some of them being high intensity of study, the requirement to carry out clinical work along with study and the need to follow a highly specifically defined path to be able to qualify to practice as doctors. In a literature review we found that the positive correlation between motivation and performance has not been substantiated strongly in medical education as different studies have contradictory findings (kusurkar et al. The objective of the present research study was to explore the relationships between motivation, study strategy, study effort and academic performance among medical are different theories of motivation; some focus on quantity of motivation and others on quality. Self-determination theory (sdt) of motivation considers quality of motivation to be more important than quantity and describes a continuum for quality of motivation (ryan and deci 2000a, b). This ranges from intrinsic motivation at one end to amotivation at the other end of the continuum, with four types of extrinsic motivation (integrated regulation, identified regulation, introjected regulation, external regulation) in between. Introjected and external regulation, which are low in self-determination, can be summed up together to generate controlled motivation (cm). 1the self-determination continuum (adapted from deci and ryan 2000)sdt advocates that the more self-determined or autonomous the motivation, the better are the observed outcomes (ryan and deci 2000a, b): namely deep learning (vansteenkiste et al. The present study we measured autonomous motivation (am) and controlled motivation (cm) as described by sdt (vansteenkiste et al. Has been reported in primary, secondary and college education to influence academic performance through study effort as a mediator (vansteenkiste et al. We did not find any articles studying the effect of motivation on learning and academic performance. The variables we used in our sem analyses were relative autonomous motivation (ram), good study strategy (gss), study effort and academic performance (see fig. Ram meant how much of the student’s motivation originated from within himself or herself (autonomous) as compared to that originating from external factors (controlled; vansteenkiste et al. 2hypothesized model for motivation influences performanceour hypotheses were:a relative autonomous or self-determined motivation leads to a good study strategy and high study effort, which leads to better academic performance, i. The study strategy mediates the influence of motivation on academic overall process and direction of effects are similar among males, females and students admitted through qualitative selection procedure or weighted lottery selection, the relative influence of different factors being also wanted to study the difference between how the model works in males and females as it has been found before that males have higher cm and lower am than females (vansteenkiste et al. In addition, we wanted to study the difference between how the model works in students selected through qualitative selection and weighted lottery, as students selected through qualitative selection have been found to have higher motivation than those selected through weighted lottery (hulsman et al.

Literature review on motivation theories

2):does relative autonomous motivation positively affect good study strategy used by students and the study effort? Usedthe electronic survey designed included some personal data questions, the academic motivation scale (ams—cronbach’s alpha ranging from 0. 1992, 1993) to measure the quality of motivation of the students as described by sdt and the revised study process questionnaire-2 factors (r-spq-2f—cronbach’s alpha ranging from 0. Academic performance was collected in the form of gpa and european credits (ecs) obtained according to european credit transfer lesmotivational variables we used the variables autonomous motivation (am), controlled motivation (cm) and relative autonomous motivation (ram). Am was a measure of the amount of self-determined motivation meaning the motivation which came from within the student. Am was calculated by summing up the average scores on intrinsic motivation and identified regulation subscales of the ams. Cm was a measure of motivation which originated outside of the individual, meaning that it was determined by external factors or reasons. Since am and cm exist simultaneously within an individual, we wanted to create a single score on the relative self-determined motivation, which is put forth as the optimal type of motivation by sdt. Ram was calculated to get a single variable of motivation which incorporated both am and cm in order to get an idea of the overall self-determined or autonomous motivation. It was calculated by assigning weights to intrinsic motivation (+2), identified regulation (+1), introjected regulation (−1) and external regulation (−2), depending on the placement of this type of motivation in the sdt continuum (see fig. We also collected self-reported data on study effort (how many hours the student devoted to self-study) among the ic performance variables all course results obtained by the participating students during one semester (september 2009-january 2010) were obtained from the student information systems of the medical school. Persistent efforts towards learning are as driven by motivation as best gpas of the students from years 2 and 3 were mainly based on courses with cognitive assessments or knowledge tests, whereas gpas from the students from years 4, 5 and 6 mostly include courses with a mixture of cognitive and knowledge assessments and clinical performance appraisals. We did not assess cognitive and clinical performances separately as clinical performance grades are only available for the subgroup of students in the last phase of the medical study tical analysesthe software programme spss version 15. Multiple regression analysis was planned to determine whether age, gender, year of curriculum and method of admission affected the motivational variables and to compare the model between the groups among whom we found significant effects. We found that students selected through qualitative selection had significantly higher am and ram and significantly lower ecs and amotivation as compared to those admitted through weighted lottery (see table 3). Found in the present study that relative autonomous motivation is positively associated with the use of a good study strategy by the students, which is positively associated with high study effort and better gpa (see fig. The present study, we found that relative autonomous motivation is positively associated with the use of a good study strategy by the students which is positively associated with higher study effort (also found by wilkinson 2007, though not through sem analyses; wilkinson et al. Relative autonomous motivation is significantly associated with higher gpa (also found by sobral 2004), but the relation seems to be more indirect, i. The positive correlation of autonomous motivation with deep study strategy (sobral 2004) and deep study strategy with academic performance is supported by in other studies in medical education (sobral 2004; mcmanus et al. We had expected to find significant positive association between relative autonomous motivation and study effort, but did not find expected, differences were found in the nature of relationships between males and females and qualitative and weighted lottery selection subgroups. Gs of other studies in medical education support the differences found between males and females in the present study in the quantity of motivation (females > males; kusurkar et al. 1979) and quality of motivation (females have higher autonomous or intrinsic and lower controlled or extrinsic motivation than males; kusurkar, croiset and ten cate (submitted); buddeberg-fischer et al. The differences between the qualitative and weighted lottery selection subgroups in the quantity of motivation (qualitative selection > weighted lottery selection) are also supported by similar findings in other studies (hulsman et al.

