A Study on Motivational Incentives for Secondary Students to Attain Academic Achievement in Rural Bangladesh

Abstract

Academic motivation has long been recognized as one of the important goals of education the world over. The aim of this study was to identify incentives that motivate and factors that demotivate students. It also aimed to investigate the relationship between academic motivation and achievement of students, in relation to self-determination theory, existence relatedness growth theory and dual structure approach to motivation. This study used the sequential exploratory type of mixed method research design combining interview and survey methods for data collection that targeted a population of 150 students in secondary schools, especially from rural area in Bangladesh. Following the purposive sampling to identify research unit, 108 students were randomly selected as participants. Data analysis procedure involved Braun and Clarke’s (2006) six-phase framework and interactive model of Miles & Huberman (1994) for thematic analysis. After that the descriptive and inferential statistical analysis for quantitative data analysis were done. In order to establish the correlations between independent and dependent variables, in this study, Pearson’s correlation coefficient was calculated. The key findings are the major motivating and demotivating factors in schools. Five sub-themes include teacher as motivator, socialization in classroom, recognition of performance, rewards and government’s intervention constitute the reasons of student’s motivation while the considerable factors of student’s demotivation are inadequate subject wise teacher, less friendly teacher, poor classroom equipment, lack of discipline and punishment The other significant finding is that motivating factors are more influential to impact student’s academic achievement than demotivating factors. Interestingly, the correlation analysis revealed that mainly intrinsic factors such as ‘joy in learning’ and ‘self-willingness for learning’ are most correlated to academic performance. Therefore, the study concluded that student motivation has a positive influence on academic performance. The researcher recommended that future studies should focus on examining the impact of government interventions in promoting student’s motivation; secondly, researchers should prioritize study on intrinsic incentives for students; thirdly, the role of gentle discipline in student’s engagement can be explored; and lastly, research can be conducted about the impact of school culture on student’s academic achievement.