Abstract—Student motivation and self-perception of academic competence are crucial elements affecting every individual in the process of learning. This study, based on Self-Determination Theory, explores the strength of correlations between academic achievements in English and mathematics of students from three Singapore primary schools before they were streamed, with respect to their motivation to learn, relative autonomy index (RAI) and self-perceptions of academic competence. The strengths of the correlations of these aspects of learning were considered with respect to academic achievements in English and mathematics. Correlations were examined before the students were streamed into three groups according to their academic ability which was based on the examination results at the end of their primary four education. Students with high, middle and low academic achievements were placed into three courses, High Course (HC), Middle Course (MC) and Low Course (LC) respectively. Results show students who were least academically inclined had a higher dependency on external regulations and high achieving students had a greater self-perception of academic competence and were least motivated by external regulations. 
 

Index Terms—external motivation, introjected motivation, identified motivation, intrinsic motivation, relative autonomy index, self-perception of competence

Cite: Eng Hai Tan, "Relationships between Academic Achievements and Student Motivation, Relative Autonomy Index and Self-Perception of Competence before Streaming," International Journal of Learning and Teaching, Vol. 4, No. 4, pp. 292-298, December 2018. doi: 10.18178/ijlt.4.4.292-298