1. Introduction

Academic achievement is the standard of evaluating educational objectives. Academic achievement includes the process of recording of learners’ all cognitive activities that evaluated by an agreeable gradation according to different levels of emotional and educational activities and time table [4]. Putwain and Daniel [10] define academic achievement as dominance over theoretical knowledge and information in a specific course and specific school time. Academic achievement determined by achievement tests. Indeed we can say one of the most important goals of every educational system is improvement and enhancement of students’ academic achievement.

Increasing the level of interest and motivation among learners is another goal of educational organizations. Psychologists and teachers believe that motivation is a key concept and it is used to describe different levels of performance. It reveals the amount of attempts for solidarity of educational tasks. Academic motivation, in general, refers to motivations, needs and factors that lead to the presence of an individual in an academic environment and getting a degree. There are several theories related to academic motivation. One of the most important theories of academic motivation is self-determination theory by [4]. This theory is helpful to understand individuals’ motivation and its reasons and consequences [4].

In Deci and Ryan's [4] taxonomy of human motivation, students fall in three motivational orientations; intrinsic motivation, extrinsic motivation and a motivation. Generally, when problems such as educational degradation occur, it is said that one of the main reasons of this problem is learner’s academic motivation. But academic motivation as a reason of educational degradation is indeed the consequence of some other factors.

Family emotional climate is a psychological factor that can influence students’ academic motivation and academic performance. Family climate includes family common interaction and communication patterns such as feeling of confidence and security, encouragement, confirmation, love and joint experience between husband and wife, between parents and children and between children themselves [6]. Results of several researches [8, 14] showed that initial experience and parent-child emotional connections have an important role in formation of children social attitudes and behavior. In families that parents have kindhearted behavior their children usually develop with positive moral behaviors, respect to others and achievement motivation. Children self-conception and self-esteem are strongly originated from their parents’ attitude toward them.

In addition to family emotional atmosphere, the amount of students’ personal-social adjustment in familial, academic and instructional situations is another variable which influence students’ academic performance and academic motivation. Promotion of students’ adjustment level in inter-personal environments and academic, familial and peer situations is one of the significant goals of educational organizations and families [2]. Personal-social adjustment is somehow a conscious process that according to it, an individual adjusts to social, natural and cultural environment and to his own self. This adjustment entails an individual attempts to change his attitudes and behaviors and develop his cognitive and emotional self-awareness or dynamically attempts to change the social environment and as the result of this interaction, necessary coordination appears between an individual and social environment [16].

Another effective factor on academic performance and academic motivation is students’ achievement motivation. Wang and Eccles [18] believe that achievement motivation is tendency to select activities in order to achieve goals or avoid failure. Wang and Eccles [18] believe that individuals who have high achievement motivation tend to expose those behaviors which are related to their personality characteristics. Atkinson’s researches show that individuals who fear failure set goals that are too high or too low and achievement-oriented students prefer goals with moderate difficulty. Based on the above statements, this research endeavors to examine whether there is any relationship between family emotional climate, personal-social adjustment and achievement motivation with academic achievement and academic motivation of third grade high school students of Ahvaz.

2. Methodology

2.1. Participants

The statistical population of the research included all third grade high school male students enrolled in four educational regions of Ahvaz in educational year 2013-2014. According to the statistics published by educational deputy of Khuzestan education administration, there were 4500 high school students in Ahvaz. Samples were selected based on random cluster sampling. Four schools from each region were selected randomly. At the end after omitting defective questionnaires we analyzed data of 355 students.

2.2. Instrumentation and Procedure

Emotional condition questionnaire: Burn Family Emotional Condition Questionnaire (1964) has 16 items that codified based on 5-point Likert scale as below; very low(1), low(2), moderate (3), high (4), very high (5). High scores show a positive and appropriate emotional climate and low scores represent a weak and inappropriate emotional climate of the family.

