According to Mikkola and Nurmi (2001, 101), learning motivation affects the formation of opinions and thereby the students' general satisfaction regarding the studies. The objective of this part of the students' questionnaire was thus examining the students' motivation with questions concerning their starting motivation, their personal motivators in the studies, as well as the possible motivation changes during the studies.
Most of the students rated themselves as highly motivated in the beginning of the studies. Six of them rated their starting motivation as somewhat motivated while one did not answer the question. None of the students rated themselves as poorly motivated at the start. In the students' answers to the question what motivates them, obtaining knowledge and developing one's skills, having better job opportunities in the future, as well as general interest in the tourism field were chosen the most. The main motivators were therefore education itself, developing oneself, and ensuring good future prospects while following personal interests. The better job opportunities that the majority of the respondents chose as one of their motivators could be either due to the assumption that completing a degree improves one's chances of being hired in the future, or as well due to the thought that the programme being completed in English would enhance their work opportunities especially internationally.
FIGURE 10. Students' main motivators.
In this multiple choice question more than half of the students also chose “getting a university degree” as one of their main motivators. This reason came up earlier as well when asking the students about their reasons to apply for the Degree Programme in Tourism. The result could either be a sign of the students' or even the society's appreciation of education and university level degrees as such, or on the other hand tell that some students were perhaps motivated merely because of obtaining any degree, whatever the subject of study. The reasons behind the latter option could be for example linked with the future job opportunities: having a university degree often does help with finding work compared to not having one, leaving the field of study itself a less important factor than the degree completed in the end of the studies. Perhaps some of these students had applied to other degree programmes as well without a concise interest in the tourism field itself.
A noticeable result was also more than half of the students choosing “using their knowledge and skills for a greater good” as one of their main motivators. It could be seen as a result of the rise in popularity of sustainable development in many areas of modern life, or just tell about these specific students' personal interests and their personality. This would in any case indicate that integrating sustainability - whether environmental, economical or social - to the courses of the programme is not only backed up by the general trend in the world as well as in the tourism field itself, but also by a strong interest amongst the students toward this. However, due to the results of this study being only applicable to this specific situation at this specific time, we could not
Obtaining special skills & knowledge Better future job prospects Developing one's skills General interest in the field Obtaining a university degree Using one's knowledge for a greater good Obtaining a specific profession Other
0 5 10 15 20 25
Students' main motivators
draw conclusions about the existing or growing need for sustainability courses in the future. Therefore it is left as something for the curriculum developers and teachers to consider in their own work when assessing whether the course contents are concentrating on the right issues (see chapter 4.4, page 30, point 1.).
Obtaining a specific profession was chosen as one of the motivators by a couple of students. However unfortunately it was not mentioned which professions these were, and as it was an anonymous questionnaire there was no possibility to ask it from the respondents later on. One respondent also chose “other” as one of the motivators, it being “money and women”.
When asking the students whether their motivation had changed during the studies, 22 of them answered yes. Four of the students had answered that their motivation had not changed during the studies, and seven of the students who answered yes did not specify whether the change was for the better or worse. 15 of the respondents however did specify that their motivation had decreased, for some students even significantly. The reason to this, according to many of the respondents, was mostly dissatisfaction because of the course contents, classes or lack of useful assignments of the programme. Some of the students who named the course contents or classes being the reason for the decrease in their motivation told simply that the course contents did not match their expectations.
In these answers it remained somewhat unclear why the expectations of the students had not matched the course contents - it could have been purely due to the student in question expecting more of their personal area of interest in the course, or it could have been due to the level of the courses generally not meeting expectations, meaning the transmission of information from the teacher to the students not being satisfactory due to a number of reasons that were already mentioned earlier on in the results to questions concerning the course contents, teaching and so on.
FIGURE 11. Students' motivation change during the studies.
Specifically teaching was also mentioned on a few occasions as the reason for motivation change. Still, only one of these respondents mentioned the poor level of teaching of some teachers, while the rest only stated their motivation as changed because of the teaching, leaving out if the change was for better or worse. Issues on teaching and the students' opinions on it were discussed more closely in the previous subchapter 4.4. Also general dissatisfaction was a reason for some respondents' motivation change. One student told the inconsistency between the courses being a reason for the motivation drop, and another had wanted the studies to be more challenging than they had been. Three of the students gave no specific reason for the decrease in their motivation, simply stating that their level of motivation had dropped.