The Attitudes and Values (Interpersonal Competence) as a Dimension of Global Competence and its Relationship with Academic Motivation in Higher Education
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.62843/jrsr/2026.v.iv.231Keywords:
Global Competence, Attitudes and Values, Academic Motivation, Self-Determination Theory, Teacher Education, PakistanAbstract
Global competence has become an important aim of higher education. Its attitudes and values dimension, which includes openness to other cultures, willingness to interact with people from different backgrounds, and respect for other perspectives, may be closely tied to the reasons for which students engage in learning. Guided by Self-Determination Theory, this study examined the relationship between the attitudes and values dimension of global competence and three forms of academic motivation: intrinsic motivation, extrinsic motivation and amotivation. A quantitative correlational design was used with 1,200 undergraduate students from the Education departments of three universities (two public and one private) in Lahore, Pakistan. Attitudes and values were measured with 11 items from the Global Competence Scale (Liu et al., 2020), and academic motivation with 20 items from the Academic Motivation Scale (Vallerand et al., 1992). Pearson correlations showed that attitudes and values were strongly and positively related to intrinsic motivation (r = .586, p < .001) and extrinsic motivation (r = .560, p < .001). The correlation with amotivation was also positive but negligible (r = .072, p = .012), which is contrary to theoretical expectations. Students who were more open to other cultures therefore reported stronger motivation of both kinds, while the very small positive link with amotivation calls for further examination. The findings suggest that opportunities for intercultural engagement in teacher education may support students’ motivation to learn, although the correlational design does not allow causal conclusions.
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