Motivations and barriers of vietnamese students towards distance education

MOTIVATIONS AND BARRIERS OF VIETNAMESE STUDENTS TOWARDS DISTANCE EDUCATION In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements of the Degree of MASTER OF BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION... MOTIVATIONS A

MOTIVATIONS AND BARRIERS OF VIETNAMESE STUDENTS TOWARDS

DISTANCE EDUCATION

In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements of the Degree of

MASTER OF BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION

MOTIVATIONS AND BARRIERS OF VIETNAMESE STUDENTS TOWARDS

DISTANCE EDUCATION

In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements of the Degree of

MASTER OF BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION

In International Business

By

Mr Tran Vu ID: MBA03043 International University – Vietnam National University HCMC

Acknowledgement

First of all, I’d like to express my great appreciation to my adviser – Dr Nguyen Quynh Mai It’s my honor to work with her through this research She had provided me countless support including guidelines doing the research, insights about the topic, data collection, recommendation and feedback in order to finish the thesis

I am also grateful to the administrative staffs of the universities and my friends who supported and helped me in collecting data, provided the insight about this topic Their help and inputs were very valuable to me

Finally, it’s my biggest thanks to my parents who gave me love, strength and great support in time and finance They are one of the greatest motivations for me to finish the MBA program

Plagiarism Statements

I would like to declare that, apart from the acknowledged references, this thesis either does not use language, ideas, or other original material from anyone; or has not been previously submitted to any other educational and research programs or institutions I fully understand that any writings in this thesis contradicted to the above statement will automatically lead to the rejection from the MBA program at the International University – Vietnam National University

Ho Chi Minh City

Copyright Statement

This copy of the thesis has been supplied on condition that anyone who consults it is understood to recognize that its copyright rests with its author and that no quotation from the thesis and no information derived from it may be published without the author’s prior consent

© Tran Vu / MBA03043 / 2013

Table of Content TABLE OF CONTENT I LIST OF FIGURES III LIST OF TABLES IV ABSTRACT VI

CHAPTER ONE – INTRODUCTION 1

1 R ESEARCH BACKGROUND 1

1.1 Distance education around The World 1

1.2 Distance education in Vietnam: 3

2 R ATIONALE OF THE STUDY 5

3 R ESEARCH QUESTIONS AND OBJECTIVES 6

4 R ESEARCH SCOPE AND LIMITATION 7

5 I MPLICATION OF THE STUDY 7

6 R ESEARCH STRUCTURE 8

6.1 Introduction: 8

6.2 Literature review 8

6.3 Research methodology 8

6.4 Findings and Discussion 8

6.5 Conclusion 9

CHAPTER TWO - LITERATURE REVIEW 10

1 D ISTANCE E DUCATION 10

2 A DULT LEARNERS 12

3 M OTIVATION 13

4 B ARRIERS 17

5 B EHAVIORAL I NTENTION 19

6 I NFLUENCE OF DEMOGRAPHIC FACTORS TO MOTIVATIONS AND BARRIERS : 20

CHAPTER THREE – RESEARCH METHODOLOGY 22

1 R ESEARCH PROCESS 22

2 R ESEARCH MODEL 24

3 H YPOTHESIS 26

4 Q UALITATIVE METHOD 26

5 Q UANTITATIVE METHOD 27

5.1 Measurement 27

6 D ATA ANALYSIS 30

CHAPTER FOUR – FINDINGS & DISCUSSION 32

1 S AMPLE DEMOGRAPHIC 32

1.1 Motivation 34

1.2 Barriers 34

2 R ELIABILITY ANALYSIS 35

3 F ACTOR ANALYSIS 37

3.1 Motivations 37

3.2 Barriers 41

3.3 Behavioral intention 44

4 C ORRELATION BETWEEN B EHAVIORAL I NTENTION AND M OTIVATIONS , B ARRIERS 44

5 D IFFERENCE AMONG SUBGROUPS 50

5.1 Motivation 50

5.2 Barriers 52

CHAPTER FIVE – CONCLUSION 56

REFERENCES 58

APPENDIX 63

List of Figures

Figure 1 - Percentage of undergraduates enrolled in a distance education course/degree

program in U.S .2

Figure 2 - Number of students attending online program at HCMUS 4

Figure 3 - Elements of the Self-determination theory 16

Figure 4 - Research process 23

Figure 5 - Research model 24

Figure 6 - Percentage of Students' Experience in Distance Education 33

Figure 7 - Motivation levels over Age 51

Figure 8 - Motivation level over Gender 51

Figure 9 - Motivation levels over Experience in Distance education 52

Figure 10 - Barrier level over Gender 53

Figure 11 - Barrier level over Age 54

Figure 12 - Barrier level over Experience in Distance Education 55

List of Tables

Table 1 - Top 5 University/College in U.S of online learner enrollment (Aug, 2009) 3

