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DOI: 10.15507/1991-9468.095.023.201902.196-207
Development and Validation of a Scale to Measure the Motivation to Pursue a Graduate Course
Diana Arango-Botero
Professor of Department of Management Sciences, Metropolitan Institute of Technology (Calle 73 No. 76a – 354 Robledo, Medellín 050034, Colombia), MSc. in Statistics, Management Engineering, ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5184-943X, Scopus ID: 56709642800, Researcher ID: W-6231-2018, This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Salim Chalela
Vice President for Research, Autonomous University of Latin America (Carrera 55a #49 - 51, Medellín, Antioquia, 050010, Colombia), Ph.D, ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3982-2696, Scopus ID: 57194160085, This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Alejandro Valencia-Arias
Professor of Department of Management Sciences, Metropolitan Institute of Technology (Calle 73 No. 76 A – 354 Robledo, Medellín 050034, Colombia), Ph.D. (Engineering, Industry and Organizations), ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9434-6923, Scopus ID: 55250034100, Researcher ID: E-5174-2017, This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Introduction. The article considers some motivation factors related to pursue a graduate course. The authors analysed aspects related to learning, better economic and work conditions, better job opportunities, alternatives to grow professionally, among other elements. Our purpose was to develop and validate a motivation scale to pursue higher education studies.
Material and Methods. Self-administered questionnaires answered by senior students of undergraduate programs in our city Medellin (Colombia) and exploratory factor analyses were employed. The methodological basis of the study is the processing and analysis of interv iew materials and student surveys.
Results. In the first exploratory factor analysis (n = 315 registers), three of four factors were retained (eigenvalue equal or greater than 1.0): Economics, Employment and educational competitiveness, and Institutional promotion and support. The factor solution explained 62.62 % of the total variance. The second exploratory factor analysis (n = 316 registers) confirmed the extraction of the same factors with 64.041 % of the total variance explained by them.
Discussion and Conclusion. An individual’s motivations depend not only on economic aspects or the work of higher education institutions but also on subjective elements associated with individual, social and cultural variables. For that reason, the motivation scale developed in our research will enable directors of institutions and universities that offer graduate programs to direct their promotional and advertising efforts to reach a greater number of people considering their expectati ons and needs.
Keywords: factor analysis, graduate course, higher education, motivation, psychometrics
For citation: Arango-Botero D., Chalela S., Valencia-Arias A. Development and Validation of a Scale to Measure the Motivation to Pursue a Graduate Course. Integratsiya obrazovaniya = Integration of Education. 2019; 23(2):196-207. DOI: 10.15507/1991-9468.095.023.201902.196-207
Contribution of the authors:
Diana Arango-Botero – conceptualization; methodology; software; validation; formal analysis; investigation.
Salim Chalela – conceptualization; validation; investigation; resources; writing – original draft preparation.
Alejandro Valencia-Arias – conceptualization; formal analysis; investigation; resources; writing – original draft preparation.
All authors have read and approved the final manuscript.
Submitted 05.02.2019; revised 12.03.2019; published online 28.06.2019
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