Thus, our study also adds to the study of differences between medical students selected by qualitative and weighted lottery we found acceptable evidence for our proposed model which was based on a priori hypothesis derived from ationsour study provides acceptable evidence that the quality of motivation is important in determining good performance among medical students through good study strategy and high effort. These findings imply that we should specifically attempt to target enhancing autonomous motivation among medical students in order to encourage an attitude towards deep learning and high effort and finally good ths and limitationsone of the strengths of our study is that we used a structural equation modelling approach and have found a well-fitting model for the relationship between motivation, study strategy, effort and academic performance. However, given the fact that the responding population seemed representative of the medical student population in general, and that the absolute number of responses allows for structural equation analysis, we consider reporting our findings to add to the existing literature. It can very well serve as a good starting point for more studies on the same aspect in medical sionrelative autonomous motivation positively affects academic performance through deep strategy towards study and higher study effort. This model seems valid in medical education in subgroups such as males, females, students selected by qualitative and weighted lottery selection ledgmentswe would like to thank amro elkenawy from the student administration of vumc amsterdam for compiling the data on students’ academic ct of l approvalmedical ethics review boards of university medical centers in the netherlands usually exempt educational research from requirement of ethical approval, as the national legislation focuses on medical research carried out with patients. The effects of instructors’ autonomy support and students’ autonomous motivation on learning organic chemistry: a self-determination theory perspective. Motivation as an independent and a dependent variable in medical education: a review of the literature. On the assessment of intrinsic, extrinsic and amotivation in education: evidence on the concurrent and construct validity of the academic motivation scale. Article | pubreader | epub (beta) | pdf (262k) | ture review of concepts and theories of imer: this essay has been submitted by a student. Motivation; a key strategy in human resource management has helped practitioners largely enough to subject the term "motivation" for a discussion. 2004), asserted that employee motivation plays a vital role in the management field; both theoretically and practically. It is said that one of the important functions of human resource manager is to ensure job commitment at the workplace, which can only be achieved through motivation (petcharak, 2002). On these reasoning, this paper shall include analytical and empirical studies to reveal the discrepancies and feasibility aspect of the domain, as rai (2004) put forward; motivation is crucial for good performance and therefore it is increasingly important to study what motivates employees for better performance. This section offers a review of literature, which explores the concepts, types and theoretical aspects including content and process theories, theories of motivation developed in other psychological areas as well as empirical evidences in organizational tion is defined as "a human psychological characteristic that add to a person's degree of commitment. Bartol and martin (1998) relate motivation to the force that stimulates behavior, provide direction to behavior, and underlies the tendency to prevail. In other words individuals must be sufficiently stimulated and energetic, must have a clear focus on what is to be achieved, and must be willing to commit their energy for a long period of time to realize their aim in order to achieve r, other than motivation being a force that stimulates behavior, vroom (1964) emphasized on the 'voluntary actions'. Similarly kreitner and kinicki (2004) assumed that motivation incorporate those psychological processes that create the arousal, direction and persistence of voluntary actions that are goal differently from the other definitions, locke and latham (2004) identified that motivation influence people's acquisition of skills and the extent to which they use their ability. According to the authors "the concept of motivation refers to internal factors that impel action and to external factors that can act as inducements to action. The three aspects of action that motivation can affect are direction (choice), intensity (effort), and duration (persistence). Motivation can affect both the acquisition of people's skills and abilities; and also the extent to which they utilize their skills and abilities" (locke and latham, 2004). 2 intrinsic and extrinsic ing lakhani and wolf (2005), lakhani and von hippel (2003) and lemer and tirole (2004), the current scholarly thinking favors a framework that considers two components of motivation given by intrinsic and extrinsic components. Accordingly, lawler (1969) intrinsic motivation is the degree to which feelings of esteem, growth, and competence are expected to result from successful task performance. This view bounds intrinsic motivation to an expectancy approach and expectancy theory which clearly indicates that intrinsic and extrinsic motivations summate (porter &lawler, 1968).