Table 2 - Motivational factors of Grabowski & Curtis (1991) and Keller (1991) 14

Table 3 - Measurement of Motivations and Barriers 28

Table 4 - Details of age and gender of respondents 32

Table 5 - Frequency of major fields 33

Table 6 - Top ten highest motivations 34

Table 7 - Top ten highest barriers 35

Table 8- Reliability analysis result 36

Table 9 - Rotated Factor Matrix of component Motivation 38

Table 10 - Motivations of Vietnamese students towards Distance Education 40

Table 11 - Rotated Factor Matrix of component Barrier 41

Table 12 - Barriers of Vietnamese students towards Distance education 43

Table 13 - Factor Matrix of Behavioral Intention 44

Table 14 - Behavioral intention of learners towards Distance education 44

Table 15 - Correlations between Barriers and Motivations 47

Table 16 - Relationship between Behavioral Intention and Motivation/Barrier 49

Table 17 - Total variance explained of Motivations 63

Table 18 - Total variance explained of Barriers 64

Table 19 – Motivation significance by Age 65

Table 20 – Motivation significance by Gender 66

Table 21 – Motivation significance by Experience in Distance education 67

Table 23 - Barriers significance by Experience in Distance Education 69

Table 24 - Tukey test of Barriers significance by Experience in Distance Education 72

Table 25 - Barriers significance by Gender 73

Table 26 - Barriers significance by Age 74

Table 27 - Tukey test of Barriers significance by Age 77

Abstract

Distance education has a long history in over the World Thank to the modern technology, especially the Internet, there are many great and useful applications for it Distance education is also provided by few universities in Ho Chi Minh City although there are a lot of difficulties and challenges while implementing the program Distance education, with many advantages, begins to be a good channel for everyone to follow In order to have a high quality distance education program in Vietnam, there are a lot of concerns One of the concerns is about the learners Therefore, this research is going find out the motivations and barriers of Vietnamese students towards the distance education Base on the result of this research, distance education designers, instructors, and even students will have their own points of view of the current motivation and barriers of Vietnamese students, then they could have appropriate modifications

in order to make distance education program better

Quantitative and qualitative method was used to do this research While the qualitative method was used to explore the potential motivational and barriers factors, the quantitative method used the survey method to collect mass information A survey instrument was distributed

to 250 students who were following the distance education program in Ho Chi Minh City

There were six motivation factors and six barrier factors found The correlation between motivation factors and barrier factors was also found although some was not strong Moreover, research also found that motivations and barriers also had the significant influence to the behavioral intention of the learners

Keywords: distance education, online learning, Vietnamese students, motivation, barrier,

behavioral intention

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Chapter One – Introduction

1 Research background

1.1 Distance education around The World

Information technology, computers, Internet and its applications have changed the World recently There are a lot of areas that apply that modern technology effectively from military, Government to hospital, business companies, and even retail stores That includes the education field One of the most important applications is the online education

Online education is an innovation in learning It has a lot of advantages such as:

 Pay less in tuition fee and books

 Flexible class schedule

 Save money and time on commuting to the campus

 Able to learn anywhere, any time

The United State of America, with its powerful and latest technology, is one of the leading countries in provide online learning program It also invests a lot of money into this area In 2009, the U.S President Barack Obama pledged $500 million in federal funds for the creation of new online course and material The online education in U.S has a long history It’s already started in the mid-1970s At that time, the software developers created some programs that allowed students to access to the course information or material via the network easily However, due to the limitation of the technology at that time, the course was not fully online yet It only had some simple functions such as: material delivery via local network, local email and some other simple administrative actions Later then, in the 1980s, the online collaborative learning using computer conference started to emerge Using computer conferencing systems, students were able to interact synchronously and faculty began

to adopt group learning activities (Harasim, 2000) The invention of Internet and WWW in 1990s made the revolution in many areas, including education It increases the flexibility of material delivery method, higher interactivity between learners and instructors, easier to access to online resources, etc

