Motivation to learn by age, education, and literacy skills among working‑age adults in the United States

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Citation of Original Publication

Yamashita, T., Smith, T.J., Sahoo, S. et al. Motivation to learn by age, education, and literacy skills among working-age adults in the United States. Large-scale Assess Educ 10, 1 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1186/s40536-022-00119-7

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Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)

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Abstract

This study highlighted how particular intersections of personal characteristics were related to Motivation to Learn (MtL) among adults. MtL is a prerequisite for adult education and training participation. However, little is known about MtL across subpopulations due to several methodological limitations. This study developed a national profile of MtL by key subpopulations that are defined by combinations of age, gender, education level, and literacy proficiency in the United States. Data were obtained from 2012/2014/2017 Program for International Assessment of Adult Competencies (PIAAC) restricted use file (N = 8400). The alignment optimization (AO) method was employed to estimate subpopulation means of a PIAAC-based latent MtL construct. Subpopulations with younger age, greater educational attainment, and higher literacy proficiency showed significantly greater MtL.