Measuring Academic Intrinsic Motivation in the First Year of College: Reliability and Validity Evidence for a New Instrument

A 25-item self-report instrument was constructed to measure intrinsic motivation for academic work in the first-year student population. The instrument was based on a taxonomy of four types of intrinsic motivators: challenge, control, curiosity, and career outlook. The aim of this study was to provide reliability and validity evidence for the scores obtained from the instrument. First-year students from a large, public university completed the instrument at the beginning of a first-year seminar course. Results from empirical item analyses, reliability analyses, and confirmatory factor analyses are provided. Results suggest that the instrument is a promising tool for the assessment of intrinsic motivation for academic work with first-year students.