In the United States, less than 10 states had online education programs in 1992 By 2004, all 50 states had some form of online learning programs available at the college level (Lynch, 2004) According to Radford (2011), during the 2002 – 2003 school years, 36% of public school districts enrolled a total of more than 328,000 students in technology-based distance education courses Most reviews of education trends show a dramatic increase in both the capacity and use of technology in our schools In fact, at least 22 states had established “virtual” schools by the 2004 – 2005 school-years The below figure shows the change of percentage of undergraduates enrolled in a distance education course/degree program by years

Figure 1 - Percentage of undergraduates enrolled in a distance education course/degree program in U.S

In 1989, the University of Phoenix became the first institution to fully launch an online program

to offer both Bachelor’s and Master’s degree It’s one of the reasons that University of Phoenix is the university has the largest number of online learners The success of University of Phoenix could also be seen through the money that they used for the marketing of online education In 2009, it’s $130 million

4 Arizona State University, the Tempe Campus 51,481

Table 1 - Top 5 University/College in U.S of online learner enrollment (Aug, 2009)

Recently, Harvard University and Massachusetts Institute of Technology has found a million non-profit enterprise named edX (www.edx.org) that features learning designed specifically for interactive study via the web Based on a long history of collaboration and their shared educational missions, the founders are creating a new online-learning experience with online courses that reflect their disciplinary breadth

$60-1.2 Distance education in Vietnam:

Although online learning has appeared in Vietnam for a long time in the form of English training via website, it has not had much developed recently In Ho Chi Minh City, there are only few universities have the distance education in their programs Even some top universities do not provide the distance education such as University of Technology, University of Economics, etc

Open University (OU) or University of Science (HCMUS) is one of the universities that provide distance education program for the Bachelor Degree While HCMUS only provides the bachelor degree for Information Technology, OU provides a more diversified program including Information Technology, Business Administration, Finance – Banking, Accounting, Economics Law, English, etc

OU is the first university in Vietnam has the distance education program since 1993 Up to now, OU has more than 3.000 students graduated and more than 18.000 students attending the distance education programs (Trung Tâm Đào Tạo Từ Xa - Đại Học Mở TP.HCM, 2012)

Figure 2 - Number of students attending online program at HCMUS

Although HCMUS launched the distance education program later than OU, the number of students increase gradually, especially in 2011 There are nearly 700 students, nearly triple times the previous year (Office of Academic Affairs, HCMUS) That is the signal that distance education is getting known by Vietnamese learners It’s one of the right and appropriate channel for them to obtain the knowledge beside the traditional education

2 Rationale of the study

There are a lot of difficulties in delivering a good quality distance education program in Vietnam It’s not only the infrastructure, but also the quality control There are a lot of top famous universities in Vietnam not provide distance education It, however, is clear to see that more universities are considering offering that program to learners recently It does not only increase the opportunity to learners, especially for ones who are not able to follow the traditional program, but also increases the competitive advantages of the universities It is able to attract more adult learners who want to seek for a higher degree but they do not have enough time to commute to the campus, or they may not live near the campus

On the other hand, there are also evidences that Vietnamese are getting familiar with the distance education They may find the advantages of online learning towards the traditional educations such as:

 Flexibility in class schedule It’s very helpful for people who are full-time workers or have odd job shifts

 Saving time to commute to the campus This also helps to save the money on gasoline

 Saving money on books, accessories, etc

 Sharpening the learners’ soft-skills since they are on their own in organizing study

 Having classmate that are from various geographic locations, allows for an exciting exchange of social and culture information and expands the network

In general, distance education in Vietnam is still in the very beginning phase comparing to other countries’’ In order to have a high quality distance education in Vietnam, the issues are not only coming from the universities, but also from the learners Therefore, it becomes the motivation to do this

research in order to let the universities have more insight about the learners and meet the learners’ demand of distance education The universities may refer to the result from this research to have some changes in the strategy and operations in order to launch a high quality online program and increase its reputation

3 Research questions and objectives

Although there have been a lot of researches for the distance education on over the World, there are not many papers or researches in Vietnam, especially related to learners Therefore, the main objective of this paper is to take the first step to investigate the barriers and motivations of Vietnamese learners towards the distance education There are two main concerns of this research: the motivations and the barriers of Vietnamese learners Therefore, this paper is going to answer the question: What are the barriers and motivations of Vietnamese online learners? They are, in specific:

 To define the motivations’ and barriers’ components of Vietnamese students towards the distance education program

 To assess motivations and barriers of Vietnamese students towards the distance education

 To evaluate the influence of motivations, barriers of Vietnamese students towards distance education to Behavioral intentions

