A Review of Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA) on the Motivation Instrument among Secondary School Students

Abstract

Motivation is a crucial psychological construct that influences students’ engagement, persistence and academic achievement, particularly at the secondary school level. This study aims to validate the instrument of motivation among secondary school students. Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA) for this study involved a total of 130 Form Four students who were selected using a random sampling technique. This study uses an instrument from the Work Preference Inventory (WPI) built by Amabile, T.M (1994). This instrument consists of 30 items involving two constructs, which is intrinsic motivation (challenge and enjoyment) and extrinsic motivation (external and reward). The data were analyzed descriptively by access Alpha Cronbach reliability and EFA analysis using SPSS software. The results of the analysis show that Alpha Cronbach value is 0.835 which is more than 0.60. Results from the exploration factor analysis show that nine factors with Eigen values is greater than 1.0. The KMO value (Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin) 0.735, Bartlett Test was significant p <0.05, variance value=67.725%, anti-image correlation value >0.5, communalities >0.5 and factor loading >0.5. However, there are six items that need to be removed because the values of factor loading obtained are less than 0.50, items M8, M10, M12, M19, M23 and M29. Thus, the overall findings show that the items for motivation can measure among secondary school students