South African students continue to perform exceptionally poorly on international benchmarking science tests, such as the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS). Research indicates various reasons underpinning this underperformance, such as a lack of student motivation to learn science and a dearth of teachers' content…

This study investigated how domain specificity of academic motivation related to the connection between instructional clarity and academic achievement in science and mathematics. It focused on three aspects of domain-specific academic motivation--self-concept, intrinsic value, and utility value--drawing from the Expectancy-Value Theory model. The…