motivation is an innate feature affected by four factors , namely situation ( surroundings and the external stimuli ) , mood ( the organism 's internal state of mind and emotion ) , goal ( behavioral goal , purpose , tendency ) , and tool ( for goal achievement ) .
humans acquire the necessary motivation for the fulfillment of their goals , needs , or instinct . as for university students ,
equipped with motivation , individual students are activated enough to complete an assignment successfully , achieve a goal , or accomplish some extent of mastery in their field , and thus are enabled to learn attain fruitfully and academic success . thus , motivation could be said to account for human behavior and explain why a particular behavior is demonstrated .
motivated behavior is one with energy , and is purposeful and ongoing . in educational view
educational motivation is viewed as a three - dimensional concept comprising the individual 's set of beliefs about his abilities , intention , and the relevant emotional response needed to display some particular activity .
intrinsic motivation creates appeal for a person to act or react in a certain way , while extrinsic motivation accrues as a result of influence from outside sources driving a person to act purposefully .
psychologists have emphasized the significance of motivation in learning new skills , strategies , and behavior , and have proposed academic achievement motivation as one of the main factors necessary for reaching a more accurate definition for motivation .
academic achievement motivation refers to behavior resulting in learning and ( academic ) achievement . in other words ,
academic achievement motivation is the learner 's tendency to act in a certain way and evaluate his own performance spontaneously .
behavior reflecting academic motivation mostly includes insisting on doing difficult assignments , working hard or making all the efforts to learn , and picking demanding assignments .
therefore , academic achievement motivation , or the so - called intrinsic motivation , is a psychological state which accrues when an individual assures himself that he enjoys enough competence and autonomy to learn a particular subject .
owing to the effect of academic achievement motivation on students success , in recent decades , psychologists have attempted to investigate and identify the factors involved .
findings have shown factors pertaining to personality , family , place of study , and society are influential . as an example , one study showed that personality factors in general and self - esteem and academic achievement motivation in particular affected learning and academic achievement significantly .
others have attempted to work on the integration of learning style , personality trait , intellectual capability , and academic achievement as prognostic factors for academic achievement .
one study has reported that the most important motivation factors for medical students in choosing their field of study have been personality factors such as social status . in pennsylvania school of medicine ,
90% of the students reportedly were satisfied with the educational programs and expressed their willingness to work in academic research centers after their graduation . in another study ,
dentistry students of different genders have mentioned different reasons for the selection of their field of study . in another study , for instance ,
male dentistry students were reported to be motivated by income more than females , while the former were more motivated by their family advice . on the other hand , researchers believe that low self - esteem , low educational quality , low family income , faint hope for future , and married life are the factors which diminish academic motivation . also , motivation loss causes pessimism , anxiety , and depression which , in turn , cause lower academic performance . in accordance with these findings , researchers believe that in order to develop motivation , learning is necessary to occur in an appropriate atmosphere , with the desired facility , and relevant to the learner 's needs .
the issue has been studied to some extent ; however , little research has been done on academic motivation in the fields of medicine .
considering physician 's role in health promotion and regarding the current research vacuum , this study investigated the relationship between academic motivation and academic achievement in medical students in clinical curses .
the study in particular focused on academic motivation dimensions such as task , effort , complication , social power , affiliation , social concern , praise , and token .
in this cross - sectional correlation study , 422 medical students ( from 4th to final year ) taking clinical courses in school of medicine of isfahan university of medical sciences completed the inventory of school motivation ( ism ) proposed by mc inerney and ali .
, there are five choices ranging from strongly disagree to strongly agree ( rated 15 ) .
the inventory investigates eight dimensions , namely task ( four items ) , effort ( seven items ) , competition ( six items ) , social power ( six items ) , affiliation ( three items ) , social concern ( five items ) , praise ( five items ) , and token ( seven items ) .
for instance , considering competition , a student who had chosen strong agreement ( rated 5 ) for all the six questions was considered to be highly motivated for competition .
the reliability of the tool has been calculated by a number of researches[1620 ] and cronbach 's  estimates vary from 0.67 to 0.82 ( mean = 0.76 ) . in our study ,
cronbach 's  turned out to be 0.93 when the tool was administered to 60 students . mentioning the confidentiality of the participant 's personal information , students average scores for the first 3 years of their studies ( a period of taking basic science courses ) and their average scores for the second 3 years of their studies ( a period of studying clinical courses ) were used as the criteria for academic achievement .
both group and individual administration of the questionnaire were applied by the researcher in educational health care affiliated with isfahan university of medical sciences .
students unwilling to participate and the incomplete questionnaires were excluded from the study ( 16.1% ) .