Students’ adjustment questionnaire: Sinha and Sing students adjustment questionnaire (1993) has 60 yes-or-no questions that separate high adjustment students from low adjustment students in 3 domains of; social adjustment (20 items), emotional adjustment (20 items) and academic adjustment (20 items). In this questionnaire 0 is set for answers that represent adjustment and 1 is set for answers that represent maladjustment. So scores of this questionnaire range from 0 to 60. Low scores represent adjustment and high scores represent maladjustment in these 3 domains. Rashidi [11] in his research, in order to examine the reliability of this questionnaire, used its concurrent criterion reliability with academic adjustment subscale of California personality questionnaire (Trap et al, 1953) and correlation of these 2 questionnaire were r = 0.69. In this research, reliability of students’ adjustment questionnaire using Cronbach’s alpha and bisection methods attained 0.93 and 0.86 respectively.

Achievement motivation questionnaire: Hermans achievement motivation test (1970) has 29 incomplete items. In some items, choice A has the lowest score and in some items choice A has the highest score. In this test high scores represent high level of achievement motivation.

Academic motivation questionnaire: Academic motivation scale of Vallerand et al (1992) is formed based on Deci and Ryan’s [4] self-determination theory. It composed of 28 items and assesses 3 subscales: intrinsic motivation (8 items), extrinsic motivation (8 items), and amotivation (4 items). This scale is as a 5-point Likert and vary from strongly agree (1) to strongly disagree (5). High scores in each of these 3 subscales means intrinsic motivation, extrinsic motivation and amotivation represent the type of motivation.The questionnaires were gathered and quantified based on the 5-point Likert scale from 1 to 5 and the descriptive statistics of the questionnaires which are introduced above of this section.

3. Results

The results of quantitative data and descriptive statistics of the questionnaires are presented in Table 1.

Table 1. Descriptive indexes of research variables

Table 1 shows the mean and standard deviation of scores of family emotional climate scale are 50.84 and 14.55 respectively. Mean and standard deviation of scores of achievement motivation scale are 81.44 and 18.35 respectively. Mean and standard deviation of scores of personal-social adjustment scale are 21.93 and 12.12 respectively. Mean and standard deviation of scores of intrinsic motivation subscale are 28.77 and 9.30 respectively. Mean and standard deviation of scores of extrinsic motivation subscale are 42.68 and 11.24 respectively. Mean and standard deviation of scores of amotivation subscale are 13.38 and 4.62 respectively and mean and standard deviation of scores of academic achievement are 15.75 and 2.94 respectively.

3.1. Significance Tests for Full Model of Canonical Correlation Analysis

The minimum level of significance for data analysis is 0.05 that is the common level of determining the significance of a correlation coefficient. The most common significance test is F- test. In addition to separate tests that we use for canonical functions, we can also use a multivariable test for assessing the significance of all canonical roots. We usually use Wilki's Lambda test, Hoteling effect, Pulley effect and Roy’s largest root for significance assessment. Table 2 shows the results of significance tests for full model of canonical correlation analysis.

Table 2. Test of significance for full model of canonical correlation analysis

Table 2 shows the significance of Wilki's Lambda value (λ=0.457, p<0.001, F=26.40) shows that there is a significant relationship between predicate variables include; family emotional climate, personal-social adjustment and achievement motivation, and criterion variables include; students’ academic motivation (i.e., intrinsic motivation, extrinsic motivation and amotivation) and academic achievement. Lambda represents a variance which is not clarified by the model; therefore, 1- λ reveals the effect size of the full model in the r matrix. According to this, the effect-size of two canonical functions of this analysis is equal to 1-0.457=0.543. Effect size is the value of common variance between 2 variant clusters. So the final model of this research shows %54 of variance between family emotional climate, personal-social adjustment and achievement motivation with students’ academic motivation and academic achievement.

3.2. Deriving Canonical Functions and General Proportion Assessment

Deriving one or more canonical functions is the first statistic step of canonical correlation analysis. The maximum number of functions (canonical variables) is equal to the number of variables in the smallest cluster. Since there are four criterion variables (i.e., intrinsic motivation, extrinsic motivation, amotivation and academic achievement) and three predicate variables (i.e., family emotional climate, personal-social adjustment and achievement motivation) in this research, among them three canonical functions were derived to be investigated. Paying attention to the variance value of each function is a method to examine the significance of functions. Value of the relationship between a pair of linear combination is shown by canonical correlation coefficient. The square of this coefficient shows the amount of variance of a canonical variable which is clarified by another canonical variable. Square of this coefficient also may be called the amount of common variance between 2 canonical variables. Table 3 shows the characteristics of functions which are resulted from canonical analysis in this research.

