~ 149 ~  ISSN Print: 2394-7500 ISSN Online: 2394-5869 Impact Factor: 5.2 IJAR 2016; 2(1): 149-152 www.allresearchjournal.com Received: 06-11-2015 Accepted: 09-12-2015 Dr. K Kavitha Maheswari Assistant Professor, P.G & Research Department of Social Work, Shrimati Indira Gandhi College, Tiruchirappalli-2, Tamil Nadu, India. M Aruna M.Phil., Scholar, P.G & Research Department of Social Work, Shrimati Indira Gandhi College, Tiruchirappalli-2, Tamil Nadu, India. Correspondence Dr. K Kavitha Maheswari Assistant Professor, P.G & Research Department of Social Work, Shrimati Indira Gandhi College, Tiruchirappalli-2, Tamil Nadu, India. Gender difference and achievement motivation among adolescent school students Dr. K Kavitha Maheswari, M Aruna Abstract Achievement is task-oriented behavior that allows the individual’s performance to be evaluated according to some internally or externally imposed criterion that involves the individual in competing with others, or that otherwise involves some standard of excellence. Descriptive research has been done in this research describing the socio demographic characteristics the respondents along with their achievement motivation and also to find the gender difference with reference to their achievement motivation. The study was conducted at N.N. Ramanathan Iyyer high school, Nangavaram, Karur district. The universe of the study were the 10 th standard students of both gender belonged to the same school. There were totally 128 students who constituted the universe of the study. The researcher used census method to select the respondents. Here in this study all the 10 th standard students of both the gender studying in N.N. Ramanathan Iyyer high school, Nangavaram, Karur district were included in the sample to collect the data. There were totally 128 respondents included in the present study. The major findings of this study revealed that a little more than half of the respondents (55.5%) were having low-level of achievement motivation and the remaining respondents (44.5%) having high level of achievement motivation. ‘Z’Test was applied and it is inferred that there is significant difference between gender of the respondents with regard their to achievement motivation, the calculated Z value= 2.314 (P<0.05) is higher than the table value so the research hypothesis is accepted and the null hypothesis is rejected. Keywords: Gender, achievement motivation, school students and adolescents. Introduction The theory of achievement motivation is a miniature system applied to a specific context, the domain of achievement-oriented activities, which is characterized by the fact that the individual is responsible for the outcome anticipates unambiguous knowledge of results, and there is some degree of uncertainty or risk yet it is our belief that the type of theory that views the strength of an individual’s goal –directed tendency as jointly determined by his expectations about the consequences of his actions, and by incentive values of expected consequences will have wider utility when these concepts these concepts are applied toward other goals. Achievement motivation can, therefore, be defined as the striving to increase or to keep as high as possible, one’s own capabilities in all activities in activities in which a standard of excellence is thought to apply and where the execution of such activities can, therefore either succeed. Achievement motivation typically refers to the level of one’s motivation to engage in achievement behaviors’ based on the interaction of such parameters as need for achievement, expectancy of success, and the incentive value of success. Our construct of motivational orientation refers to the type of motivational stance which the child adopts toward classroom learning. Thus one may engage in schoolwork for intrinsic reasons, because work is challenging, enjoyable, and piques one’s curiosity, or alternatively, one may engage in schoolwork for extrinsic reasons, either to obtain external approval or because the educational system requires it. Achievement is task-oriented behavior that allows the individual’s performance to be evaluated according to some internally or externally imposed criterion that involves the individual in competing with others, or that otherwise involves some standard of excellence. Behavior is ordinarily described as intrinsically motivated if it is pleasurable in its own right International Journal of Applied Research 2016; 2(1): 149-152