Understanding Learning and Motivation From the Perspective of College Students
Anuradhaa Shastri, Department of Educational Psychology, Counseling, and Special Education,
SUNY Oneonta, New York, U.S.A.
Jen-Ting Wang, Department of Mathematics, Computer Science, and Statistics, SUNY Oneonta,
New York, U.S.A.
Sundari Gandhi, Department of Psychology, Maharshi Dayanand College, Mumbai, India.
Abstract: Students’ motivational orientations and learning strategies are two factors that have
consistently been found to be essential in college students’ academic achievement. The higher
education system in India is diverse and ranks third in the world next to China and the United
States. The Motivated Strategies for Learning Questionnaire (MSLQ) developed by Pintrich et al
(1993) is designed to assess how college students learn and what motivates them. The MSLQ has
been utilized extensively in various countries of the world, such as China, Germany, Greece,
South Africa, and Thailand. Little is known about its utility when applied to college students in
India. The primary objective of this study was to examine the motivational orientations and
learning strategies as measured by the MSLQ and its relationship with academic performance
amongst college students in the United States and those in India. The sample included 115
students from a college in the United States and 104 students from a college in India. The pattern
of correlations among MSLQ scales indicated that students were more motivated in the India
group and used the learning strategies more frequently than the US group. For the academic
performance measure, the course grades were converted to z-scores to enable meaningful
comparisons between the two samples. For both the groups the correlations of course grades with
test anxiety were statistically significant. On the whole the pattern of correlations among MSLQ
scales indicates similarities in motivational beliefs and learning strategies for both the US and
India samples providing evidence for the utility of the MSLQ to college students in India.