Academic Motivation of Modern Students: The Experience of Cluster Analysis

Abstract

The article is devoted to the study of academic motivation of students of modern Russian universities. The introduction reveals theoretical and methodological approaches to the study of academic motivation, shows the practice of analyzing this phenomenon. The main part of the article presents the results of a sociological study in order to typologize modern students depending on the prevailing orientation of academic motivation. The empirical basis of the study was a questionnaire survey conducted in 2022 in several Moscow universities. Based on the provisions of the theory of self-determination, the authors investigate the structure of the educational motivation of the interviewed students and demonstrate the prevailing motives for visiting the university. Based on the results of cluster analysis, three groups of students are distinguished depending on the severity of intrinsic or extrinsic motivation and the cluster profile of the selected groups is analyzed. Using the criteria of nonparametric statistics, the differences of three cluster groups differentiated by gender and course of study are demonstrated. In the context of cluster affiliation, an assessment of professional choice is shown and the willingness of the interviewed students to change their specialty in the future is revealed. It is concluded that a negative attitude towards professional choice and readiness for retraining is most characteristic of students who demonstrate extrinsic motivation of an introjected and external type. In conclusion, the applied aspect of the empirical analysis of academic motivation is noted and the prospects for the development of this topic are emphasized