Table 3. Characteristics of functions which are resulted from canonical analysis

Table 3 shows the square of canonical correlation (R²c) of functions are 0.513, 0.057 and 0.001 respectively. In other words, those functions that show more than %10 variance can be interpreted, so the first function shows around %51 common variance and it is interpreted and other functions (second and third functions) have not been interpreted.

Table 4. Dimension reduction analysis for canonical functions

Table 4 shows whether the combination of 3 functions is significant or not. As mentioned previously, cumulative effect of function 1 is statistically significant (λ=0.457, p<0.001, F=26.40) but the cumulative effect of functions 2 and 3 is not significant. Results of dimension reduction analysis for these 2 insignificant functions are equal to (λ=0.940, p<0.09, F=3.59) and (λ=0.998, p<0.73, F=0.311) respectively. In other words, functions 2 and 3 do not represent a significant amount of common variance between 2 variable clusters and the relationship of 2 clusters is represented by function 1.

3.3. Findings of First Hypothesis Test

There is a relationship between family emotional climate, personal-social adjustment and achievement motivation with students’ academic motivation (i.e., intrinsic motivation, extrinsic motivation and amotivation) and students’ academic achievement.

Table 5. Correlation coefficients in function 1

It is possible to examine the first hypothesis by analyzing canonical variables. As mentioned above, analyzing of canonical variables is possible through examining the structural and standard coefficients. As Table 5 shows, the first hypothesis of the research is confirmed. Academic motivation and academic achievement are predictable by family emotional climate, personal-social adjustment and achievement motivation.

Table 5 shows that in the first function, criterion linear variables are academic motivation (i.e., intrinsic motivation, extrinsic motivation and amotivation) and academic achievement. On the other hand, in these functions among these 3 variables, achievement motivation, family emotional climate and personal-social adjustment play a part in predicate linear variable based on their importance. In other words, results show that according to function 1, intrinsic motivation, extrinsic motivation, amotivation and academic achievement can be predicted better by achievement motivation, family emotional climate and personal-social adjustment.

3.4. Findings of Second Hypothesis Test

There is a relationship between family emotional climate, personal-social adjustment and achievement motivation with academic achievement of third grade high school students of Ahvaz.

Table 6. Regression analysis of the variables

Table 6 shows that family emotional climate (β=0.281, t=5.01, p<0.001), personal-social adjustment (β=-0.133, t=-2.66, p<0.05) and achievement motivation (β=-0.246, t=4.44, p<0.001) significantly predict academic achievement respectively. Then the second hypothesis is confirmed.

3.5. Findings of Third Hypothesis Test

There is a relationship between family emotional climate, personal-social adjustment and achievement motivation with academic motivation (intrinsic motivation) of third grade high school students of Ahvaz.

Table 7. Regression analysis of predictive variables

Table 7 shows that family emotional climate (β=0.374, t=7.33, p<0.001), personal-social adjustment (β=-0.193, t=-4.19, p<0.001) and achievement motivation (β=-0.192, t=3.82, p<0.001) significantly predict academic motivation (intrinsic motivation) respectively. Then the third hypothesis is confirmed.

3.6. Findings of Forth Hypothesis Test

There is a relationship between family emotional climate, personal-social adjustment and achievement motivation with academic motivation (extrinsic motivation) of third grade high school students of Ahvaz.

Table 8. Regression analysis of the variables

Table 8 shows that family emotional climate (β=-0.465, t=-10.13, p<0.001), personal-social adjustment (β=0.254, t=6.13, p<0.001) and achievement motivation (β=-0.153, t=-3.38, p<0.05) significantly predict academic motivation (extrinsic motivation) respectively. Then the forth hypothesis is confirmed. There is a relationship between family emotional climate, personal-social adjustment and achievement motivation with academic motivation (extrinsic motivation) of third grade high school students of Ahvaz.

Table 9. Regression analysis of the variables with amotivation

Table 9 shows that family emotional climate (β=-0.397, t=-7.79, p<0.001), personal-social adjustment (β=0.259, t=5.64, p<0.001) and achievement motivation (β=-0.196, t=-2.90, p<0.05) significantly predict academic motivation (amotivation) respectively. Then the fifth hypothesis is confirmed.

