What's Your Type? An Examination of First-Year Doctoral Student Motivation

Educators often ask how to motivate PhD students. Before addressing how to motivate students, we should know what motivates prospective doctoral students. Motivational support has been shown to lead to overall satisfaction with the educational process, better engagement, and persistence. Using the i...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inEducation for information Vol. 36; no. 4; pp. 371 - 387
Main Author Hands, Africa S
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published IOS Press 01.01.2020
Subjects
Achievement Need
Aspiration
Career Development
Doctoral Degrees
Doctoral Students
Educational Attainment
Foreign Countries
Information Science
Learning Motivation
Library Education
Measures (Individuals)
Scholarship
Self Management
Stimulation
Student Characteristics
Student Motivation
Value Judgment
Canada
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Summary:Educators often ask how to motivate PhD students. Before addressing how to motivate students, we should know what motivates prospective doctoral students. Motivational support has been shown to lead to overall satisfaction with the educational process, better engagement, and persistence. Using the interdisciplinary field of library and information science, this research offers insight on doctoral student motivation through quantitative analysis of results from administration of the Academic Motivation Scale. The instrument measures and classifies motivation from the perspective of self-determination theory. Results suggest PhD students are motivated by several types of intrinsic motivation as well as identified regulation, a type of extrinsic yet autonomous motivation. Findings can be used by program administrators, faculty, and other stakeholders to address the "how" of motivation through better alignment of teaching practices, research activities, and student services based on students' motivation types.
ISSN:0167-8329
1875-8649
DOI:10.3233/EFI-200373