Being altruistically motivated: the postgraduate and career motivational orientations of access students at an Irish University

Abstract

The relative lack of research about postgraduate education, and especially from a widening participation (WP) perspective, is noteworthy in a context of an increasingly expanding and important postgraduate sector internationally. This paper draws on the findings of a study about the ‘impact’ of WP initiatives at an Irish university, exploring the undergraduate, postgraduate, and employment experiences of two groups of former access students. A mixed-methods research design (employing a self-completion questionnaire sent to all relevant individuals (N=195), and 26 in-depth semi-structured interviews) was employed. This paper examines these individuals’ postgraduate progression in relation to a number of factors, with a particular focus on their views about progression, the programmes pursued, and their related motivational orientations. Many of the research participants were altruistically motivated in their selection of postgraduate programmes and related careers, and this motivational orientation is explored in terms of its genesis and implications in a WP context.

Keywords:

• Widening participation
• postgraduate education
• motivational orientations

Notes

1. Some 69% of students, if all age groups are included.

2. See Keane, 2015 for further detail on Ireland’s WP policy context and rationale.

3. ‘School-leaver age’ meant being under 23 on entering HE; in Ireland mature students are defined as those who are 23 years or over on 1 January in year of entry to first year at undergraduate level.

4. TAP is the Access Programme at Trinity College Dublin.

5. Dublin City University.

6. University College Cork.

7. While growth at postgraduate level has been an important national policy objective for some years now in Ireland, the significant growth of the ‘fourth level’ has also been influenced by the general perception that ‘a degree is no longer enough’ to be competitive in the employment ‘market’, a view typical in societies marked by processes of crendentialism, including significantly rising participation rates at undergraduate level. Another possible factor impacting on Ireland’s postgraduate-level growth is the extent and depth of Ireland’s recent national recession: in times of recession when there are fewer employment opportunities, people often seek to up- or re-skill, including at postgraduate level.

8. Level 8: Honours Bachelor’s degree. Level 9: Master’s degree. Level 10: Doctoral degree. Information on the National Framework of Qualifications (NFQ) can be found at http://www.qqi.ie/Pages/National-Framework-of-Qualifications-(NFQ).aspx

9. Entry to higher education in Ireland is generally based on an applicant’s performance (in points) in the terminal school Leaving Certificate examination through the Central Applications Office (CAO) system.

10. Available to those meeting certain criteria with regard to socio-economic disadvantage.

11. The total population for SLAs and MAs 1997–2012 inclusive was 845.

12. For full information on the development, content and implementation of the questionnaire, as well as detailed information on the socio-demographics of the respondents, see Keane (2015).

13. While it is acknowledged that the use of ‘valid’ percentages may be problematic where individual question response rates are low, in this study the latter were generally quite high.

14. While historically it is acknowledged that teaching has been regarded as a career path for upwardly mobile students from lower socio-economic groups (Zumwalt & Craig, 2008), this study’s participants who entered teaching programmes were clear about their ‘wanting to help’ (altruistic) motivations. The study’s participants entered a variety of postgraduate programmes and professions, including law and business, as well as social work and teaching, among others, and even those in Law discussed their desire to ‘give back’.

15. Factors Influencing Teaching. The factors shape the future of children/adolescents, enhance social equity, make a social contribution, and work with children/adolescents comprises a higher-order social utility values factor.

16. Interestingly, even in subjects such as Law and Business, the relevant access students in this study displayed altruistic motivations.

17. The postgraduate subject choice and career motivations of students entering HE via an access programme are likely to be quite different from those entering HE directly and/or via ‘traditional’ routes, given likely different socio-demographic positionality and variant life experiences therein.