Self-regulated learning theory explains how it is not only the amount of time musicians spend practising that affects achievement, but also the nature of the strategies employed. Because practice is self-directed, motivational effects on its efficiency are especially salient. One construct that has received little attention in relation to practising is self-determination theory, which interprets motivation as lying along a continuum of perceived autonomy. This mixed-methods study investigated links between motivational beliefs and self-regulated practising behaviour through a two-phase design. In Phase One, 677 music examination candidates aged 8-19 completed a questionnaire consisting of items addressing practising behaviour and perceived musical competence; in addition, the Self-Regulation Questionnaire (SRQ; Ryan & Connell, 1989) was adapted to explore intrinsic-extrinsic motives for learning an instrument. Factor analysis of the SRQ revealed five dimensions with partial correspondence to earlier research: internal, external, social, shame-related, and exam-related motives. Three practice behaviour factors consistent with self-regulated learning theory emerged: effort management, monitoring, and strategy use. Results of structural equation modelling showed that internal motivation accounted best for variance in these three types of practising behaviour, with a small added effect from competence beliefs and exam-related motivation. Phase Two consisted of observational case studies of four of the questionnaire participants preparing for their subsequent annual examination. Adolescent, intermediate-level musicians were recorded while practising at home; immediately afterwards, they watched the videotape and verbalised any recollected thoughts. The procedure concluded with a semi-structured interview and debriefing. The videotapes were analysed with The Observer Video-Pro and combined with verbal data; emerging themes were then compared with issues arising from the interviews. The observational aspect of the case studies largely confirmed the importance of three cyclical self-regulatory processes emerging from Phase One: (a) effort management and motivational self-regulation, (b) the role of self-monitoring of accuracy, and (c) the use of corrective strategies, such as structured repetition, task simplification, and vocalisation. The mixture of quantitative and qualitative methods used in the study has uncovered a rich body of information that begins to clarify the complex motivational and behavioural nature of young people practising a musical instrument.

This longitudinal study uses a cultural ecological-transactional perspective (Garcia-Coll, et. al., 1996; Kuperminc, et al., in press) to examine whether relational factors (familism and parental involvement) predict processes of motivation and achievement one year later among 199 Latino adolescents from immigrant families. Parent involvement predicted higher present-oriented and future-oriented motivation, and familism predicted higher present-oriented motivation. Future-oriented motivation predicted higher perceived school competence, while present-oriented motivation predicted lower perceived school competence. Both future and present-oriented motivation increased over time for recent immigrants significantly more than for US-reared youth. Findings suggest that 1) familism and parent involvement relate significantly to processes of achievement motivation among Latino youth 2) future-oriented and present-oriented motivation are distinct from one another and are linked to perceived school competence in unique, and inverse ways among Latino youth and 3) immigration age plays an important role in the motivational processes of Latino youth over time.

Elliot and McGregor’s (2001) 2x2 model of achievement motivation (mastery-approach, mastery-avoidance, performance-approach and performance-avoidance) was used among 143 Latino adolescents to examine how achievement motivation relates to demographic factors (immigration age, gender, grade), perception of academic climate, and academic outcomes and how these associations change over time. Girls reported higher levels of mastery-avoidance achievement motivation and 8th graders reported a greater increase in mastery-approach achievement motivation over time. Perception of a task-focused academic climate moderated the association between mastery-approach achievement motivation and teacher-rated academic outcomes. The findings suggest 1) that Latino adolescents’ gender and grade level relate significantly to their achievement motivation 2) that perception of a task-performance focused academic climate plays an important role in their academic achievement.

<p>One-hundred and seventy-seven high-school students and two-hundred responded to a survey assessing their motivation (goal orientations, expectancies, and values), self-regulation (cognitive, behavior, and emotion), learning processes, academic behaviors, and grades in the favorite and least favorite classes. First, multiple pathways to academic success were examined by comparing how motivation leads to academic outcomes (learning processes, academic behaviors, and grades) via self-regulation in high school and college by using structural equation modeling. As expected, the findings support the stance that there are different ways to achieve academic success. Surprisingly, emotion regulation mediated the relations between motivation and learning processes in favorite classes. Additionally, combinations of self-regulation were examined separately for type of class (favorite/least favorite) and age group (high school/college) using latent class analyses. As expected, these regulatory profiles mediated the relations between motivation and academic outcomes, found with structural equation modeling. Interestingly, students in the attention regulation profile, who were high on attention but low on other regulatory capacities, performed lower than those who tend to be high regulators. However, those who were members in the emotion regulator profile did not differ from high regulators. Behavior regulation was a mediator for college students but not high school students. The findings underscore the importance of considering cognitive, behavior, and emotion regulation in considering the relations between motivation to academic outcomes.</p> / Dissertation

