Motivation is not enough : how career planning and effort regulation predict academic achievement

Italy is among the EU countries with the lowest rates of college graduates. Preventing dropout rates, promoting better educational achievement and improving adult population well-being can all be accomplished by discovering factors that promote higher academic success. Thus, the current study’s goal is to investigate personal factors that may have an impact on academic achievement (in terms of grade point average [GPA] and number of exams passed). We assume that identified academic motivation will indirectly affect academic achievement via students’ perceived competence in career planning and through their capacity to regulate effort in learning. The present study was conducted at the Department of Agri-Alimentar Science and Technology of a huge university in northern Italy. A sample of 348 students (40.5% male; Mage=21.13 years; SDage= 2.14) voluntarily filled an online questionnaire. Analysis on collected data were performed using structural equation modelling using the Mplus software. The obtained results provided support to the hypothesized association between identified motivation and GPA, via the serial mediation of confidence in career planning and significant learning effort regulation (β = 0.10, SE = 0.03, p =.006), and between identified motivation and exams passed through the serial mediation of confidence in career planning and learning effort regulation (β = 0.10, SE = 0.02, p =.009). Our study extended the body of research on the association between identified academic motivation and academic achievement, by investigating the presence of some elements that mediate this relationship. The findings have several practical implications: in particular, they may be used to design specific actions to promote the educational success of university students – for example, the provision of specific training regarding learning effort management, without neglecting the importance of students’ looking toward their own professional future.