A latent growth curve analysis of Business students' intrinsic and extrinsic motivation

The proposed paper aims to investigate the longitudinal development of students' motivation over the first year of their studies at a business school by using latent growth curve modeling. The study tackles the following core research questions: How do first-year university students' intrinsic and extrinsic vary over time? Which (motivational) factors are related to students' motivational development? Although motivational dispositions have been analyzed extensively in previous studies, their longitudinal development has hitherto not been examined in the higher education context.

This longitudinal study is conducted at the University of St. Gallen in Switzerland. The current sample includes 280 first-year students who have been surveyed three times and who are representative of the first-year student population.

Descriptive results show that prior to their studies, students were motivated most by intrinsic factors, however, extrinsic motivation was also quite high. Employing latent growth curve modeling, it could be shown that both intrinsic and extrinsic motivation decline significantly over the course of the first year (8 months).

The study contributes to motivation theory by providing further insights into the development of academic motivation over time. Latent growth curve modeling as a method can be well used for longitudinal data analysis, thus, excluding measurement error from longitudinal data. Furthermore, the study supports educational developers by determining factors influencing students' motivational development.