This study investigated the factorial validity of the Contextual Achievement Motivation Scale, assessing achievement motivation in multiple settings with a sample of 493 undergraduate and graduate students. Exploratory factor analysis identified a four-factor model: School (6 items), Employment/Work (6 items), Family (5 items), Community (4…

The history of ideas guiding the development of an attribution-based theory of motivation is presented. These influences include the search for a "grand" theory of motivation (from drive and expectancy/value theory), an attempt to represent how the past may influence the present and the future (as Thorndike accomplished), and the…

Two new paper-and-pencil tests of achievement motivation were compared to two older measures, McClelland's Thematic Apperception Test (TAT) Need Achievement and the Edwards Personal Preference Schedule achievement scale. The results lend support to past findings; namely, that the various achievement measures would appear to be measuring dissimilar…

The relationship between three quantitatively measured Thematic Apperception Test (TAT) scores in a longitudinal sample is examined for correlations and stability. (Author/DEP)

Describes findings challenging the usefulness of the notion that Hawaiian children do well or poorly in school because they possess or lack need for achievement. (JM)

Achievement motivation was successfully measured among male and female college students by having the students rate eight Thematic Apperception Test cards for similarity and scaling the results in two dimensions: number of persons and degree of strong affect. The Rorschach Inkblot Test was not effective in determining need for achievement. (CTM)

The Personality Research Form and the Achievement Anxiety Test were compared to the Thematic Apperception Test and Mandler-Sarason Test Anxiety Questionnaire. The former were equally reliable and valid measures of motive for success and motive to avoid failure. The ease of administration and scoring would recommend their use to researchers.…

Male and female college undergraduates were classified according to Marcia's identity statuses (achievement, moratorium, foreclosure, and diffusion). Sex differences related to identity status, and relationship of identity status to achievement need, fear of success, fear of failure, and self esteem were also discussed. (CP)

Socialization practices as they are directed at boys and girls and as they relate to need for achievement, especially to differences in levels of need, were compared in a study population of 42 fifth-grade children, 21 boys and 21 girls, and their mothers. Both mothers and children were given the standard TAT measure scored for need for…

The competitive definition of success has fostered the popular notion that women are afraid to succeed. Recent research suggests that this anxiety is generated by the climate of competition, not success itself. Rather than training women to compete, the institutions and values that define success should be restructured. (Author/SK)

The ways in which projective and nonprojective verbal measures of achievement motivation elicit comparable and dissimilar responses in a "Third World" sample of entrepreneurs and farmers were explored as a test of McClelland's theory of economic growth. Results were generally consistent with the theory of achievement motivation.…

The study assessed the cross-cultural validity of the Thematic Apperception Test (TAT) as a gauge of motivation to succeed (as proposed in Atkinson's model of motivation) with 45 Hong Kong students. Although doubts about the TAT's validity were found to be unjustified, the question of whether the test captures the need to achieve remains.…

Discusses achievement motivation among distance education students, and describes a study of Kenyan primary school teachers enrolled in an in-service training course taught primarily through correspondence. A modified Thematic Apperception Test will be used to determine the correlation between achievement motive and performance score in written…

This ethnographic study documents and interprets key school, work, and family life issues in the lives and experiences of a sampling of recent immigrants from the war-torn Central American nations; and suggests a psychocultural theory of achievement motivation. Information was gathered from observation in two urban high schools, interviews with 50…