Toward a Better Understanding of Prep-year Students: What are the Primary Motives for Higher Education?

Abstract

The growth of students’ motivation is critical during the transition from secondary to higher education. Inspiration for learners is one of the key learning elements in both structured and informal settings. Many students are involved in education; of course, other students require support and encouragement. The study aims to understand the various motives of students to pursue higher education at a Saudi Eastern province public university. A quantitative descriptive analysis method and an online survey were used to collect data as part of the research. SPSS software was used to verify the accuracy and reliability of the data. Means, standard deviation, and ANOVA tests were used to investigate the data. The final instrument comprises 27 six-point Likert scale items related to students’ decisions to attend higher education, with an overall Cronbach’s alpha of .94. Among the findings of the study: "learning has no limitations," "accomplish my future goals," "increase abilities and expertise," "meet possible ambitions," and "to offer a better life for my kids and me" were the most common responses. There were significant statistical gender-related variations in favor of female students’ motivations. However, additional results indicated no statistically significant differences in family wealth, cluster, and parents’ education level.