Browsing by Author "Torpo, Hanna"

Aims. The purpose of this thesis was to examine what kind of achievement goal orientation groups can be found in the context of non-formal, job-related online learning, and how the discovered groups differ from each other in perceived costs of online learning and in assessment of work organization’s supportive learning culture. The study’s context offered a unique application to the goal orientation profile research, as the examined type of learning was non-formal learning, or more specifically, non-formal online learning related to work. This study contributes to building an understanding of motivational processes among people in working life and presents practical implications for the development of online learning practices and materials so that those would be more encouraging and supportive to a wider audience of learners. Methods. The research data was collected by an online questionnaire during January and February 2021. Altogether, 170 individuals from Europe and North America, working in different roles and fields, participated in the study. The participants were classified into goal orientation groups by utilizing a person-oriented approach and Two-Step cluster analysis. To examine in-between group differences, analyses of variance (ANOVA) were performed. Results and Conclusions. Four distinct goal orientation profiles were identified: learning-oriented, success-oriented, performance-avoidance-oriented, and avoidance-oriented. Learning-oriented differed from the other groups in perceived costs, as they assessed the online learning costs to be significantly lower. In organizational learning culture, avoidance-oriented evaluated their work organization to have a less supportive learning culture than the rest of the groups. After further examination of the study results, it was found that performance and avoidance goals seem to be connected to higher perceived online learning cost, while mastery goals seem to be related to an assessment of a more supportive organizational learning culture. Based on these findings, this study also presents practical implications in the latter part of the paper. All in all, the results indicate that understanding and knowledge of different motivational patterns is crucial for the development and expansion of non-formal, job-related online education.