Need Saliency and Academic Behavior of Technical Students in India: Implications for Career Sustaining Competences

Abstract

In the current scenario of rapid expansion of higher education, it becomes imperative to study the dynamic factors underlying quality education, student motivation and learning outcomes. Most of the literature available as on date are predominantly based on western studies, where the individual’s personal achievement, autonomy, control, power are considered to be most important. But these western models often influenced by their individualistic philosophy and cultural values are quite inapplicable for pluralistic Indian society, where we believe in collaboration and teamwork. Rare attempts have been made to develop an indigenous model to measure these attributes in our society. The present study is first of its kind to assess the salient and non-salient needs of technical students pursuing their studies in India. Authors have identified measures of the students’ engagement in various academic, co-curricular activities and their performance outcomes. A sample of Four-hundred and Sixty-five (N=465) engineering/science students were collected through purposive sampling exclusively from IIT Kharagpur , a premier technical institute in eastern India where students across the country got selected and joined on merit basis, through the national level joint entrance examination for Engineering and Science, the toughest examination in the country, known as IIT-JEE. Career implications are discussed in light of the major findings.