As per to the author this definition of intrinsic and extrinsic motivation is based on the individual perception of the individual perception of task and his or her reasons for engaging in it. Conversely, extrinsic motivators although they may be dependent on the work, they are not logically an inherent part of the rmore, in line with the concept of intrinsic and extrinsic motivation, de charms (1968) suggest that external rewards might undermine intrinsic motivation. De charms (1968) further argued that intrinsic and extrinsic motivation may interact, rather than summate that is the introduction of extrinsic rewards for the behaviors that was intrinsically rewarding may decrease rather than enhance the overall motivation. The locus of causality for his behavior changes from self to the external reward and thus the individual's perception of self-control, free choice, and commitment deteriorate and hence do his addition frey (1997) note that high intrinsic work motivation evolving from work which is interesting involves the trust and loyalty of personal relationships and is participatory. However, under certain circumstances, intrinsic motivation can be diminished, or ''crowded-out'' by external interventions like monitoring or pay-for-performance incentive schemes. This was also supported by frey and jegen (2001) who reviewed the literature on intrinsic motivations and found that the evidence does suggest that incentives sometimes do ''crowd-out'' intrinsic motivations. Commands are most controlling in the sense that they seize self-determination from the agent, while rewards might still allow autonomy of maximization of employee's motivation to attain the organization's goals can only be obtained through a complete understanding of motivation theories (reid 2002). There is a wide variety of theoretical frameworks that have been developed in the attempts to explain the issues related to motivation. Stoner, edward and daniel (1995) has described two different views on motivation theory, given by the earliest views and the contemporary approach which can further be subdivided into content and process theories. The earliest views of of the earliest views of motivation is frederick w taylor et al. Taylor (1911) with regards to employee motivation proposed a paternalistic approach to managing workers and argued that workers are "economic men" and in order to motivate them, workers should be paid higher wages. The author also argued that the higher is the wage rate, the higher will be the level motivation and productivity. In other words workers should be paid according to the number of units produced in order to motivate them to the other hand in line with building on the concept of motivation elton mayo (1953) came up with the human relations approach whereby the emphasis is laid on non-economic motivators. According to bassett-jones and lloyd (2005), content theory assume a more complex interaction between both internal and external factors, and explored the circumstances in which individuals react to different types of internal and external most well known content theory of motivation is the hierarchy of needs which has been put forward by abraham maslow (1943). According to the author, people are motivated by these three groups of core needs and he asserted that as one level of need is satisfied another takes over but if a need is not satisfied on a continuous basis, the individual may decide to give such a need a low eless, while maslow and alderfer presented the concept of motivation in a hierarchy, mcclelland (1961, 1971), ignored the concept of hierarchy and put forward a theory known as the acquired need theory that emphasize on three types of needs namely, need for affiliation, need for achievement and need for power. 1959) sought to understand how work activities and the nature of an employee's job influence motivation and performance. The authors examined motivators and hygiene factors in the workplace and proposed that where job satisfaction was high there would be corresponding high motivation. Herzberg (1959) further argued that work motivation is influenced to a large extent by the degree to which a job is intrinsically challenging and provides opportunities for recognition and r despite that herberg's theory has been widely accepted by managers (e. For example reid (2002) argued that the work of herzberg is an examination of job satisfaction rather than motivation of employees. 1971) contradict herzberg proposition that motivation factors increase job satisfaction and hygiene factors leads to job dissatisfaction and points out that his study and others indicated that the employees received job satisfaction and job dissatisfaction from both the motivating and the hygiene factors. The authors argued that despite herzberg's proposition that money is not a satisfier, this survey along with others proved that money is the most motivating addition arnolds and boshoff (2002) conducted research in a number of firms in south africa to investigate the impact of need satisfaction on self-esteem and of self-esteem on performance intention as suggested by alderfer (1972). According to the empirical results, self-esteem was found as a significant determinant of employee job performance and results showed that providing frontline employees opportunities to perform challenging work, allow participation and teaching them new things on the job will enhance their self-esteem as well as their performance intentions (arnolds and boshoff, 2002). The authors argued that the experiment also showed that the satisfaction of fringe benefits does not have a significant impact on performance intentions via self-esteem as an intervening variable and this support herzberg's et al.

