STUWA: A multi-factorial inventory to measure motivation for enrollment

STUWA: A multi-factorial inventory to measure motivation for enrollmentAbstract: Past research with teacher students showed that motivation for enrollment should be operationalized as a facetted construct. Unfortunately, there is a shortage of reliable and valid instruments to measure different facets of motivation for enrollment outside of teacher education. To solve this problem, we developed a multi-factorial inventory to measure motivation for enrollment (STUWA). The instrument covers the following facets of motivation for enrollment based on self-determination theory and expectancy-value theory: intrinsic, extrinsic-materialistic, extrinsic-social, socially induced and coping-oriented motivation for enrollment. Furthermore, it allows to investigate the degree to which the major choice is associated with insecurity or motivational conflicts. Each subscale contains three items. We tested the reliability and validity of the instrument within two studies. In the first study (N = 413 freshmen), we could provide evidence that a 7-factorial measurement model showed a good model fit within exploratory factor analyses. We replicated this finding in the second study (N = 716 freshmen) with a confirmatory factor analysis. Furthermore, we found significant correlations between the different facets of motivation for enrollment with study satisfaction and achievement goal orientations. Especially intrinsic motivation for enrollment showed an adaptive association pattern, whereas we found a maladaptive pattern for insecurity and motivational conflicts. We also found that the inventory was characterized by scalar measurement invariance regarding gender and different majors, which indicates that the instrument can be used for group comparisons. In line with previous research, we found that business students reported higher extrinsic-materialistic motivation for enrollment than other students. Additionally, teacher students reported more extrinsic-social and social-induced motivation for enrollment. The empirical evidence illustrates the suitability of the STUWA questionnaire for the measurement of motivation for enrollment in a wide range of study programs, which makes further research on the longitudinal impact of different qualities of motivation for enrollment possible.