The learning motives of business students and postponement

Abstract

[EN] This paper examines the motives of students’ program choice and specialization choice on the example of business students in TalTech, Estonia. The program applies postponement strategy – students choose between five specialization branches of more vocational nature during their second year of studies. This study aims to distinguish extrinsic and intrinsic motivation factors of students who have weighed their specialization options for longer from students who have decided on their specialization in an earlier phase. The overall quantitative findings suggest that the intrinsic learning motivation is not significantly different between the two groups of students. However, it appears that the students with predetermined decision are more specialization-oriented, whereas the postponement strategy suits more for a generalist and entrepreneurial profile. This strongly suggests that when a business programme aims to prioritize cross-functional skills and advancing the entrepreneurial spirit, the postponement strategy is recommended as a tool to boost student intrinsic motivation.