The current situation of learning motivation of students majoring in Economics, Dai Nam University

Hoang Thi Bich Hanh , Nguyen Thanh Tung,
Pham Ngoc Tuyen, Hoang Thanh Tuyen
Class TCDN 08.01

As a non-public university , Dai Nam University was established under Decision No. 1535QD-TTg dated November 14, 2007 of the Prime Minister . Right from the first days, Dai Nam University set the goal of becoming one of the leading universities in the country and internationally in terms of "Quality, prestige, innovation and service". The university has the mission of training high-quality human resources in the fields of economics; engineering - technology; social sciences - humanities ; foreign languages and medicine - health care, serving the cause of industrialization and modernization of the country in the context of international integration. After 10 years of construction and development, the university has made many changes in teaching methods, forming a proactive and positive way of thinking and creating motivation for students to study. To study the current situation of learning motivation of students in the economic sector of the University, the research team has conducted a scientific research project with the same name and would like to share part of the survey results as well as propose solutions and recommendations to promote students' learning motivation in the future.

Roles and responsibilities of students in the new era

Students are the young intellectuals of the future, and they themselves will play a key role in the industrialization and modernization of the country. Because students are the advanced part of society, have a high level of education, are able to receive new things, know how to change flexibly to adapt to the rapid changes of modern society, and represent a new progressive generation.

Every student of Dai Nam University is fully aware of his or her important role in the cause of building and defending the Fatherland. To fulfill his or her responsibilities, first of all, students must study and practice well. Studying is the most basic activity in student life. The quality of study is influenced by objective and subjective factors, especially the motivation to study.

In essence, students ' learning activities are aimed at becoming qualified workers after graduating from university, so career orientation is clearly shown throughout the student 's learning process . Therefore, mastering knowledge, skills, and techniques of the profession, accessing and updating knowledge with the development of the profession, etc. are important to promote students to actively and proactively study.

The learning process at university has many characteristics that are different from the learning process at high school. In this learning environment, students are proactive and active in acquiring knowledge, are creative in acquiring knowledge, and must find their own appropriate learning methods. Meanwhile , students encounter many difficulties that they must overcome on their own : teaching methods , new specialized subjects, thick curriculum , large amount of knowledge, many lecturers, crowded teaching and each subject is taught by one lecturer , sometimes before they get used to the lecturer 's teaching style, the subject has ended . In college, you have to work with many friends, then new friends, each one coming from a different cultural sub-region, different lifestyle... It really makes it difficult for students to adapt to the new learning environment.

The current situation of learning motivation of students majoring in economics, Dai Nam University

To conduct the research, the group developed a survey questionnaire and conducted the survey in all classes of Courses 8, 9, 10 of the Faculty of Finance, Faculty of Business Administration and Faculty of Accounting studying at Dai Nam University (except for Course 7 which is in the internship period). The results obtained some typical information as follows:

* Students' thoughts on the meaning of college

The survey results of the group have obtained expected results on the purpose of studying of students as well as the reasons for choosing the school of students majoring in economics at Dai Nam University. Most of Dai Nam University students have realized the purpose of studying at university. The majority are aware that studying is a way to equip themselves with knowledge, professional skills, improve and assert themselves to have high income as well as promotion opportunities in the future. In particular, the basic factors that positively affect students' interest in studying are from the learners' own will, from the lecturers and from the school. These positive factors are advantages in the learning process at school, which need to be focused on to further promote in order to have the best learning environment, create optimal conditions for students to receive knowledge, and improve the quality of teaching and learning.

* Time spent studying

The research team synthesized the average time spent studying by students in the economic sector. In the period from 15-60 minutes, the percentage of students studying accounted for 63%, which can be said to be quite low for students. Meanwhile, the time spent studying over 60 minutes accounted for 19%, showing that most students do not care much about studying, this percentage is almost equal to the number of students studying less than 15 minutes (18%) per day.

* Feelings about university subjects

When interviewed, a student commented : “ I think that subjects unrelated to the major are a waste of time, effort and money and do not bring any benefits. They should be removed from the training program. Instead, subjects related to the major should be promoted .”