4. Discussion and Conclusions

This study aimed at investigating the relationship between family emotional climate, personal-social adjustment and achievement motivation with academic achievement and academic motivation. Thus, the first hypothesis is confirmed and it is significant at the level (p<0.001). Although there is no comprehensive study that canonically analyzes the relationship of family emotional climate, personal-social adjustment and achievement motivation f current study variables, but several researches examine the simple correlation of these variables. So we can say results of this hypothesis confirm the results of [12, 13, 20].

In order to explain this finding that predicate variables; emotional climate, personal-social adjustment and achievement motivation, predicted canonical variables; academic motivation and academic achievement using canonical correlation method, we can say that each of these predicate variables is related to a different domain of an individual psychology. For example, family emotional climate is related to family physical and emotional space and relationships of family members. Most of the researches in this field emphasis on the effects of mental and emotional climate on academic achievement and academic motivation. On other hand, personal- social adjustment variable is related to social skills domain and students interpersonal relationships with their friends, classmates and social situations. Researches show that students with social skills such as empathy, assertiveness, anger and emotion management have a better academic, disciplinary and moral performance at school and other educational situations. Achievement motivation, another variable of the research, is related to the student his own self and his personal psychology. Students, who tend to educational progress, have a better academic performance and academic achievement at school. So according to the extensiveness of predicate variables we expect that these variables predict the criterion variables significantly.

There is a significant relationship between family emotional climate, personal-social adjustment and achievement motivation with academic achievement so hypothesis 2 is confirmed and this finding is significant at the level (p<0.001). Results of this research confirm the results of [1, 7, 19].

In order to explain this finding, we can say when parents wisely provide their children with emotional and affective necessities and treat their children based on the knowledge of educational principles and knowledge of how children personality and characteristics develop in every stage, and then their academic achievement can be obtained. It is clear that provision of their basic needs in the family environment is the necessary condition for children to have attention, motivation and enthusiasm for learning and academic achievement. Dissatisfaction or partial of physiological and mental needs such as needs for security, love and respect lead to children’s insecurity and anxiety and instead of solving problems and dealing with cognitive tasks, most of the time they are concerned about their emotional and biological needs and insecure, threatening condition of the class.

Therefore, we can say that many of the educational and academic problems of children are rooted in their family emotional climate and in order to solve this problem we should help parents to develop their knowledge [15].

On the other hand, personal-social adjustment enables an individual to create balance between environment and himself due to modification of environment or modification of his behavior. Adjustment includes process of an individual adoption to current conditions and process of modification of environment to conform to individual needs. So these 2 processes lead to reduction of incoming environmental tensions on the individual. After tension reduction, students do their educational tasks with more quiescence and appropriate academic performance can be obtained. So students with personal-social adjustment have higher academic achievement. In addition, adaptive students select appropriate and reasonable academic goals according to several characteristics such as self-expectation based on facilities, identifying life objectives and being optimistic about them and finally try to achieve these goals and do educational tasks more successfully [16]. Also we can say about achievement motivation correlation that individuals with high need for achievement, generally response with tendency emotions such as hope, pride and satisfaction expectation, while individuals, with low need for achievement, generally react with avoidance emotions such as anxiety, defense and fear of failure. Individuals with high achievement motivation reveal a certain level of achievement-oriented behaviors. Then we can conclude that achievement-oriented students have a higher academic achievement [9].

There is a significant relationship between family emotional climate, personal-social adjustment and achievement motivation with intrinsic motivation, so hypothesis 3 is confirmed and this finding is significant at the level (p<0.001). Results of this research confirm the results of [12, 15].

In order to explain this finding, we can say from the view point of self-determination theory family should amplify and satisfy 3 basic psychological needs; merit sensation, belonging and self-determination in their children to develop their intrinsic motivation. According to this theory students who imagine themselves competent, beneficial and efficient and think they can do tasks which are useful for them and society (family), will try hard to solve their educational problems and make the family happy and satisfied. We can say about belonging to those students who feel they belong to a united and secure group or family and achieve his acceptance through interpersonal interactions with his parents, step into challenging situations with a higher motivation and experience lower academic anxiety [4].