 To define the influence of demographic factors to motivations and barriers of Vietnamese students

 To give suggestions to program designers to improve the quality of distance education program, or lecturers to modify teaching method that could fit to the expectations of students

4 Research scope and limitation

Due to the time constraint and limited resources, this research will only focus on the learners’ point of view in order to investigate their perceptions and expectations to the online learning program It’s the background to define the motivation and barriers of Vietnamese learners This paper will not discuss about the program designer or the instructor’s point of view Therefore, it cannot define all kinds of motivation and barriers of Vietnamese learners

Although there are a lot of distance education programs or online courses in Vietnam, the target objects of this research are limited to:

1 Distance education program (Master and Bachelor’s degree), not a single online course It’s provided by Vietnamese University, both local and international programs

2 Geography: Ho Chi Minh City

5 Implication of the study

From that result, it could give the suggestions for

 Distance education program designer: to have some appropriate modifications to the current program or to launch a program that fits Vietnamese online learners’ characteristic and meet their expectations

 Instructor: to have an appropriate teaching methodology that could transfer the knowledge to the learners in the most effective way and give the best result

 Learner: to have a new point of view towards online learning and consider if distance education is an effective educational channel in Vietnam

6 Research structure

6.1 Introduction:

The part will be about the introduction of online learning around the World and in Vietnam From the current facts of online learning in Vietnam, it will state the current issues that motivate the author to do this research The research objectives will also be defined clearly in this part, together with the research scope and limitation

6.2 Literature review

This part will give the definitions and discussions about four terms: “Distance education”,

“Adult learners”, “Motivation” and “Barrier” The agreement or argument of many authors will be also discussed here Moreover, it also reviews the influence of demographic factors to Motivations and Barriers

6.3 Research methodology

Research process and research model will be in this part It’s about the steps in conducting and doing this research such as how a questionnaire is formed, what the data collection method is, etc Moreover, it also states how the data will be analyzed in order to have the findings for this research

6.4 Findings and Discussion

This part will contain the findings of the research based on the analyzed data It is a straightforward commentary exactly of what is found Interpreting the findings and discussion will also

be put here This part will be going to answer the research questions that were raised in the first part

6.5 Conclusion

Base of the results and discussion, some recommendations or suggestion for relevance will be given Moreover, it will contain the further research or directions for further investigations to fill in gaps of this research

Chapter Two - Literature Review

1 Distance Education

Currently, there are there main terms that are used interchangeably: distance education (or distance learning), e-learning and online learning (or online learning) There are so many definitions for them The differences are coming from the way of learning, material delivery, technology and even personal perception (Moore, Dickson-Deane, & Gaylen, 2011) However, in this research, I just focus

to the original definitions

Distance education is the oldest terms It’s referred to the education that is provided through the distant geographic It’s applied for people who live in the remote area such as mountain or countryside It’s very hard to go to a “physical” school As computers became involved in the delivery of education,

a proposed definition identified the delivery of instructional materials, using both print and electronic media (Moore M , 1990) Thanks to the modern technology, current distance education does not only refer to different geographic, but also in time In general, distance education is an education form that occurs between two parties (learners and instructors); it’s held at different times and/or places, uses varying forms of instructional materials (Moore, Dickson-Deane, & Gaylen, 2011)

There are a lot of argument and conflicts in defining term e-learning It may originate during the 1980’s, within the similar time frame of another delivery mode – online education Nichols (2003) defined e-learning as strictly being accessible using technological tools such as web-based, web-distributed or web-capable With this definition, e-learning would not exist if Internet technology was not invented Therefore, Ellis (2004) disagreed with Nichols to give another definition Ellis said that e-learning did not only covers content and instructional methods delivered via CD-ROM, Internet or Intranet (Benson, A.; Elliot, D.; Grant, M.; Holschuh, D.; Kim, B.; Kim, H., 2002) but also includes

audio, video tape, satellite broadcast and interactive TV (Clark, 2002) Triacca, Bolchini, Botturi, & Inversini (2004) made it more complicated by adding that e-learning was a type of online education

On the other hand, online learning is described by most authors as access to learning experience via the use of some technology (Benson, 2002; Carliner, 2004; Conrad, 2002) It’s the more recent version of distance education which improves access to educational opportunities for learners described

as both non-traditional and disenfranchised (Benson, 2002; Conrad, 2002) Moreover, it’s not only the accessibility to the education through the Internet, but also its convenient features such as flexibility and ability to promote varied interactions (Ally, 2004; Hitltz & Turoff, 2005; Oblinger & Oblinger, 2005) Online learning could be either fully online program or hybrid program based on a mix of online and face-to-face strategy (Kumarawadu, 2009) Moreover, an online learning program must have at least 80% of content that is delivered through the Internet (Allen & Seaman, 2011)