It can be seen that students in this group often only like to study the subjects they are studying and pay little attention to other subjects. While the subjects in the training program all have the same position, role and importance because of their contribution to the training process of a future expert who is good at expertise and profession as well as forming their personality. The negative attitude towards some subjects is a barrier that makes students study these subjects ineffectively and really do not find interest in deeply acquiring other scientific knowledge. According to the survey data, 9.27% of students "do not like any subject", meaning they do not have a positive attitude towards studying at all .

Students have not yet determined their major, and in addition, the school's entrance is mostly based on the second choice or on transcripts, especially economics, which is not the initial goal of many people, so they do not have the right attitude towards studying. Therefore, through the semesters, there are still students dropping out and leaving school halfway. Therefore, teaching and creating passion and interest in studying economics for students is extremely important to reduce the number of students dropping out halfway.

* The most important reasons that motivate students to study better

The survey results of students majoring in economics show that the main reasons listed in order of priority are: Passion for the subject; Awareness of the importance of the subject; Encouragement and pressure from friends; Strict school discipline... These are the most important reasons motivating students in their studies.

Opportunities and challenges for students majoring in economics

The integration period will open up many job opportunities with higher requirements for workers, especially those in the economic sector with higher recruitment criteria , requiring human resources to have many other skills in addition to professional knowledge such as: communication skills, computer use, teamwork skills, reporting skills, information research and processing skills. Thus, to succeed in a competitive environment, Vietnamese workers in general must be aware of expanding their professional knowledge, improving their scientific thinking capacity, independence, creative work, promoting initiatives, applying new technologies, constantly developing professional skills... to form knowledge, courage, and firmly integrate.

Joining ASEAN in 2015 is a favorable condition for developing Vietnam's labor market, perfecting the training process and improving the labor resources that we still have a long way to go. This issue of preparing to train human resources to join ASEAN has been analyzed by many State agencies and social and human resource research agencies. The Party and the State have also identified specific policies and instructions to promote advantages, overcome limitations, and move towards high-quality human resources and high-level human resources to meet integration requirements. Universities, Colleges, Secondary Schools, and Vocational Schools are actively improving the training process to improve quality. Career guidance activities are more active, helping students understand themselves, understand human resource trends, and choose a career to study and develop.

Every year , Dai Nam University organizes conferences, scientific seminars, and talks in many different forms, but all of them are meaningful and useful for students. International cooperation activities are enhanced, extracurricular activities are regularly organized on a large scale to help students unite and raise their sense of responsibility to the community and society.

In today 's industrial age , Foreign Languages and Soft Skills are two essential things to help students have better job opportunities. Therefore, Dai Nam University has included 10 soft skills in the main training program. Dai Nam students are taught English according to TOEIC standards, ensuring output standards from 450-600 (fluent speaking and writing). Dai Nam is the first school to include the subject " Learning to think to get rich and succeed in your career " in training. Therefore, Dai Nam students will have presentation skills, teamwork skills, etc. With this level, Dai Nam bachelors not only meet the needs of recruiting businesses but also qualify to continue studying for a master's degree at home and abroad. Identifying that investment in education is investment in future generations, the Board of Directors of the school has built a system of extremely modern technical facilities: The system of classrooms, lecture halls, laboratories, practice rooms, and computer rooms are equipped with modern facilities to best meet the teaching and learning needs of lecturers and students. The staff and lecturers of the school are all professors and doctors with rich experience and high expertise. In addition, the school regularly invites experts, CEOs and directors of large corporations and companies to talk and teach students directly . The school also constantly boldly sends young lecturers to work at businesses to gain more experience to serve the teaching process.

Solutions to enhance learning motivation for students majoring in economics, Dai Nam University

* From the School

- According to the survey results, " Increasing forms of rewards " accounted for 67.4% of student suggestions, which clearly shows that it may be due to the efforts of students but have not reached the level of being rewarded or the conditions for receiving scholarships are difficult, making it difficult for many students to achieve, not creating diversity in forms of rewards, which are the reasons leading to a decrease in students' learning motivation, lack of creativity as well as effective learning. The school should have many different forms of rewards, not just the form of giving scholarships to students with excellent academic achievements. The forms of rewards can be more diverse and rich, such as: sightseeing tours or tuition exemptions for students with good academic performance or excellent achievements in group activities.

