Academic Self-Efficacy and Academic Achievement of Secondary School Physics Students: The Mediating Role of Academic Motivation

Abstract

The study investigated academic self-efficacy and academic achievement of secondary school physics students: the mediating role of academic motivation in Agbani Education Zone of Enugu State. Four null hypotheses tested at .05 level of significance guided the study. Ex-post-facto and correlational survey research designs were adopted for the study. The population of the study comprised of 2,752 SS II Physics students in the Zone. Simple random sampling procedure was used in selecting 220 SS II Physics students comprising 115 males and 105 females from twelve selected schools in the Zone. Physics Academic Self-efficacy Scale (PASS) adapted from Abdul Gafoor and Muhammed (2006), Physics Academic Motivation Scale (PAMS) adapted from Sinan (2018) and Students‟ Achievement Scores obtained from their promotion examination results from the schools used were used for data collection. The adapted instruments (PASS) and (PAMS) were validated by three experts and tested for internal consistency reliability using Cronbach‟s alpha with the reliability indices of 0.82 and 0.86 for PASS and PAMS respectively. Data were analyzed using path analysis to test the proposed
hypotheses. The findings of the study amongst others showed that academic motivation positively mediated the relationship between academic self-efficacy and academic achievement of secondary school physics students. Based on these findings, it was recommended that teachers should adopt teaching strategies that would stimulate students‟ academic self-efficacy through their academic motivation in teaching Physics.