People are always the most precious assets and very hard to be replaced in the enterprises. Therefore, how to retain talented and experienced auditors and keep them in accounting firms is a very important issue that every accounting firm has to face. In this study, we want to understand: (1) If different auditors in accounting firms have influence on career orientation, achievement motivation, job satisfaction and their intention to stay. (2) Whether the career orientation, achievement motivation and job satisfaction of auditors in accounting firms affect their intention to stay. (3) To use job satisfaction as a mediator, analyze if achievement motivation passes through job satisfaction and then affects auditor¡¦s intention to stay. The results show that auditors with higher degrees of achievement motivation have higher degrees of job satisfaction. And if auditors with higher degrees of job satisfaction, their intentions to stay in accounting firms will also be stronger. Therefore, if accounting firms want to keep auditors to stay in accounting firms, first of all, they should recruit employees with higher degrees of achievement motivation. Then, they should try to increase auditors¡¦ degrees of job satisfaction. If these things can be done, auditors¡¦ intention to stay in accounting firms will be higher. If accounting firms can completely understand this point and try to raise auditors¡¦ welfares and improve their working environments, this study believes that auditors are willing to stay in the accounting firms and try their best to do their jobs.

Abstract The reformation within an publicly-owned businesses enables the entity to enjoy greater flexibility and liberty, in terms of employment, finance, accounting, etc., so as to promptly adjust itself to the external environment and successfully accomplish the state-assigned missions. Hence, reformation has become a significant gist as well as a target to achieve in the organizational reconstruction promoted by the government. This study took the staff of Kaohsiung Harbour Bureau, which was right under a reformation by performing the strategic management via education and training, as the subject. It aimed to investigate the effect of these training programs. A framework was built, in which the ¡§Individual Background¡¨ was set as a control variable; ¡§Staff¡¦s Reformation Cognition¡¨ and ¡§Achievement Motivation¡¨ were as independent variables; ¡§Education and Training¡X-Staff¡¦s Participation in Reformation & Communication Management Programs¡¨ as an intervening variable, in order to discuss the impact on the dependent variable of ¡§Staff¡¦s Attitude¡¨ including ¡§Staff¡¦s Affirmative Attitude to Reformation Policies¡¨ and ¡§Organizational Commitment.¡¨ 620 employees in total were sampled out as the research subjects by means of Systematic Sampling, and among which, 488 were determined valid. This study employed the statistical software SPSS for Windows to analyze recovered data. The methods used in data analysis embraced Descriptive Statistics Analysis, Factor Analysis & Reliability Analysis, Independent Samples T-Test, Analysis of Variance, Pearson Correlation Analysis and Hierarchical Regression Analysis. The results obtained in this study are concluded as follows. 1. The staff with diverse ¡§Individual Backgrounds¡¨ show an obvious difference in the respects of ¡§Staff¡¦s Reformation Cognition¡¨, ¡§Staff¡¦s Affirmative Attitude to Reformation Policies¡¨, ¡§Organizational Commitment¡¨ and ¡§Achievement Motivation¡¨. But it is just partially tenable. 2. A majority of the staff don¡¦t give too much favour to the reformation policies, especially those involving with employees¡¦ interests. The staff show far much care for their own rights and interests than for the organization¡¦s. 3. ¡§Staff¡¦s Cognition of Organizational Competitiveness¡¨ has an obvious and positive influence on their ¡§Affirmative Attitude to the Reformation on Organizational Interests¡¨; ¡§Staff¡¦s Cognition of Employees¡¦ Interests¡¨ has an obvious and positive influence on their ¡§Affirmative Attitude to the Reformation on Organizational Interests¡¨ and ¡§Affirmative Attitude to the Reformation on Employees¡¦ Interests¡¨; ¡§Staff¡¦s Participation in Reformation & Communication Management Programs¡¨ has an obvious and positive influence on their ¡§Affirmative Attitude to the Reformation on Organizational Interests¡¨ and ¡§Affirmative Attitude to the Reformation on Employees¡¦ Interests¡¨; ¡§Achievement Motivation¡¨ has an obvious and positive influence on ¡§Organizational Commitment¡¨. 4. ¡§Staff¡¦s Participation in Reformation & Communication Management Programs¡¨ has an obvious and interfering influence on their ¡§Organizational Commitment¡¨ as well as ¡§Affirmative Attitude to the Reformation on Organizational Interests¡¨; has an obvious and interfering influence on their ¡§Cognition of Employees¡¦ Interests¡¨ or ¡§Achievement Motivation¡¨ and ¡§Affirmative Attitude to the Reformation on Employees¡¦ Interests¡¨; has an obvious and interfering influence on their ¡§Cognition of Employees¡¦ Interests¡¨ and ¡§Effort Commitment¡¨. In view of the results of this study, four suggestions are proposed: (1) To truly think highly of employees¡¦ rights and interests; (2) To value employees¡¦ working volition and enhance the efficiency of human resource in an organization; (3) To carry out variant managerial strategies and keep a open communication with employees; (4) To make a proper syllabus for reformation and communication programs, which should incorporate with the instruction of values, such as ¡§Identification with and Devotion to Organization.¡¨

