The research purpose was to investigate the relationship between motivation (i.e., Physiological needs, safety and security, belonging, esteem, and self-actualization) determined through the Need Satisfactory Inventory (NSI), gender (i.e., Male, Female) determined through the demographic survey, and the test score on the Illinois Nurse Aide Competency Examination (INACE), i.e., overall INACE performance and overall INACE performance based on six duty areas (i.e., communicating information, performing basic nursing skills, performing personal care, performing basic restorative skills, providing mental health-services, and providing for resident’s rights) of nurse aide students. The study explored the relationship between variables using a non-experimental, associational, and descriptive approach. All the research questions and hypotheses explored the relationship between variables (i.e., motivation and multiple-choice INACE performance) concerning the mean of overall INACE performance and means of INACE performance based on six duty areas using associational inferential statistics (Pearson correlation coefficient r). Keywords: Motivation, Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, Academic Achievement, Nurse Aide Students, Standardized Multiple-Choice Academic Test, Multiple Choice Questions, Academic Success, and Academic Performance

The research purpose was to investigate the differences between learning preferences (i.e., Active-Reflective, Sensing-Intuitive, Visual-Verbal, and Sequential-Global) determined by the Index of Learning Style and gender (i.e., Male and Female) in regards to standardized achievement multiple-choice test performance determined by the Illinois Nurse Aide Competency Examination (INACE), i.e., overall INACE performance and INACE performance based on six duty areas (i.e., communicating information, performing basic nursing skills, performing personal care, performing basic restorative skills, providing mental health-services, and providing for resident’s rights) of nurse aide students. The study explored the relationship between variables using a non-experimental, comparative and descriptive approach. The nurse aide students who completed the Illinois approved Basic Nurse Aide Training (BNAT) and 21-mandated skills assessment and were ready to take the Illinois Nurse Aide Competency Examination (INACE) in the month of October 2018 and December 2018 at various community colleges across the state of Illinois were the participants of the study. A sample of 800 nurse aide students were selected through stratified (north, central, and south) random sampling out of which N = 472 participated in the study representing the actual sample.