Although there are a lot of similarities and differences of those three terms, there is only one purpose among them That is providing the education to people who cannot go to a “physical” school

It gives the learning opportunity for individuals Thanks to the improvement of technology and the appearance of Internet, there have been a lot of advantages compare to the traditional education In general, before the age of Internet, distance education used to be the form that leaners and instructors sat at different places and communicated through radio system Then with the involvement of modern technology, instructional material is not only delivered via printed version but also by electrical versions such as CD-ROM, video and audio tape, etc That’s e-learning which stands for electrical learning It also includes computers and the network (Internet and Intranet) Then it became the age of online learning which takes big advantages of the Internet and the high technology

Therefore, in order to avoid arguments, this research will use the most general term “distance education” Most Vietnamese Universities may use the term “distance learning” or “distance

education” They have some common points such as: instructional materials are delivered via either printed or electrical version; it’s flexible in time and places; mixture of offline (traditional) and online learning, etc There is one only exceptional case of HCMUS; they provide the distance education via Internet fully

2 Adult learners

Since the main research object is the learners who take part in the distance education program, it’s important to know the definition of adult learners Although there are several definitions of adult learners, most of them have the same baseline at the outset to establish research parameters They are age and experience (Kimmel & McNeese, 2006)

An adult is a fully grown person who is legally responsible for their actions, so the age of an adult depends on their own countries It could be older than either 16 or 18 In Vietnam, it is 18-year-old On the other hand, the National Center for Education Statistics of the U.S Department of Education (NCES) defined adult learners as “adults age 16 or older and not enrolled in the 12th grade or below” (NCES, 2005) Another definition of adult learner is “age 25 or older with multiple commitments, experience that contributes to their learning and goals based on well-defined needs” (Osgood-Treston, 2001) He also subdivided adult learners into two groups (1) “those who participate

in organized learning activities (enrichment and community education)” and (2) “those who engage in learning for academic credit”

In general, although there are few cases that learners are younger than 18 but they already attended the college, this research will focus on the one who is (1) 18 and older, (2) have college degree

or higher

3 Motivation

The term motivation is a familiar one The Oxford Advance Learner's Dictionary defines

“motivate somebody” is “to be the reason why somebody does something or behaves in a particular way” Hence, in this research, motivations mean the reasons for somebody to take part in distance education program

There are two important concepts related to motivation They are intrinsic motivat ion and extrinsic motivation There have been more than 800 publications have explored the intrinsic and extrinsic motivation dichotomy for more than two decades (Vallerand, 1997) Intrinsic motivation refers to performing an activity for itself, in order to experience pleasure and satisfaction inherent in the activity, while extrinsic motivation pertains to a wide variety of behaviors where the goals of action extend beyond those inherent in the activity itself (Deci, E L.; Ryan, R M., 1985) An intrinsic motivator is the source of motivation that originates inside the individual as a response to the job itself and the circumstances surrounding its execution (Martin, 2005) On the other hand, an extrinsic motivator is one that originates outside the individuals and which influence their behavior (Martin, 2005)

The motivations for seeking education could be one factor of the extrinsic motivators In the research of Kimmel & McNeese (2006), the author found several motivators based on online learners in Canada and U.S such as:

 A desire for personal accomplishment

 A desire to be a role model for my children

 A desire to finish a degree that I began, but did not complete earlier

 A desire for knowledge/skills in this degree field

 Encouragement from my children

The intrinsic motivators are more complex and affect much to the online learners during the program If the online learners demotivated, they may not overcome numerous barriers This could be seen through the attrition rate of the program There are several researches about the intrinsic motivational factors of online learners They could share some point of views such as Grabowski & Curtis (1991) and (Keller, 1999) While Grabowski & Curtis focused on the influence of information and technology to learners, Keller defined what encourages learner’s active involvement in learning The ACRS model of Keller (1991) stands for (A) attention, (R) relevance, (C) confidence and (S) satisfaction The summary of both models could be found in the following table:

1 Usefulness of the information 1 (A) Engaging and maintaining

3 Self-confidence in the ability to

access and use the information

3 (C) Enhancing student’s confidence

in understanding course content

4 Resulting satisfaction from

successful access to

4 (S) Satisfying students’

inquisitiveness related to information

Table 2 - Motivational factors of Grabowski & Curtis (1991) and Keller (1991)

