Abstract

This study aims to determine the predictive and explanatory model in terms of university students’ academic performance in ‘General Chemistry’ course and their motivational features. The participants were 169 university students in the 1st grade at university. Of the participants, 132 were female and 37 were male students. Regarding their department, while 89 of them were students at Chemistry Department, 80 participants were at Chemistry Engineering Department. In order to determine students’ motivational stimulants towards General Chemistry, Science Motivation Questionnaire (SMQ) was used. The questionnaire was developed by Glynn et al. was adapted into Turkish by Ilhan et al. The scores that students got from General Chemistry course were obtained from the lecturers teaching them and they were the average academic performance grades measured during the term. The data were analyzed with SPSS 17.0 and AMOS 21.0 software program through Structural Equation Model (SEM). In this research, the first suggested model was tested and as a result of fit indexes, some modifications were done and it was verified accordingly.

Key words: Academic achievement, extrinsic motivation, intrinsic motivation, Structural Equation Modeling.