Motivation is an inner force that activates and provides direction to our thought, feelings and actions. Two main characteristics of motivation are goal directed behavior and persistence. Motivated people persistently work for the goal until it is achieved. This paper explores the nature of motivation in the context of learning and seeks to relate it to self-efficacy, selfconcept, confidence and self-esteem. Motivation is presented as a 'second order' variable being very much dependent on attitudes as well as perceived goals, needs and value. Ways of assessing motivation are considered and the typical use of questionnaire approaches is criticized heavily. These can measure what a person perceives but the perceptions may or may not correspond to reality. Indeed, the entire mathematical basis of data handling with questionnaires is questioned. A typical questionnaire is then used with a large sample of 600 1 st and 2 nd year science intermediate students, drawn from the province of the Punjab in Pakistan and the data obtained examined statistically. Correlations between the responses patterns in all 30 Likert-type questions were examined using Kendall's tau-b while Principal Components Analysis, using varimax rotation, looked at the questionnaire overall as well as sub-groups of questions. Correlation values were found to be very low, suggesting no factor structure and, indeed, the factor analysis showed that there is no factor structure with the questionnaire used with this large population. Chi-Square, as a 'contingency test', was applied to compare the distributions of responses, gender separated. Gender differences were found only in a minority of questions It is argued that motivation is highly multi-variate and that no simple factor structure is to be expected. It is also argued that, with ordinal data, following no prescribed pattern of distribution, only non-parametric statistics are appropriate. The traditional approaches are statistically incorrect and, as a result, will often miss key insights.

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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.

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