Relationships Between School Motivation, Approaches to Studying, and Attainment, Among British and Hungarian Adolescents

S ummary . Samples of 614 British and 579 Hungarian pupils aged 13–17 completed an inventory covering 20 sub‐scales of school motivation and approaches to studying. Indices of attainment in arts and science were also obtained. The factor structure of the inventory proved to be remarkably stable across nationality and sex, with school motivation accounting for two factors (the emotional and moral domains, and the cognitive domain) and approaches to studying dividing into three (meaning, reproducing, and organising/strategic). Correlations of the scales with attainment were obtained, along with multiple regression analyses. The overall inventory provides valuable information to teachers in the form of not just a single index of school motivation but also a profile of scores indicating different types of motive and ways of tackling school work.