Validity of Achievement Motivation Measures on the California Psychological Inventory

Abstract

As measures of achievement motivation, the Achievement via Conformance and the Achievement via Independence scales of the California Psychological Inventory, as well as the Achievement Orientation score developed by Carney, were administered to 113 college students. These scores were related to a diversity of achievement behaviors. While some significant relationships were obtained between achievement motivation and achievement behaviors, it was concluded that caution should be exercised in predicting specific achievement behaviors from more general motivation measures. In addition, the three motivation measures used in this study appeared to be measuring diverse aspects of achievement motivation.