Abstract Human resources have always been recognized as an important factor in determining the core competitiveness of a business. Business groups with a large organization have the relative advantage of flexibility in human resources utilization. As a result, personnel transfer among member companies within a group has become a normal behavior. In this research, we try to identify the key factors influencing the adaptive performance of employees after such inter-company job transfer, focusing on the pressures faced by the transferees and their career potential; i.e., whether the achievement motivation and role stress of transferees will influence their adaptive performance to the job after the inter-company job transfer, Also, understanding that the Perceived organization supporting by transferees may vary when different human resources approaches are adopted, we will also probe whether the Perceived organization supporting is a moderating factor on the adaptive performance of transferees. The targets of this research are employees of business groups in Taiwan who have experienced inter-company job transfer. A total of 406 questionnaires were distributed and 174 valid questionnaires were collected (The adaptive performance of the employee was assessed by their direct supervisors). Diversified statistical analysis has been conducted, including gap, correlation, regression and multiple regression analysis. The following specific results have been achieved: 1. The employment status of the employee after the transfer, as well as the terms and conditions for the transfer, both lead to different results in various aspects of the research: i. Employees transferred to work at the head office have obtained higher scores in various aspects relating to adaptive performance. ii. Employees offered less favorable conditions for the transfer normally have a higher score in the perception of role ambiguity. iii. Employees offered more favorable conditions for transfer normally have a higher score in terms of the Perceived organization supporting. 2. Achievement motivation shows a negative influence rather than a positive influence on the adaptive performance of the transferees. 3. role stress has no impact on the adaptability of the transferees. 4. Perceived organization supporting shows no significant moderating effect in this research.

The study primarily investigates into the following aspects on bank employees under changeable economic environment: (1) the relationships among achievement motivation, commitment to organizational change, job performance, and organization-based self-esteem; (2) the achievement motivation as a mediator to commitment to organizational change and job performance; (3) the moderating effect of organization-based self-esteem to achievement motivation and commitment to organizational change. For the purposes of the study, the questionnaire survey was conducted for the employees of 37 domestic banks in the end of 2007. A total of 112 supervisor questionnaires and 551 staff questionnaires were distributed to 15 banks, including 79 branches or units, where the job performance questionnaires were designed for pairs of supervisor and staff. A total of 105 supervisor questionnaires and 450 staff questionnaires were returned and, after eliminating 49 invalid staff questionnaires, a total of 401 valid sets of questionnaires have been collected. The valid effective questionnaire response rate is 72.78%. The study adopts the following statistical analysis techniques: the confirmatory factor analysis ¡]CFA¡^, the reliability analysis, the descriptive statistics, the independent t-test, the one-way ANOVA, the structural equation modeling ¡]SEM¡^, the correlation analysis, and the hierarchical regression analysis. The primary findings are as follows: (1) There are significant positive correlation between social-oriented achievement motivation and continuance commitment to change; significant positive correlation between individual-oriented achievement motivation and affective commitment to change, normative commitment to change, job efficiency, and job effectiveness, respectively; (2) affective commitment to change has significant positive influence on job quality; continuance commitment to change has significant positive influence on job efficiency, job effectiveness, and job quality, respectively; normative commitment to change has significant positive influence on job effectiveness; (3) individual-oriented achievement motivation as a mediator to commitment to organizational change has partial influence on job efficiency and job effectiveness, respectively; (4) organization-based self-esteem has significant negative moderating effect between individual-oriented achievement motivation and affective commitment to change; organization-based self-esteem has significant negative moderating effect between individual-oriented achievement motivation and continuance commitment to change. The relationships among achievement motivation, commitment to organizational change, job performance, and organization-based self-esteem on domestic bank employees are studied. The primary results mentioned above provide good strategic planning references to organizational changes for domestic banks.

The Conditional Reasoning Test-Relative Motive Strength (CRT-RMS; James, 1998) has shown to be a psychometrically reliable and valid approach for measuring implicit motives and biases in United States and European contexts (James&Rentsch, 2004; Mot, 2003). Extended from previous research, the current study demonstrated the utility of the CRT-RMS with a sample of 186 college students in Korea. The results showed a significant association between the CRT-RMS scores and Korean college students' grade point average. Korean samples also supported the dissociative model in relating with self-report measures. Additionally, mean score differences on implicit and explicit measures of achievement motivation between Korean and US samples provided meaningful information. Implications of cross-culturally valid implicit measures are discussed.

Thesis (M.A.)--York University, 1998. Graduate Programme in Psychology. / Typescript. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 63-72). Also available on the Internet. MODE OF ACCESS via web browser by entering the following URL: http://wwwlib.umi.com/cr/yorku/fullcit?pMQ39231.