Investigating the Relationship between Academic Achievement, Creativity, Multiple Intelligences and Motivation among Iranian Students of Medical Sciences

Author: Reza Kafipour (Shiraz University of Medical Sciences, Iran)
Speaker: Reza Kafipour
Topic: Social Psychology of Language
The (SCOPUS / ISI) SOAS GLOCAL CALA 2020 General Session

Abstract

This study is aimed at exploring the relationship between academic achievement, creativity, multiple intelligences and motivation among Iranian students of medical sciences. To this aim, it benefited from a correlational-descriptive design. To collect the data, Persian version of Attitude/Motivation Test Battery (AMTB), Persian version of Torrance Creative Thinking Test (TCTT), and Persian version of Gardner’s Multiple Intelligences Questionnaire were used. To measure students’ academic achievement, their grade point average (GPA) was taken from the university archive. The collected data were analyzed using Kolmogorov-Smirnov Goodness-of-Fit Test, descriptive statistics, Pearson product moment correlation tests and independent samples t-tests. Results of data analysis showed that Iranian EFL learners’ creativity, multiple intelligences, motivation and academic success were significantly correlated; creative learners outperformed non-creative learners in their academic achievement; the extrinsic learners outperformed the intrinsic learners in terms of their academic achievement; the highest academic achievement was related to the group with interpersonal intelligence profile and the lowest academic achievement belonged to the group with intrapersonal intelligence profile; and while creativity, multiple intelligences, and motivation all could significantly account for the variation in learners’ academic success, the highest prediction power was related to creativity; multiple intelligence was the second strong predictor, and the lowest prediction power was related to motivation. The findings may give insights to stakeholders in the field, including curriculum planners, tutors, and policy makers about the interrelationship between creativity, multiple intelligences, motivation and academic achievement, and the need for taking this issue into account when planning programs. For example, learning and teaching activities which are planned should be so that individual differences among learners with different intelligences are taken into account.

Keywords: Creativity; Motivation; Intrinsic motivation; Extrinsic motivation; Academic achievement