Abstract
Academic motivation consists of reward-based extrinsic motivation and curiosity-based intrinsic motivation. Students studying at university or college develop several new social connections with friends, classmates, and teachers, in addition to their family and community. Belonging to their networks, students acquire opinions, appreciation, trust, and norms of the society. Whether those social connections enhance the motivation of university students for academic work is a question yet to be answered in the context of health profession education in Japan. Judo-therapist education is a form of health profession education in Japan. This study aimed to measure the academic motivation and social capital (SC) of judo-therapist students in Japan, and to find the relation between social capital and academic motivation. This cross-sectional study recruited a total of 2247 students applying multi-stage sampling across Japan. A Japanese version Academic Motivation Scale (AMS) measured the learning motivation in three constructs: (1) intrinsic motivation (IM); (2) extrinsic motivation (EM); and (3) amotivation (alpha 0.94). A newly-developed 46-itemed, 4-pointed scale measured social capital (SC) in five constructs: (1) family relations, (2) on-campus friends, (3) off-campus friends, (4) classroom social capital; and (5) regional social capital (alpha 0.85). Robust regression analysis treated all constructs of SC as independent variables and IM and EM as dependent variables respectively in the three models. Among the average level of constructs, the family SC average level was the highest. Classroom SC was less than family SC and community SC was the lowest. Intrinsic motivation is positively influenced by classroom SC the most, followed by family SC, on-campus friends’ SC, and community SC. Extrinsic motivation is positively influenced by classroom SC the most, followed by family SC, on-campus friends’ SC, and community SC. Amotivation is negatively influenced by social capital constructs except external friends’ SC. In conclusion, social connections have the power to enhance the motivation of university students’ academic work within health profession education. The relations, trust and bonds developed in the classroom may allow an adult learner’s motivation to evolve into autonomous intrinsic motivation and prevent amotivation.
Highlights
A strong motivation for learning is the driving force behind students’ academic achievement
Whether social bonds belonging to students, their representation in the class or a society, can empower students’ academic motivation, is a very interesting research question for the faculties and educators but, it has not been answered by any study yet [13]
In the 21st century, evidence in experimental social psychology signaled that social belonging can empower an individual’s motivation within a particular domain, in a well-known study called “mere belonging” [27]
Summary
A strong motivation for learning is the driving force behind students’ academic achievement. Such academic motivation was categorized by Vallerand into “intrinsic motivation”, “extrinsic motivation”, and “amotivation”, based on self-determination theory (SDT) [1,2,3]. Academic learning may be categorized in terms of the cognitive domain, psychomotor domain and affective domain, with academic motivation pertaining to the affective domain [4].
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