Extensive research has been conducted by U.S. researchers on U.S. students on the effect of motivational orientation and learning strategies on academic achievement. This investigation extends the research to a different socio-cultural milieu, Bombay, India to examine these constructs in a cross-cultural context. Of particular interest in this study were the effects of motivational orientation on learning strategies within each country and the effect of these components and their interaction on student achievement.; The three research questions were (1) What is the relationship between motivational components and learning strategies in academic learning? (2) Do these relationships between motivational components and learning strategies differ across countries? How? (3) How does each relationship contribute to the prediction of achievement?; Using The Motivated Strategies for Learning Questionnaire (MSLQ, 200 U.S. pre-service teachers from an urban, Mid-south university in the United States were compared to 143 Indian pre-service teachers from two colleges of education in Bombay, a large, urban metropolis in India.; The emergence of different constructs as predictors of academic achievement in the two cultural environments indicates that every construct should be interpreted in its cultural context. Regression analyses indicated that intrinsic goal orientation, self-efficacy, and rehearsal were the highest predictors of academic achievement for the U.S. students. In the Indian sample, self-efficacy and peer learning emerged as the best predictors of academic achievement. The emergence of self-efficacy as an important motivational learning variable in both cultures indicates that this construct is not necessarily culture-specific in nature, and may have universal application. Moreover, learning strategy variables are more important in the Indian setting, while motivational variables were more important in the U.S. context.; A universal prescription for learning in all cultures is not the panacea. Cultural forces that shape the lives of students in different countries impact pedagogical belief systems, which are reflected in the students' motivation and use of learning strategies. Ways and means of enhancing a culture-sensitive pedagogy need to be developed to foster enhanced learning experiences.
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