Determinants of vocational motivation in academicians in distance education and a scale development study

The aim of the study is to develop a valid and reliable measurement tool to measure the vocational motivation in academicians in distance education and to investigate the effect of vocational motivation in distance education on work engagement, and to determine whether there is a difference between vocational motivation and satisfaction with the institution in distance education. For this purpose, the research was carried out on the exploratory sequential mixed method design and three studies were carried out. In the first study, structured interviews were conducted with 34 academicians to determine the factors affecting the vocational motivation of academicians in distance education, and the factors that positively and negatively affect the o vocational motivation of the academicians in the distance education were identified and categorized. In the second study, a pilot study was conducted on 322 academicians teaching at different universities, and the structure of vocational motivation of academician scale in distance education, consisting of seven dimensions and 31 items including technological infrastructure and communication, distance education management, readiness, course content design and development, student interest, institutional support, and interaction with students, was revealed. In the third study, the structure of the scale was confirmed, criterion validity was provided, and its reliability was examined. Besides, within the scope of the third research, the effect of the vocational motivation of academicians in distance education on work engagement was examined. In addition, it was analyzed whether there was a significant difference between vocational motivation in distance education and satisfaction with the institution in distance education. According to result of the analysis carried out with 560 participants, it was found that there were statistically significant differences between motivational levels and satisfaction level with institution in the dimensions of designing and developing course content, student interest, interaction with students, distance education management, institutional support, and readiness, which are among the sub-dimensions of vocational motivation in distance education, while there were no statistically significant differences between technological infrastructure and communication dimensions. Furthermore, it is found that the vocational motivation of academicians in distance education positively affects work engagement. Technological infrastructure and communication sub-dimension has more positive effect on work engagement than communication with students and designing and developing of course content sub-dimensions.