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Multidisciplinary Psychology: A Journal of Collaboration

Abstract

Motivation provides a student with a way to complete necessary tasks. Academic motivation is a form of motivation that applies to academic challenges that a student will face while in school. These challenges can demand the student use extrinsic or intrinsic motivation to complete the task. In the present study, the researchers sought to discover if the academic motivation was similar between students majoring in several different academic programs. For the study, samples of education, nursing, and psychology majors were obtained and each participant was given a battery of instruments that assessed their levels of academic motivation, self-efficacy, and self-esteem. Data was analyzed by the researchers using SPSS. Results demonstrated that individuals who are in education and nursing majors have strong correlations between intrinsic and extrinsic motivation, while psychology majors have strong correlations between intrinsic motivation and self-efficacy. This strongly suggests that education and nursing majors can be driven by internal factors as well as external ones, especially since their degree requires them to get hands-on experience. This is in contrast to psychology majors who usually get little to no hands-on experience, but are trained primarily in the theory of psychology. It is hoped that advisors can use this information to better advise students and also to better match students who are undecided about potential majors.

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