Effect Of Different Motivational Factors On The Academic Performance Of Foundation Year Students At The University Of Sharjah

Objective: The purpose of this research is to investigate the relationship between foundation-year GPA -as a measure of academic performance- with different types of motivating factors towards studying medicine among students at the University of Sharjah. Methodology: the study used a cross sectional design with a target population of 158 students at the university of Sharjah college of Medicine, 45 students were included in the study by means of convenience sampling, measurement of intrinsic and extrinsic factors’ prevalence was conducted by a self-designed, self-administered questionnaire with elements from the Intrinsic Motivation Inventory (IMI). Questionnaires were administered prior to a PBL session conducted in December 2018. 13 responses were discarded due to incomplete responses. Data entry and analysis was done using SPSS 25. Results: out of 32 respondents (43.8% of which were males and 56.3% females), findings suggest a stronger correlation between extrinsic factors (0.208) -materialistic factors more specifically- and higher academic performance in relation to intrinsic factors (-0.191). A strong association between intrinsic and extrinsic motivational factors was found indicating their confounding influence with no apparent extreme predomination (p<0.01). No significant correlations were found relating specific motivational factor prevalence with gender. Conclusions: extrinsic motivational factors play a bigger role in enhancing medical students’ academic performance than intrinsic factors.