Competitiveness and its Relationship with Academic Achievement

The purpose of this study was to distinguish and define psychometrically different factors and underling motives contributing to competition. 400 Subjects, male and female high school students (aged 14-18), were randomly selected. Franken’s Competitive Mastery Questionnaire was administered to two groups. Factor analysis of separate male and female data using Principal Components Analysis with Varimax and Oblimin rotations resulted in extraction of seven factors with an eigen value greater than 1 for males and six factors for females. Two factors named "desire to win" and "motivation to put forth effort in competitive situations" are more common in both groups. However the latter was significantly correlated with academic achievement; but no significant correlation existed between academic achievement and the former one. Another factor named "satisfaction resulting from performing well" loaded more on males, and two other factors named "preference for difficult tasks" and "satisfaction resulting from improving one’s performance" enjoyed higher loadings with females. Thus, it is concluded that males and females are similar in some of the competitiveness factors but different in some others. Generally speaking, results of this study confirm the previous researches in competitiveness factors.