Although the motivational factors are described in the different words, most authors agreed that

in order to motivate learners, there should be (1) a closed relationship between the program and

learners’ self-interest (value of the program); (2) recognition of the usefulness of the program to their life; (3) confidence in using and applying the modern technology to the learning

To motivate online learners, it’s not only the responsibility of their own learners, but also the program designers’ and even lecturers’ Therefore, it’s also important to analyze the learners’ expectations to motivate them In order to explore the insight of learners’ motivations and expectations, Kumarawadu suggested the following questions:

1 What are the characteristics of the ideal online learners?

2 What is the value of the online learning program to the learners?

3 What do the learners hope to achieve from the program?

4 How much interaction exists in an online learning program compared to a tradition program (face-to-face)?

5 What are the most effective ways to design instruction for online environment?

6 How does online learning program motivate learners who are not as self-directed or independent?

7 How can designers create collaborative online learning environments?

8 How does the online learning program operate?

Another important theory about motivation is Self-determination theory (SDT) (Deci, E L.; Ryan, R M., 1985) In this theory, different types of motivation underlie human behavior The motivation was categorized and listed from high to low levels of self-determination They are intrinsic motivation, extrinsic motivation and amotivation The elements of the SDT are illustrated in the following figure

The Intrinsic motivation had been pointed out previously In addition to previous definition, extrinsic motivation pertains to a wide variety of behaviors where goals of action extend beyond those inherent in the activity itself (Frédéric Guay, Robert J Vallerand, and Céline Blanchard, 2000) It had been divided into another four sub groups that ordered from lower to higher levels of self-determination They are:

1 External regulation: this is the type of extrinsic motivation that is the most contrast to intrinsic motivation Individuals are responsive to threats of punishment/offers/rewards and tend to be compliant as a result (Maggie Hartnett, Alison George, John Dron, 2011) This behavior is regulated by rewards or in order to avoid negative consequences

2 Introjected regulation: this refers to individuals who engage in a task because they feel they should due to the expectations of others (Maggie Hartnett, Alison George, John Dron, 2011)

3 Identified regulation: this occurs when a behavior is valued and perceived as being chosen by oneself Although it seems to be the same as intrinsic motivation, it’s still categorized as extrinsic motivation The reason is that it is the utility value (a means to

an end), personal importance, and/or relevance of the task rather than interest and enjoyment in the task itself that determines the behavior (Brophy, 2008)

Figure 3 - Elements of the Self-determination theory

Non-self determined

External Regulation

Introjected Regulation

Identified Regulation

Integrated Regulation

Quality

of

4 Integrated regulation: this is the most autonomous type of extrinsic motivation, where learners engage in the activity because of its significance to their sense of self (Maggie Hartnett, Alison George, John Dron, 2011)

Besides intrinsic and extrinsic motivation, the last element in the SDT is amotivation This was

a new concept that proposed by Deci and Ryan (1985) in order to fully understand human behaviors When amotivated, individuals experience a lack of contingency between their behaviors and outcomes It’s neither intrinsically nor extrinsically motivated Amotivation is the least self-determined because there is no sense of purpose and no expectations of reward or possibility of changing the course of events (Frédéric Guay, Robert J Vallerand, and Céline Blanchard, 2000)

In the SDT model, the placement of intrinsic motivation is on the far right while amotivation is

on the far left and extrinsic motivation is in the middle It does not mean that amotivation or extrinsic motivation could be shifted to intrinsic motivation Those three motivations should be independent The placement just intends to highlight that it is the best example of human autonomy (Deci, E L.; Ryan, R M., 1985) Moreover, according to SDT, those types of motivation are differently related o various types of outcomes For example, one would expect intrinsic motivation to be mostly associated with positive outcomes followed by identified regulation In contrast, the most negative outcomes will stem from amotivation followed to external regulation (Deci, E L.; Ryan, R M., 1985 & Vallerand, 1997)

4 Barriers

The Oxford Advance Learner's Dictionary (2012) defines “barrier” as “a problem, rule or situation that prevents somebody from doing something, or that makes something impossible” In the scope of this research, barriers mean something that prevents somebody to start distance education program and/or to finish the program