- “ Organizing many extracurricular activities and field trips” accounted for 62.9% of the total number of opinions. It can be said that the balance between theory and practice is extremely important, helping students have the opportunity and conditions to apply the knowledge they have learned to real life so that students can make positive adjustments to change themselves and improve their learning outcomes.

- " Reducing subjects not closely related to the major" accounted for 47.3%, showing that shortening the training time by reducing subjects not closely related to the major at university is suitable for international integration, allowing students to study more on their own .

- “Enhancing support for employment and internship for students” accounts for 46.3%. The school always pays attention and focuses on providing career counseling for students. However, the school should regularly organize more career counseling sessions for students at the faculty/department level; organize career counseling fairs and seminars by major to create opportunities for employers to meet with students, helping some students find jobs or internships.

* From the lecturer

- Help students create motivation and learning goals by understanding the conversation partner, asking stimulating questions to help students learn about the good things about the profession they are studying, and creating opportunities for students to learn about reality.

- When building a detailed outline of the subject, it is necessary to clearly state what content students must study on their own, the knowledge objectives to be achieved, the criteria and forms of assessment of self-study products, and introduce the main textbook and reference materials for the self-study content.

- When starting to teach a subject, lecturers should spend an appropriate amount of time instructing students on scientific self-study methods: how to read and understand documents, how to discover the nature of the problem, how to take notes, how to synthesize the information obtained, how to memorize, helping students to overcome difficulties (especially in the early stages), but avoid making students have a dependent mindset, relying on others.

- Help students "untie the knot" to continue exploring and discovering when necessary such as: helping poor students fill in knowledge gaps, guiding good students to read more reference materials, guiding students to self-test/evaluate their self-study knowledge, creating minimum conditions for documents for students, introducing students to learning tools...

- Be the referee for student debates on certain knowledge content, but do not resolve the issue based on the subjective opinions of teachers but on the basis of the knowledge students find to help students self-adjust their knowledge.

- Have a plan to participate in evaluating students' self-study process in many forms: exchange, discussion, test, essay, motivation and learning attitude... Need to determine evaluation criteria and disseminate to students; lecturers must have comments and evaluation on students' products and promptly return the products to students so that students can self-adjust their knowledge.

- Use many forms of self-study guidance for students: directly in class, through conversation or using information technology...; Organize extracurricular topics, clubs to apply knowledge to solve problems related to program content, methods, means, and forms of teaching organization.

- Combining learning activities and scientific research activities with real life and future career practices of students.

* From the student side

- Students need to practice more actively and be more proactive in their studies. Boldly raise your contributions, opinions, and questions during your studies to get timely answers.

- Apply appropriate learning methods to acquire knowledge effectively, creatively, and deeply, creating a solid foundation for oneself to confidently work in an environment that increasingly requires more stringent requirements like today.

- Actively improve missing knowledge sources, participate in extracurricular activities not only in but also out of school, participate/follow/update information related to the major, exchange and learn between students inside and outside the school to make up for missing knowledge.

- In addition, students need to pay attention to cultivating teamwork skills, conversation skills, and presentation skills that have been taught in all subjects taught at school.

- Learn more work and study experience from seniors to understand how to operate and work practically after completing the university program .

In conclusion

Students are at an age of strong intellectual development and personality perfection. They are in the preparation stage to become real workers and no longer depend on their families. At this age, students are already real citizens of the country with full rights and obligations before the law. All of the above makes students have a clear role and social position. To have that role and position, students must assert themselves, first of all in their study and career activities .

With the mission of training high-quality human resources to meet the labor recruitment needs of Vietnamese enterprises and foreign enterprises in Vietnam, Dai Nam University has been gradually improving to increasingly gain a foothold in the country's education; closely following and implementing well the goal: Training quality goes hand in hand with diversifying training types, levels and training fields; striving to build the University into one of the leading private universities in Vietnam, in which the most important role belongs to the youngest members - students.