Achievement motivation in Bulgaria and the United States: a cross-country comparison
Date
2008
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Abstract
The present study used the multifaceted Achievement Motivation Inventory (AMI: Schuler, Thornton, Frintrup, & Mueller-Hanson, 2004) to compare the achievement motivation of college students from Bulgaria (n = 465) and the United States (n = 1022) at the facet level. Multiple group confirmatory factor analyses revealed that 11 of the 17 AMI scales exhibited measurement invariance across the two samples. Results from the latent and observed mean differences analyses were consistent to indicate that, compared to students from the United States, Bulgarian students reported higher levels of Compensatory Effort, Flow, Persistence, Preference for Difficult Tasks, Pride in Productivity, and Self-Control; lower levels of Fearlessness and Internality; and similar levels of Competitiveness, Confidence in Success, and Status Orientation. These findings illustrate the importance of establishing measurement invariance prior to making mean comparisons and the usefulness of multifaceted assessment in examining and comparing the achievement motivation profiles of individuals with different backgrounds and characteristics. Implications of the results, limitations, as well as recommendations for future research are discussed.
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Subject
Achievement Motivation Inventory
achievement motivation
Bulgaria
cross-cultural psychology
latent mean differences
measurement invariance
United States
educational psychology
experimental psychology
higher education