Driven to succeed? Teenagers’ achievement motivation, university aspirations, and performance on high-stakes examinations

Abstract

Abstract There is growing interest in how young people’s socio-emotional skills, particularly motivation, shape educational outcomes. Yet less is known about how adolescents’ general achievement motivation and their specific aspirations to attend university relate to performance in high-stakes examinations. This paper provides new evidence using linked survey-administrative data from England collected shortly before students take high-stakes compulsory national exams. We distinguish between achievement motivation, measured using validated PISA scales, and university aspirations, defined by students’ stated application intentions. Our findings reveal substantial gender and immigrant-background gaps in university aspirations, with mixed patterns by socioeconomic status. We also document strong associations between motivation, aspirations and achievement; students who report high achievement motivation and aspire to elite universities score around 0.37 standard deviations higher in their compulsory exams than similar peers with lower motivation and no university aspirations, even after controlling for prior attainment and school fixed effects. These results highlight the distinct roles of motivation and university aspirations in shaping educational inequality.