2009) the content theories emphasize on specific factors that motivate workers with regards to certain necessities and aspirations, while the process theories emphasize on the processes and the psychological forces that have an impact on motivation. The process theories provide more realistic principles with regards to motivation techniques and therefore they are more useful to managers compared to content theories (viorel et al. 1964), in the interest to study motivation developed an alternative to the content theories which is known as the expectancy theory. Moreover, porter and lawler (1968) expanded vroom's work to identify the role of individual differences for example employee abilities and skills and the role clarity in relating job effort to actual job performance. Porter and lawler also explained the relationship between performance and satisfaction and argued that this relationship is mediated by the extent and quality of the rewards that employees receive in return for their job addition to expectancy theory adams (1963), developed the equity theory to clarify how employees respond cognitively and behaviorally with regards to unfairness in the workplace. Adams suggested that employees develop beliefs about what constitutes a fair and equitable return for their job performance and contributions therefore employees always compare their efforts and the associated rewards with that of other employees and in case there is a situation whereby there is an element of injustice or unfairness there is an imbalance that is a perception of inequity will result. The author argued that this is because a goal is said to be the objective or aim of an action and having a specific goal result to improved performance. Employees with specific hard goals tend to perform better compared to those with vague goals and that a goal is a standard for assessing an individual's performance. Moreover, latham also suggested that "to the extent that the goal is met or exceeded, satisfaction increases; and conversely, to the extent that performance falls short of the goal, one's satisfaction decreases". Content theories have tended to focus on needs of people and process theories have focused on factors motivating people, adair (2006) have brought some new issues in the field of employee motivation and developed a new theory of motivation known as the fifty-fifty rule. Unlike the authors of content and process theories, adair is of view that motivation lies both within an individual as well as external to the individual. According to the author, 50 percent of motivation lies within a person and fifty percent lies outside the person however adair points out that this theory does not assert for the exactly fifty-fifty proportion in the equation but it only emphasized on the idea that a considerable part of motivation lies within a person while a considerable part lies outside and beyond its control. Therefore in line with this argument, the author pointed out that employees with low wage residuals might be expected to experience inequity or unfairness relative to similar others and exhibit negative er arnolds and boshoff (2002) conducted research in a number of south african firms whereby they analyzed the application of the expectancy theory put forward by vroom (1964) and they argued that the satisfaction with pay and fringe benefits does not impact on the performance intentions of frontline employees because these need satisfactions do not have any esteem valence for these employees. According to the authors the study showed that an information system, facilitating goal setting and feedback can play a vital role in improving individual performance levels. Stansfield and longenecker also found that employee motivation and performance were both improved in the study, which lead to better organizational performance and pro¬tability. These theories, it can be said that work motivation has been characterized by dimensions such as interesting job, ability to perform, recognition, adequate pay, and feedback on performance (dwivedula and bredillet, 2010). 2004) it is also very important to consider differences in the psychological states, or mindsets that can accompany motivation. 2004) argued that motivation theories developed in other areas of psychology render a convincing case that motivation is multidimensional. Huggins proposed that individuals have two types of motivational systems given by a system that regulates rewards (promotion focus) and one that regulates punishments (prevention focus). 4 motivational practices in organizational ing to islam and ismail (2008) the theories mentioned continue to offer the foundation for organization and managerial development practices to a large extent. Along with the above theories, during the last decade, based on employees' motivation many empirical studies have been carried out (islam and ismail, 2008). 1999) carried out research in small food manufacturing businesses whereby respondents were asked to complete, using a five-point likert scale about how they felt motivated and then how satisfied they were with their jobs and the authors found that the degree of positive motivation was high. According to the author more than half of employees in the sweden manufacturing companies are stimulated through gifts on various occasions (birthdays, holidays), free meals at work, health insurance coverage, work, clothes, equipment, travels for the company employees, days off, recognition and good working conditions and therefore the author pointed out that the employees of the manufacturing companies consider non-financial motivation tools to be more ally, dwivedula and bredillet (2010), in line with the authors cummings and blumberg (1987) pointed out that studies from the manufacturing sector emphasize on the importance of providing autonomy, and skill variety to the employees which are otherwise absent.