Abstract
Motivations for study abroad have been studied mostly from a quantitative point of view. This study attempted to understand those motivations through qualitative methodology, by getting "into the heads" of international students using a multiple case study approach. Participants were 15 Israeli Hebrew-speaking graduates. Data sources included in-depth interviews with the students, a business professor, as well as official program documents. Findings show that while intrinsic motivations recur in the data, that are in essence the selling points of an MBA, stressing experience and gaining knowledge and skills, the dominant motivations are instrumental and at times even fantastic and extreme, although presented implicitly in the discourse. All these motivations reflect a mismatch between students’ perceptions of MBA education and the actual reality of getting a graduate business degree abroad, which has serious ramifications for students' learning experience and the way in which efforts and resources are prioritized.
Highlights
This paper examined the study abroad motivation, from the development of Israeli study broad students pursuing a MBA in the U.S (Sullivan, 2004; Williamson, 2004)
(1985), it appears that the same motivations repeatedly appear in the data derived from the Israeli study abroad MBA students
This motivation is described in previous research, the way it is portrayed in this study is much more passionate and fantastic
Summary
Findings show that while intrinsic motivations recur in the data, that are in essence the selling points of an MBA, stressing experience and gaining knowledge and skills, the dominant motivations are instrumental and at times even fantastic and extreme, presented implicitly in the discourse. All these motivations reflect a mismatch between students’ perceptions of MBA education and the actual reality of getting a graduate business degree abroad, which has serious ramifications for students' learning experience and the way in which efforts and resources are prioritized. Ayelet Sasson Bar Ilan University Tel Aviv University (Recibido: 30 de diciembre de 2016; Aceptado: 25 de abril de 2017; Publicado: 28 de junio de 2017)
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