Many authors agreed that adult learners face numerous of challenges and difficulties when they are back to school Moreover, Mbilinyi (2006) stated that adults returning to school face – and in many case, overcome – obstacles different from those facing younger students In fact, almost adult learners who are seeking for the online learning are working, self-financed or married They study online to take the advantages of flexibility of place and time Therefore, adults worry most about juggling school with their family and work responsibility (Mbilinyi, 2006) Some examples barriers that are found out by Mbilinyi (2006) and Kimmel & McNeese (2006):

 The role as primary caregiver in a family

 Lack of childcare for the minor child/children

 Lack of funds for childcare for the minor child/children

 Lack of personal funds to pay for the colleges

 Concern about paying back student loans

 Finding the time for school amidst work, family and other commitment

In another study, Lin Y Muilenburg & Zane L Berge (2005) had found eight groups of barriers

of students towards online learning They are:

1 Administrative/instructor issues: barriers which are controlled by administrative staffs or instructors They could be the problems with delivery material on time, lack of online assistance or lack of timely feedback from the instructors

2 Social interaction: this is caused by lack of interaction with peers or the instructors, such

as lack of collaboration between students or feeling of isolated while studying online

3 Academic skills: this is caused by student’s perceive due their lacking of academic skills

in order to follow the study, such as writing, reading or communication

4 Technical skills: this factor concerns respondents’ perceived barriers to online learning due to their lack of technical skills such as unfamiliar with delivery system or fear of new tools/software for online learning

5 Learner motivation: respondent answered whether they had certain characteristic that would affect their motivation in online learning course

6 Time and support for studies: this barriers concern about the respondents’ lacking of time and support from employer, family and friends

7 Cost and access to the Internet: this factor concerns whether the respondents find access

to the Internet too expensive, fear the loss of privacy, confidence or property rights

8 Technical problem: this factor concerns such things as a lack of consistent platforms, browsers and software or the lack of technical assistance that causes obstacles to online learning

5 Behavioral Intention

Behavioral intention of distance education or online learning learners had been investigated in some study with different models There was a study about the investigation of students’ behavioral intention to use the online learning course websites which used the three-tier Technology Use Model (Liaw, 2008) It integrates multidisciplinary perspective that included motivation, social cognitive theory (SCT), theory of planned behavior (TBP), and technology acceptance model (TAM)

Another study combined TAM model and innovation diffusion theory (IDT) (Su-Chao Chang & Feng-Cheng Tung, 2008) to investigate the behavioral intention of online learners Although different model was used, some similarities to motivations and barriers were found Su-Chao Chang & Feng-Cheng Tung found the factors that affected behavioral intention of online learners as following:

 Compatibility: is the degree to which the innovation is perceived to be consistent with the potential users’ existing value, previous experiences and needs It has great positive and direct effect on perceived usefulness and the behavioral intention

 Perceived usefulness: is the degree to which a person believes that using a particular system will enhance his or her job performance It has great positive and direct effect on the behavioral intention

 Perceived ease of use: is the degree to which a person believes that using a particular system will be free of effort It has great positive and direct effect on the behavioral intention

 Perceived system quality: system quality is concern with whether or not there are bugs

in the system, the consistency of the user interface, ease of use, response rate in interactive system, quality documentation, and sometimes, quality and maintainability of the program code (Seddon, 1997) It has positive direct effect on the behavioral intention

 Computer self-efficacy: it’s defined as an individual’s perceptions of his or her ability to use computers in the accomplishment of a task rather than reflecting simple component skills’ It has positive effect on the behavioral intention

6 Influence of demographic factors to motivations and barriers:

The influence of demographic factors to motivations/barriers was mentioned in several researches It’s done by using ANOVAs in order to determine whether particular subgroups of respondents viewed motivations or barriers differently In the research of barriers which was done by (Lin Y Muilenburg & Zane L Berge, 2005), ten of the eleven independent variables tested affected

students rating of barriers to online learning significantly: gender, age, ethnicity, type of learning institution, self-rating of online learning skills, effectiveness of learning online, online learning enjoyment, the number of online courses completed, the likelihood of taking a future online course and persons who reported experiencing prejudicial treatment

In contrast to that research, no motivation s or barriers of significance by gender were noted (Kimmel & McNeese, 2006) However, in this study, one motivator and four barriers were shown to be

significant, supported the hypothesis adult students will differ significantly by race/ethnicity in their

motivations for seeking education and adult students will differ significantly by race/ethnicity in their barriers to higher education

Chapter Three – Research Methodology

The mixed methods will be used to do this research: quantitative and qualitative methods While the qualitative method is used to explore the potential motivational and barriers factors, the quantitative method uses the survey method to collect mass information

