An investigation of students' motivation to pursue higher education at a Czech university

Abstract

Personally engaged study strategies focused on deep-level learning, internal fascination with the subject with a sense of its relevance, accomplishment in mastering it, and a sense of calling to it characterize intrinsically motivated students. Intrinsic motivation can be long lasting and self-determined stemming from internal autonomy. On the other hand, making effort to foster students' intrinsic motivation can be slow with the need for a variety of approaches, special and lengthy preparations. However, previous findings show that increasing student success through instruction in self-determination (i.e., autonomy) better motivate students to learn at all educational levels, including those with disabilities. The aim of this paper was to investigate the type of motivation leading students to pursue higher education, and to describe the adaptation of the modified version of the Academic Motivation Scale (AMS), developed by Vallerand et al. This seven-point Likert-scaled instrument was designed to assess self-determination continuum and the types of motivation with their regulatory styles. The sample consisted of 467 university students in regular classroom settings enrolled at a Czech university. In EFA a 4-factor model was generated explaining 61% of the total variance. In this version, the questionnaire consisted of 16 items with Cronbach's a ranging from. 82 to.60. The data proved a student's (F1) identified regulation, (F2) external regulation, (F3) amotivation, and (F4) intrinsic motivation to be strong predictors of students' motivation to pursue higher education. Furthermore, the relationship between gender, age, GPA, year and field of study was further identified.