Motives Influencing Subject of Students at Intermediate Level in Private Schools

Abstract

The present research aimed at establishing the internal antecedent affecting course choices by intermediate students, self-generated forces that included interest, ability, curiosity, and joy. The sample consist of first year science and arts students from male and female, both private and public sector university students in district Mianwali. Questionnaire was used to administer the data and later the data was analyzed using the statistical package for social sciences. Research indicated that extrinsic motivators, including subject interest, choice, learning capacity, and desire influenced subject selection. Most students were inclined by their abilities and interests as they selected their courses. However, there are other more basic aspects such as fun and interest, which were scarcely noticed; this is because students highly valued match of their academic courses to their skills instead of fun or interest in the course content. This outlines an omission in students’ utilization of intrinsic factors; therefore, there is a need to increase the focus on using curiosity and enjoyment within educational decision making. The study is conducted with small sample size due to several research constraints. In future, studies could be conducted with larger sample size including adding more variables for wide demographic coverage to obtain the verifiable result to be generalized to capture greater understanding on the issue.