The relationship between students’ motivation, vocation, and information with the selection of a higher education program

Abstract

This paper analyses the relationship between student’s motivation, vocation, and level of information for choosing academic majors and having persistence on this choice. It is based on a survey of project FONDECYT “El Rol de la Información en la Toma de Decisiones de Alumnos en Transición a la Educación Superior”, 12th graders (N=848) of eight different schools in Santiago, Chile. Both the pearson and tetrachoric correlations, and also logit regression results suggest that student’s intrinsic motivation tends to be positively associated with student’s persistence on careers and field of study. In contrast, the information about average salary per career during first years of employment, tends to be negatively correlated with persistence in career and field of study. Complementary analysis between the careers of Pedagogy and Medicine shows that there are significant differences between the intrinsic motivation of both; Pedagogy students tend to have a slight higher intrinsic motivation (α=5%). The research results complement the existent empirical evidence. In addition, they provide an innovative view that focuses on students’ characteristics in the process of selecting a higher education career. Recommendations for future research are included.