Motivational and cognitive predictors of academic achievement

Until relatively recently, the study of psychological factors involved in academic achievement has chiefly been concerned with trying to delimit the influence and explanatory relevance of these factors in learning processes. However, the complexity of the phenomenon of learning and the new realities in education has made it necessary to propose and contrast integrated models of cognition and motivation. With the emergence of new statistical analysis techniques, more can be learned about the cognitive and motivational functioning of students in their learning processes, and therefore more realistic and effective psychoeducational intervention programmes can be developed. Given all of the above, the objective of this study is to present an explanatory model of academic achievement that considers the main cognitive and motivational variables involved in learning, as well as the relationships that exist between them, in order for the model to be useful to education professionals, and to optimise the processes involved in teaching and learning.

Autorentext

Pablo Miñano is an Associate Professor in the area of Educational Psychology at the University of Alicante (Spain). Juan-Luis Castejón is a Permanent Professor at the same university and he was a research affiliate in the Department of Psychology at Yale University. Their main research focus on the psychological factors involved in learning.