Household Factors that Influence Achievement Motivation of Female and Male Pupils in Kenya

Abstract

This study aims to investigate the influence of selected home environment and personal factors on achievement motivation of female and male primary school pupils in Kenya. Data were collected from a sample of 88 class seven pupils selected from three schools. One of the schools was in rural area, another in a low income neighbourhood and the third was in a military garrison in the city of Nairobi. The participants responded to thematic apperception test (TAT) which had 4 pictures to measure their achievement motivation also known as need for achievement (nAch). It emerged that there were no significant differences in nAch of pupils from different schools. Though both boys and girls had almost insufficient time to study at home, they also did not differ significantly in their levels of achievement motivation. Further, parents’ education level and the levels of encouragement given to pupils to study were not significantly related to the achievement motivation of both female and male pupils. Other factors not considered in the hypotheses of the study came in to confound the results. An example is the age of pupils, which was found to have the highest and only significant relationship with achievement motivation. There is need to consider a wider sample in future studies