PERSONAL MEANING OF ACADEMIC EXPERIENCE: A COMPARISON OF INTRINSICALLY AND EXTRINSICALLY MOTIVATED GRADUATE STUDENTS

Authors

  • Anita Pipere Daugavpils University
  • Dzintra Iliško Daugavpils University

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.17770/sie2018vol1.3218

Keywords:

academic motivation, dialogical self, extrinsic motivation, intrinsic motivation, graduate students, personal meaning, self-determination

Abstract

To analyse the similarities and differences in personal meaning of academic experience associated with intrinsic and extrinsic academic motivation, the conceptual ideas of Self-Determination theory were blended with methodological elaborations based on the Dialogical Self Theory. The Academic Motivation Scale to identify intrinsically and extrinsically motivated graduate students and the Self Confrontation Method to disclose the important experiences in past, present and future related to the graduate studies were administered to 128 graduate students at the Daugavpils University. Both the quantitative and qualitative data analysis contributed to the understanding of relationships between the types of academic motivation and personal meaning of academic experience. The main differences in students’ personal meaning of academic experience, expressed in narrative themes were following: self-development, ideas about the further studies and factors inhibiting graduate studies were more frequent for intrinsically motivated students, while external support from influential persons, work/career, and past experience influencing current academic life were mentioned more often by extrinsically motivated students. The obtained results may help to develop more effective teaching strategies and institutional support of graduate students.

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Author Biographies

  • Anita Pipere, Daugavpils University
    Dr. Anita Pipere, is a Professor of Psychology at the Center of Sustainable Education (CSE) at the Institute of Humanities and Social Sciences at Daugavpils University, Latvia, where she teaches undergraduate and graduate courses (e.g., educational psychology, philosophy of education, qualitative research methods, researchers’ identity, etc.), and supervises bachelor, master and doctoral students. She has published articles in national and international journals, written two books and regularly presents papers at national and international conferences. From 2002 to 2009 she has served as the editor-in-chief of the Journal of Teacher Education for Sustainability. She was an editor of two volumes of Education and Sustainable Development: First Steps toward Changes, Daugavpils University; currently she is an Editorial Board member of Baltic Journal of Psychology, Eurasian Journal of Educational Research, International Journal of Sustainability in Higher Education, Acta Paedagogica Vilensia and several other national journals and collections.
  • Dzintra Iliško, Daugavpils University
    PhD, professor of Pedagogy, Director of the Center of Sustainable Education, Institute of Humanities and Social Sciences.

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Published

2018-05-25

How to Cite

Pipere, A., & Iliško, D. (2018). PERSONAL MEANING OF ACADEMIC EXPERIENCE: A COMPARISON OF INTRINSICALLY AND EXTRINSICALLY MOTIVATED GRADUATE STUDENTS. SOCIETY. INTEGRATION. EDUCATION. Proceedings of the International Scientific Conference, 7, 217-228. https://doi.org/10.17770/sie2018vol1.3218