Academic Motivation of First-Year Pedagogical Students in Vietnam: Case Study

Abstract

This research was conducted to examine the academic motivation of 892 first-year pedagogical students at Hanoi National University of Education in Vietnam. This research mainly follows the approach of self-determination theory. The research instrument is the Academic Motivation Scale including 27 items: 12 items reflecting intrinsic academic motivation (IAM), 11 items reflecting extrinsic academic motivation (EAM) and 4 items reflecting amotivation. The results show that first-year students have a higher EAM than IAM. Among the total sample group, about 4.7 % of students are amotivated. Three aspects of IAM, including IAM-to know, IAM-toward accomplishment and IAM-to experience are positively correlated with each other; and three regulations of EAM such as identified regulation, introjected regulation, and external regulation are also positively correlated with each other. Female students have higher EAM than male students, particularly in EAM-introjected regulation and EAM-external regulation. IAM-toward accomplishment is many students’ weakest motivation for different socio-demographic characteristics (female, academic majors, academic levels, family economic situations, authoritative parenting style, authoritarian parenting style, uninvolved parenting style). These findings offer several new hypotheses and research questions concerning the academic motivation continuum of the first-year pedagogical students, related variables to their academic motivation continuum, and measures to develop, maintain and enhance the academic motivation for pedagogical students. Limitations of this study and possible future research directions on pedagogical students' academic motivation are also mentioned in the discussion and conclusion.