Differences in Academic Motivation among Elementary School Children with Respect to Parents’ Occupation

The present research has been carried out to differences in academic motivation of elementary school children across the occupational status of parents. The sample of the study comprised of randomly selected 400 elementary school children from schools located in Haryana and Bihar. The subjects were selected from sixteen schools, 200 children from each state (four Governments and four Private schools). Academic Motivation Scale (AMS) by Vallerand (1992) and self-designed questionnaire were used to collect data. The result of the study highlighted that means score comparison of elementary school children whose mothers’ were in-service they reported all the positive dimensions of academic motivation at a higher level as compared to respondents whose mothers’ were housewives in urban and rural areas of Haryana and Bihar. Results also indicated that means comparison shows that elementary school children whose father’s were in-service they reported positive dimensions of academic motivation at a higher level as compared to respondents whose father’s were laborers or farmers in an urban and rural areas of Haryana and Bihar. The present study also revealed that elementary school children whose fathers were in-service reported academic motivation at higher mean scores as compared to respondents whose fathers were laborers or farmers in both urban and rural areas of Haryana and Bihar.