Who likes to learn new things: measuring adult motivation to learn with PIAAC data from 21 countries

Journal article | Zeitschriftenartikel

Background: Despite the importance of lifelong learning as a key to individual and societal prosperity, we know little about adult motivation to engage in learning across the lifespan. Building on educational psychological approaches, this article presents a measure of Motivation-to-Learn using four items from the background questionnaire of the Programme for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies (PIAAC). Methods: We used multiple-group confirmatory factor analyses for ordered categorical data to investigate the scale's dimensionality and measurement invariance across countries. Regression analyses were used to investigate the scale's criterion validity. Results: Results show that the proposed four-item scale fits the data considerably better than the original six-item scale labeled Readiness-to-Learn. Further analyses support the scale’s configural, metric (weak) and partial scalar (strong) measurement invariance across 21 countries. As expected, Motivation-to-Learn has significant relations to the working population’s engagement in learning in terms of participation in non-formal education over the last 12 months. These relations remain relevant after taking literacy as an indicator of level of education into account. Conclusion: The Motivation-to-Learn scale presented here may be used to indicate adult motivation in cross-country comparisons. The potential of using the scale in future PIAAC analyses and research on adult learning is discussed.

Object Details

• ISSN: 2196-0739
• Extent: Seite(n): 22
• Language: Englisch
• Notes: Status: Veröffentlichungsversion; begutachtet (peer reviewed)

References and Relationships

• Bibliographic citation: Large-scale Assessments in Education, 4

Classification and Topics

• Subject: Sozialwissenschaften, Soziologie ; Bildung und Erziehung ; Psychologie ; Erhebungstechniken und Analysetechniken der Sozialwissenschaften ; angewandte Psychologie ; Bildungswesen quartärer Bereich, Berufsbildung ; Datengewinnung ; Messinstrument ; Erwachsener ; Bildungsmotivation ; Erwachsenenbildung ; lebenslanges Lernen ; intrinsische Motivation ; Fragebogen

Contributors, Places and Time

• Event: Geistige Schöpfung
• (who): Gorges, Julia ; Maehler, Débora B. ; Koch, Tobias ; Offerhaus, Judith
• Event: Veröffentlichung
• (where): Deutschland
• (when): 2016

Further information

• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1186/s40536-016-0024-4
• Rights: GESIS - Leibniz-Institut für Sozialwissenschaften. Bibliothek Köln
• Last update: 21.06.2024, 4:27 PM CEST