engleski

Managing Motivation of Business Students - A Teaching Strategy and a Path to Life-long Learning

Quality business education is one of the major prerequisites for successful integration into the global business environment. It should not only provide students with specific fact-based knowledge, but also equip them for life-long learning, an indispensable career requirement. In achieving these goals, student motivation plays a crucial role. Teachers should try to understand what motivates students so as to better target teaching strategies and improve the quality of the learning outcome. This paper analyses what motivates or demotivates students attending academic courses of Business English at the Graduate School of Business and Economics, University of Zagreb, and tries to ascertain the link between students' motivation and their performance. The research the authors are presenting is based on a survey launched in summer 2005 in which students answered two broad groups of questions. The first covered the aspects of motivation not directly related to teaching: intrinsic/extrinsic motivation, role of pre-knowledge, etc. The second group of questions encompassed class-specific items: course goals, the grading system, types of class activities, and the role of the teacher. The obtained findings suggest what teaching strategies can be used to enhance students' motivation and help them become competent learners.

motivation research ; business students ; academic course ; life-long learning ; Business English

nije evidentirano