Students’ motivation and academic achievement: The case of an engineering preparatory program

Engineering preparatory programs offer applicants who have not attained adequate achievements in their high school studies an opportunity to improve their chances to be accepted to undergraduate engineering programs. This study, which made use of quantitative and qualitative instruments, characterized the motivation for higher education in science and engineering in students attending an engineering preparatory program, and examined the relation between such motivation and the students’ academic achievement. The study shows that at the end of the program, the degree of perceived control (coercion) in students who completed the program was significantly lower than that found in all the students at the beginning of the program. This difference was accompanied by a decline in the number of students attending the program. The gap could possibly be accounted for by the explanation that students with a relatively high initial degree of perceived control apparently withdrew from the program, whereas students characterized by a relatively low initial degree of perceived control and who completed the program probably experienced an increase in their degree of relative autonomy. The study shows that the degree of relative autonomy in students completing the program was significantly lower than that measured in outstanding 12th grade students majoring in science and engineering. The study indicates the importance of autonomous motivation in engineering preparatory programs by showing positive correlation between the Relative Autonomy Index and the students’ academic achievement.