Although self-determination or personal control is one of the basic psychological needs, it is a characteristic of personal-social adjustment. Students who can control and conduct their emotions in stressful situations do their educational tasks with more self-esteem and self-efficacy and this issue leads to increase their intrinsic motivation and reduce their amotivation. Thus, we can conclude that a sense of control over educational tasks makes students intrinsic-oriented [9].

On the other hand, most of the experts and researchers believe that tendency to achievement and high achievement motivation increase students’ intrinsic motivation. Students with high achievement motivation are eager for superiority not because of its reward but because of superiority itself. They tend to control their destination and do not assign affaires to chance and fate. Achievement-oriented individuals set their goals in different ways after considering the possibility of achievement [3]. So we can expect students with achievement motivation have more self-esteem and self-confidence in doing educational tasks and it leads to increase their intrinsic motivation.

There is a significant relationship between family emotional climate, personal-social adjustment and achievement motivation with extrinsic motivation, so hypothesis 4 is confirmed and this finding is significant at the level (p<0.001). Results of this research confirm the results of [6, 7].

In order to explain this finding, we can say that in families without a positive interactional climate between children and parents, children don’t learn cooperative behaviors of the classroom and instead of trying to learn, try to compete with other students to prove their abilities. Thus these students try to increase their extrinsic motivation and receive rewards from sources of power such as teachers and parents.

Students with personal-social adjustment have several social skills such as participating in groups, participating in cooperative tasks, help friends, understanding others and accepting criticisms. Students without these social skills usually cannot cooperate with their friends and classmates so they increase their competitiveness and extrinsic motivation. Students with low personal-social adjustment tend more to extrinsic motivation [3].

Amount of achievement motivation closely relate to the type of students’ academic motivation. Students who tend to avoid failure and do their educational tasks just for failure avoidance experience more tension and anxiety. These students instead of emphasis on learning for learning, emphasis on learning to change others viewpoint and prove their personal abilities and finally emphasis on increasing the extrinsic academic motivation.

There is a significant relationship between family emotional climate, personal-social adjustment and achievement motivation with amotivation, so hypothesis 5 is confirmed and this finding is significant at the level (p<0.001). Results of this research confirm the results of [15].

In order to explain this finding we can say in families that children’s development and progress receive no positive response such as praise, love, satisfaction and acceptance from their parents, children become amotivated. As mentioned above, merit sensation is one of the basic psychological needs that can lead to development of children intrinsic motivation. Children achieve merit sensation from their parents praise and confirmation. Success in academic situations is the main necessity for a child to achieve merit sensation and feeling of efficacy. If parents don’t pay attention to their children progress and don’t praise them, they will become academic amotivated and as a result children tend to aggression and misbehavior at school and temper tantrum in order to draw parents' attention [6].

On the other hand, we can say that adjustment means changing the situation or changing yourself to achieve the goal. Students with low personal-social adjustment don’t try to change the current situation and become amotivated. These students usually do not know why they go to school; they cannot set their academic goals and do not have any progress in educational tasks. Thus, they do not have any motivation for learning and progress. These students become more and more isolated and avoidant because of inconsistency with their emotions, their classmates and their school officials. Then we can conclude that lack of personal-social adjustment lead to academic amotivation and avoidance of doing academic tasks [18].

Another characteristic of students with high achievement motivation is responsibility of assigning tasks. It means they try to do the tasks and solve the problems in the best possible way. Other characteristics of these students are high academic stability and academic engagement. It means that they don’t feel tired quickly in dealing with challenging problems and try to represent self-stability. But amotivated students are not usually responsible enough and avoid assigning tasks. Also amotivated students when facing challenges become disappointed and withdraw from challenging tasks because of lack of self-confidence and self-efficacy [17]. Therefore achievement motivation has a negative correlation with students’ academic amotivation.

Limitations of the study were the sample size of the participants who were enrolled in the Ahvaz high schools in Khuzestan Province rather than other Provinces in Iran. Furthermore, the use of questionnaire may affect the reliability of the data and the results of the study. Thus the further research could focus on other parts of the country for gathering data. The researchers may investigate males or females at different levels of proficiency; for instance, university level.