Abstract:

The motivation of learners deals with the commitment of their goals, where the motivated students develop their willingness for accomplishing their desired goals in terms of assignment submission, courses completion, preparation for end term examinations etc., as a whole. Realising the crucial need of studying and increasing the motivation level among the learners an attempt has been taken by the researchers for investigating motivation of the distance learners towards ODL by developing a motivation scale. The study was conducted in two parts, in the first part efforts has been taken to develop, validate and standardise a motivation scale towards open and distance learning, and in the second part, efforts have been taken to compare the motivation level of distance learners of Indira Gandhi National Open University (IGNOU) and Odisha State Open University (OSOU). The findings of the study revealed that the final version of motivation scale towards open and distance learning was consisted of three dimensions i.e., academic motivation, non-academic motivation, and demotivation. The academic motivation dimension of the scale consisted of 17 items, non-academic motivation consisted of 12 items, and demotivation consisted of 07 items. So, in total 36 items were there in the MSODL. The Cronbach’s alpha reliability of the motivation scale was found to be 0.88 and split-half reliability was found to be 0.87, which revealed that the motivation scale was highly reliable having high internal consistency. Further, the findings also revealed that the motivation scores of students studying in OSOU were found to be significantly more than their counter part IGNOU students. The academic motivation scores of students studying in OSOU were found to be significantly more than their counter part of IGNOU students. The non-academic motivation scores of students studying in OSOU were found to be significantly more than their counter part of IGNOU students. The demotivation scores of students studying in IGNOU were found to be significantly more than their counter part of OSOU students.

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