The Relationship of Academic Motivation, Self-Regulated Learning and Academic Performance: The Case of Some Schools in Addis Ababa
No Thumbnail Available
Date
2025-10
Authors
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Addis Ababa University
Abstract
There has been a growing need to understand and tackle the academic underperformance of Ethiopian students in their studies in recent years. Such failures have normally been attributed to many factors including psychological aspects of the students and the quality of academic environments. This study aims to contribute to existing limited body of research by examining the relationship among academic motivation, self-regulated learning, and academic performance within some schools in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. Concurrent triangulation was ensured through the parallel convergent mixed method research design involving a quantitative analysis which is then supplemented by a qualitative part. 317 sample of students were selected from two high schools in Addis Ababa. Exploratory factor analysis was done to unveil the underlying factor structure of both the academic motivation scale and the academic self-regulated learning scale. A 3-factor model for the AMS and a 7-factor model for the A-SRL-S extracted through the EFA were confirmed through the CFA and additional K-fold cross validation was also carried out. The quantitative analysis found that significant number of participants demonstrated moderate to high level of academic motivation, while self-regulated learning and academic performance were average. The Pearson correlation analysis discovered significant positive correlation amongst the three main variables, while the multiple regression revealed that self-regulated learning explained the variance in academic performance independently and jointly with the unique contribution of academic motivation being minimal. The structural equation modelling showed that self-regulated learning did not mediate the relationship between academic motivation and academic performance in this sample as the positive indirect effect was not significant. It also showed significant direct effect between academic motivation and self-regulated learning though the direct effect of the independent variables on academic performance was not significant. The findings also revealed significant differences in academic motivation and academic performance as a function of grade level, while significant differences in academic motivation and self-regulated learning were also observed across gender and family structure profiles as well as significant differences in academic performance as a function of father’s education, mother’s education and school type. Significant differences were also found for academic motivation due to age. Through the qualitative analysis, thematic analysis of participants’ interview data confirmed some of the findings from the quantitative part and further elaborated that though students were motivated and had some level of self-regulated learning skills, their motivation slightly leaned towards extrinsic motivation and they seemed to lack refined and organised learning strategies. Furthermore, the participants viewed academic motivation, self-regulated learning and academic performance as crucial interrelated variables that influence one another.
Keywords: Academic motivation, Self-regulated Learning, Academic performance, Mixed Method Research
Description
Keywords
Academic motivation, Self-regulated Learning, Academic performance, Mixed Method Research