Examining the relationship between motivation, stress, and satisfaction among graduate students

Motivation, stress, and satisfaction are all key elements in academic success. Academic motivation is linked with positive outcomes, such as low levels of stress, high satisfaction, and mental well-being. Although it is well documented that motivational orientation, stress, and satisfaction are closely related together, very little attention has been paid to how they are related. The purpose of the present study was to examine the theoretical relationships between academic motivation, stress, and satisfaction among graduate students. Structural equation modelling was used to test our conceptual model. Using data collected from 545 graduate students, findings indicate that amotivation has a direct and positive relationship with stress and negative relationship with school satisfaction, suggesting that students who are not motivated will display higher levels of stress and low levels of school satisfaction. Stress worked as a mediator between amotivation and two domains of satisfaction: school and general satisfaction. No significant relationship was found between intrinsic/extrinsic motivation and stress or satisfaction. A final structural equation model was developed, yielding acceptable goodness-of-fit statistics.