Vol. 8 No. 3 (2017)
Research Article

HOW DOES STUDENTS MOTIVATION TO ACQUIRE NEW GEOSPATIAL SKILLS INFLUENCE THEIR CHOICES OF E-LEARNING CONTENT?

Published 2017-01-01

Keywords

  • E-learning,
  • motivation,
  • geoinformation,
  • skills

How to Cite

Szablowska-Midor, Aneta, Natalia Kolecka, Jacek Kozak, and Krzysztof Ostafin. 2017. “HOW DOES STUDENTS MOTIVATION TO ACQUIRE NEW GEOSPATIAL SKILLS INFLUENCE THEIR CHOICES OF E-LEARNING CONTENT?”. European Journal of Geography 8 (3). https://eurogeojournal.eu/index.php/egj/article/view/302.

Abstract

Higher education in many disciplines is affected nowadays by an evident orientation to assist
students in developing a certain set of skills required by the labour market. This trend is visible
also in the field of Geographic Information Science and Technology (GIS&T). The
composition of competencies encompasses, apart from industry-specific technical
competencies, also soft skills related to personal effectiveness, academic and workplace
competencies. Moreover, soft skills are gaining in importance, being identified as future work
skills. As a result, students may search for certain skills when they come into contact with a
particular learning content. In this study, we investigated how the motivation to acquire specific
skills influences students’ behaviour on the e-learning platform. As a case study, we selected a
study programme in land management carried out at the Institute of Geography and Spatial
Management (Jagiellonian University in Cracow, Poland). Several different motivating factors,
like GIS&T skills and the ability to co-operate, were identified and compared with students’
behaviour on the e-learning platform in certain modules of the study programme. The results
indicated that students only partially prospected for certain competencies during their work
with the content of the e-learning platform. Students’ motivation was more evident in their online behaviour when they wanted to acquire technical skills than when they planned to develop
soft skills.

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