Predicting students' career adaptability through academic motivation

Abstract

From an early age, students should be encouraged to develop the psychological attributes that will serve them well in their future professional careers. Previous literature indicates a positive correlation between academic motivation and students' career adaptation. Accordingly, this study postulates a positive correlation between intrinsic and extrinsic motivation and students’ career adaptability, as well as a negative correlation between amotivation and students’ career adaptability. This quantitative study employs a convenience survey approach to collect cross-sectional time data. The motivation and career adaptation scales were employed to collect the data, which were then subjected to analysis using Spearman correlations. The results of the first hypothesis indicate a positive and significant correlation between intrinsic (rho = .60) and extrinsic (rho = .52) motivation with career adaptation, with a sufficiently large correlation load. The study revealed a negative and significant correlation (rho = -.13) between amotivation and career adaptability, as predicted by the second hypothesis. The study also outlines its limitations and offers recommendations for future research..