Measuring and Relating Senior High School Students’ Achievement Motivation towards Mathematics Lessons

Losing motivation to learn has serious consequences on students' academic pursuance (Bridgeland, DiIulio, and Morison, 2006), but the concept of motivation has not been critically scrutinized to measure its effect in the study of Mathematics in Ghana. This study explored the senior high school students' achievement motivation towards Mathematics lessons in Ghana. The study aimed to investigate the level of achievement motivation of senior high students in Mathematics, and to establish the significance or otherwise of "gender", "class level", "age", "guardians education", and "programme of study" to students' achievement motivation. The survey design was employed for the study which involved 295 students. The Achievement Motive Scale (AMS) developed by Ellez (2004) was adapted in the design of a questionnaire for the study. The descriptive statistics, t-test and one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) were used in the analyses. The analyses revealed that the level of students' achievement motivation towards Mathematics lesson is 3.59 out of 5, which is interpreted as a "suitable" level categorized as mid-high by the AMS adopted for the study. Also, gender, class level and programme of study were significant factors influencing students' achievement motivation level; however, age and guardians' educational background were not significant. Based on the findings, suggestions for increasing students' achievement motivation towards Mathematics curriculum have been outlined.