ACADEMIC MOTIVATION AND SELF-EFFICACY AS DETERMINANTS OF ACADEMIC PERFORMANCE OF SECONDARY SCHOOL STUDENTS IN ANAMBRA STATE, NIGERIA

Academic performance is the quest of every student. This study explored academic motivation and academic self-efficacy as determinants of academic performance of secondary school students in Anambra State. The study adopted a correlation research design and was guided by three research questions and three null hypotheses tested at the 0.05 level of significance. The population of the study comprised 19,742 senior secondary class two (SS2) students from which a sample size of 1,250 was drawn through a convenient sampling technique. Three instruments were used for the study titled: Academic Motivation Questionnaire (AMQ), Academic Self-Efficacy Questionnaire (ASEQ) and Academic Performance Questionnaire (APQ) and validated by three experts in the field of Educational Psychology. The Cronbach Alpha method was adopted in determining the reliability of the instruments and they yielded alpha coefficients of 0.77, 0.74 and 0.67 for AMQ, ASEQ and APQ respectively. Data collected were analyzed using simple correlation for answering research questions and simple regression analyses for testing the null hypotheses. Findings indicated that both academic motivation and academic self-efficacy have a low and positive relationship with academic performance. It further showed that academic motivation and academic self-efficacy jointly contributed positively to the academic performance of secondary school students in Anambra State, Nigeria. Based on the findings of the study, it was recommended among others that teachers and parents should continue to inspire, encourage and motivate the students for better academic performance.