1 Research process

This research paper will follow the process that is presented in the below figure The research started with the objectives as described in the previous part Based on the objectives, literature review will be done in order to define the key terms and identify past studies/researches that supports for this topic In the next step, research model and hypothesis will be formed

Qualitative and quantitative methods will be used to do this research The details steps will be discussed in the next parts

In the analysis stage, several techniques will be used to analyze the data that had been collected

in the previous step Then, all findings, discussion, recommendation and conclusion will be done at the last stage

Figure 4 - Research process

Data collection

Discussions and Recommendations Research Model &

Hypothesis

2 Research model

The model of this research is presented in the following figure:

Motivation

Intrinsic motivation

Time/Support for studies

Extrinsic motivation

Perceived Competency Interest/Enjoyment

Pressure/Tension Effort/Importance

Value/Usefulness

Perceived Choice Autonomous Regulation

Technology issues Academic skills Financial issues

Behavioral Intention

The research model had three main parts

1 Motivation and its components

2 Barriers and its components

3 Relationship between motivations, barriers and behavioral intention

In the part Motivation, three main types of motivation including extrinsic motivation, intrinsic motivation and amotivation were evaluated The measurement of motivation was basically based on the situational motivation scale (Frédéric Guay, Robert J Vallerand, and Céline Blanchard, 2000) However, the author thought that the intrinsic motivation’s scale was not enough while the extrinsic motivation’s scale was focused to Identified regulation and External regulation only Therefore, the author was seeking for another scale for the motivation, only amotivation’s scale was kept Self regulation questionnaire was applied to measure extrinsic motivation with two main subscales: autonomous regulation and controlled regulation It asked three questions about why people engaged in learning related-behaviors Thus, the responses that were provided were either autonomous regulation (identified regulation and intrinsic motivation) or controlled regulation (external regulation or introjected regulation) On the other hand, intrinsic motivation inventory was applied to measure intrinsic motivation Its components were contributed by many authors Those six components of intrinsic motivation were picked since the author thought it’s applicable to the target objects of this research

Secondly, the seven components of barriers were formed by combining two research of (Lin Y Muilenburg & Zane L Berge, 2005) and (Kimmel & McNeese, 2006)

Lastly, the third part of the model was the relationship between motivations, barriers and behavioral intention It showed how motivations and barriers affected to the behavioral intention of the learners

Literature review is used to get the motivational and barrier factors in other countries That result was investigated if it’s still applicable in Vietnam

motivations

Intrinsic Motivation Inventory (Deci, E L., Eghrari, H., Patrick,

B C., Leone, D., 1994) (McAuley, E., Duncan, T., &

Tammen, V.V., 1987) (Plan, R W., & Ryan, R M., 1985)

(Ryan, 1982) (Ryan, R M., Connel, J P., &

Plant, R W., 1990) (Ryan, R M., Koestner, R &

Deci, E L., 1991) (Ryan, R M Mims, V., &

Koestner, R., 1983)

Amotivation On the assessment of Situational

Intrinsic and Extrinsic Motivation:

The Situational Motivation Scale

(Frédéric Guay, Robert J

Vallerand, and Céline Blanchard, 2000)

Barriers Students barriers to Online

Learning: a factor analytic study

(Lin Y Muilenburg & Zane L

Berge, 2005) Barriers to Business Education:

Motivating Adult Learners

(Kimmel & McNeese, 2006)

Table 3 - Measurement of Motivations and Barriers

Although there is a scale for both intrinsic and extrinsic motivation in the research of (Frédéric Guay, Robert J Vallerand, and Céline Blanchard, 2000), the author thought it may not be enough, especially for intrinsic motivation The author in that research only developed scale for intrinsic motivation, identified regulation, external regulation and amotivation Therefore, the only amotivation’s scale was kept; another scale for intrinsic and extrinsic motivation will be applied

The scale that was applied for extrinsic motivation was Self-regulation questionnaire It’s developed for use in a study conducted in a medical school (Williams, G C & Deci, E L., 1996) There questionnaire concerned the reasons why people learn in particular settings such as college or medical school It had 14-question about why people engage in learning-related behaviors The questionnaire was formed with just two subscales: Controlled regulation (external or introjected) and autonomous regulation (identified or intrinsic) The questionnaire was adapted as needed to refer to the distance education in Vietnam

Intrinsic motivation was measured by Intrinsic Motivation Inventory (IMI) This is a multidimensional measurement device intend to assess participants’ subjective experience related to a target activity in laboratory experiments This inventory has been contributed by many authors There