Validity Studies of Three Measures of Achievement Motivation

Abstract

Three studies of samples of university women ( Ns between 50 and 79) and men ( Ns between 28 and 47) were undertaken to determine the concurrent validity of two questionnaires and a TAT test, each purporting to measure achievement motivation. In Study I, Lindgren's NachNaff test correlated more strongly than Ray's Achievement Orientation (AO) test with scales on the Strong-Campbell Interest Inventory (SCII) considered to reflect different degrees of achievement motivation. In Study II, women's NachNaff and AO scores correlated significantly with more California Psychological Inventory scales than men's did. Study III was done to validate NachNaff and AO scales against ratings of stories written to TAT pictures, but with little success. Numbers of both achievement and affiliation themes found in TAT stories were positively correlated with grade-point averages (GPA) for both sexes and with men's AO scores, but when verbal fluency was controlled, correlations were negative or nonsignificant. NachNaff and AO scales discriminated as hypothesized between students' choices of academic majors, but the TAT ratings did not. In general, the three studies found more similarities than differences between the NachNaff and the AO scales, and both scales showed greater validity with the Strong-Campbell and the California Psychological Inventory for women than for men. Results for the NachNaff scale gave some confirmation for its face validity as a measure of a drive for excellence through self-improvement, whereas data for Ray's test tended to confirm its sociological orientation as a measure of striving for status.