STUDY ON ACADEMIC SELF CONCEPT AND ACADEMIC MOTIVATION AMONG HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS IN MADURAI, TAMILNADU

Abstract

Our Education system is geared towards teaching and testing knowledge at every level as opposed to teaching skills.”Give a man a fish and feed him one day, teach him how to catch fishes and feed him for a life time.”It is clear that if we teach a man a skill, he enable it for a life time. One’s academic self concept relates to how well the individual does in school or how well one demonstrates an ability to learn the academic context. Brigham (1986) states that self concept is not innate but is constructed and developed by the individual through the interaction with the environment and reflecting on that interaction. Children are naturally motivated to learn when they are infants. A baby’s struggle to reach a toy, learn to walk or eat without the help. This early motivation to learn is later applied to school related activities such as reading and writing. The method adopted for the present study is normative survey method. The academic self concept and academic motivation questionnaire consist of 50 items out of which first 25 items were to find out the level of academic motivation and the rest to find the level of self concept and the items were given to 83 boys and 217 girls in the selected schools in Madurai using the random sampling technique. The results of the study reveal that academic motivation and academic self concept has a significant impact on student learning and achievement. The correlation analysis revealed that there exists a positive signi ficant relationship between academic motivation and academic self concept.