Ademola Amida, Sameera Algarni and Robert Stupnisky
This study explored graduate students' academic success by testing a hypothesized model based on the self-determination theory (SDT), which posits that motivation, time management…
Abstract
Purpose
This study explored graduate students' academic success by testing a hypothesized model based on the self-determination theory (SDT), which posits that motivation, time management and career aspiration predicts perceived success.
Design/methodology/approach
A quantitative methodology was employed to garner data from a population of 324 graduate students, and then analyzed using structural equation modeling in R.
Findings
Intrinsic motivation was the strongest motivation type that predicted graduate students' perceived success. Time management was another important predictor of perceived success, while career aspiration did not impact students' perception of success. Doctoral students showed significantly higher relatedness when compared to master degree students. In addition, male students showed significantly higher career aspirations than females, while female students showed significantly higher time management than their male counterparts. The results of this study support the SDT as a framework to understand graduate students' academic success.
Originality/value
Implementing the research findings may increase graduate students' academic success. This study suggests direct ways of increasing graduate students' achievement through intrinsic motivation, time management and autonomy, as well as reducing amotivation (lack of motivation) to indirectly enhance academic success.
Details
Keywords
Chitresh Kumar, Neha Garg, Asim Talukdar and Anirban Ganguly
This paper aims to study the adverse effects of performance motivation and goal setting. The study investigates the unethical behavior of knowledge hiding that requires moral…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to study the adverse effects of performance motivation and goal setting. The study investigates the unethical behavior of knowledge hiding that requires moral disengagement. The research further investigates the influence of performance motivation on knowledge hiding, along with investigating the mediating effect of moral disengagement.
Design/methodology/approach
Structural equation modeling has been adopted to understand the relationships. Data was collected from 288 students from Indian higher education institutions to understand how social cognitive aspects of performance influenced knowledge hiding.
Findings
The findings revealed that students hide knowledge from peers and rationalize the hiding process through social cognition of moral disengagement to justify the hiding process. It was further observed that performance motivation has a stronger relationship with rationalized knowledge hiding as compared to evasive knowledge hiding or playing dumb.
Research limitations/implications
By exploring the potential unintended yet detrimental consequences of performance motivation, this study adds to the scant literature on the drawbacks of ambitious goal setting. It also advances the performance motivation and knowledge hiding literature by exploring these constructs through the behavioral ethics lens of moral disengagement.
Practical implications
Awareness about the ill-effects of performance motivation of students and understanding the role of moral disengagement in the same will help administrators and policymakers to cautiously promote performance-driven culture within academia as well as in designing effective interventions for curbing the same.
Originality/value
The current study advances the extant literature on the negative side of ambitious goal setting and provides new insights into how it can encourage moral disengagement and knowledge-hiding behavior. Further, academic research on moral disengagement among students has been scarce. This study thus investigates how moral disengagement among students can promote detrimental behavior(s) of knowledge hiding. The study is one of the early studies to uncover moral disengagement as an antecedent to knowledge hiding.