data were analyzed using descriptive statistics indexes such as mean , standard deviation , and frequency percentile .
analytical tests including pearson correlation coefficient and independent t - test were also applied . in order to investigate the relationship between the components of academic achievement motivation and the two average scores , we used pearson correlation coefficient . to compare the components in terms of gender , independent t - test
response rate was 83.9% ( 344 students ) and most of the samples ( 63.4% ) were females .
mean age was 24  1.67 years and most samples had an age ranging from 21 to 25 years .
mean of the first 3-year average scores was 15.51  1.29 and mean of the second 3-year average scores was 15.81  1.10 . also , the mean and standard deviation for the eight components of academic motivation were as follows : task ( 4.25  0.52 ) , effort ( 3.77  0.67 ) , competition ( 3.35  0.82 ) , social power ( 3.16  0.85 ) , affiliation ( 3.61  0.91 ) , social concern ( 3.88  0.56 ) , praise ( 3.87  0.70 ) , token ( 3.28  0.87 ) , and motivation as a whole ( 3.64  0.48 ) .
statistical analysis indicated that there was a direct significant relationship / correlation between total academic motivation and average scores on basic sciences ( r = 0.152 and p = 0.005 ) and average scores on clinical courses ( r = 0.160 and p = 0.003 ) .
statistical analysis of the components showed a difference between girls ( n = 218 , mean of sd = 3.70  0.70 ) and boys ( n = 126 , mean of sd = 3.88  0.61 ) regarding the second component , namely effort ( t = 2.379 and p = 0.018 ) .
there was also a difference between girls ( mean of sd = 3.25  0.8 ) and boys ( mean of sd = 3.52  0.84 ) regarding competition ( t = 2.94 and p = 0.004 ) .
given the importance of academic motivation for academic achievement , the present study , trying to fill the current research gap , was designed to reveal the possible relationship between academic motivation and achievement .
thus , the ism was administered to all medical students from 4th to last year of isfahan university of medical sciences .
students average scores after finishing all basic courses and also their average scores in clinical courses were considered the criteria for academic achievement .
high total motivation scores reflected the students quite high motivation and the task component appeared to gain the highest of the scores .
there was also a relationship between motivation components and academic achievement , which was , to some extent , in accordance with other studies indicating a significant relationship between academic achievement and respect , power , praise , ability , competition , social status , goals , interest in education , and satisfying others . in our study
, the low relationship between motivation components and academic achievement could be attributed to the students inaccurate reports of their average scores or the inaccuracy of the scores themselves .
high scores on task component could be the result of the students greater involvement in cognitive processes and employing more cognitive strategies and supervisions which lead to higher academic achievements .
in addition , a genuine belief that the learning content in valuable per se affects self - regulation and self - efficiency positively . provided that competition component , which showed to have a high correlation with the total average scores and basic sciences average scores , results in students more knowledge ability and expertise , it deserves admiration .
however , if this motivation is merely for gaining a high score and outperforming others , this should be taken as an alarm by both the educational authorities and the whole society . as members of health teams ,
medical doctors need to be skilful enough to play their role in the team ; the study also showed male students had a higher motivation regarding competition and effort components .
this could be accounted for by boys future responsibilities such as housing provision , life management , family supervision , or job achievements .
since the research was conducted on medical students studying clinical courses , generalization of the findings for other academic levels or courses should be done with care .
motivational factors affect academic achievement significantly and since medical students success is closely tied to public health , it is suggested that more attention be paid to motivation components by the authorities .
 background : despite their ascribed intellectual ability and achieved academic pursuits , medical students academic achievement is influenced by motivation . 
 this study is an endeavor to examine the role of motivation in the academic achievement of medical students.materials and methods : in this cross - sectional correlational study , out of the total 422 medical students , from 4th to final year during the academic year 20072008 , at school of medicine , isfahan university of medical sciences , 344 participated in completion of the inventory of school motivation ( ism ) , comprising 43 items and measuring eight aspects of motivation . 
 the gold standard for academic achievement was their average academic marks at pre - clinical and clinical levels . 
 data were computer analyzed by running a couple of descriptive and analytical tests including pearson correlation and student 's t-student.results:higher motivation scores in areas of competition , effort , social concern , and task were accompanied by higher average marks at pre - clinical as well as clinical levels . however , the latter ones showed greater motivation for social power as compared to the former group . 
 task and competition motivation for boys was higher than for girls.conclusion:in view of our observations , students academic achievement requires coordination and interaction between different aspects of motivation . 
INTRODUCTION
MATERIALS AND METHODS
RESULTS
DISCUSSION
CONCLUSION