Relationship between self-regulated learning strategy and motivation of management students

Self-regulated learning approach has been of interest to researchers especially at school level education. An attempt has been made here to find how self-regulated learning strategy and motivated learning strategy impacts the learning process of a MBA student. A modified self-regulated learning strategy (SRLS) and motivated learning strategy questionnaire (MLSQ) was administered to 165 students in a top residential B-School in India. Both the scales showed very high internal consistency. Students had varying prior work experiences and educational background. It was observed that students with high intrinsic motivation and high prior academic performance had significantly higher generalised organisation and planning strategy, but, these however did not significantly impact their critical thinking ability. High task motivation was observed to induce better learning strategy, external regulation and critical thinking ability. Males were observed to score significantly higher on organisation and planning strategy and need for environmental restructuring. For management students to be effective leaders and decision makers their critical thinking ability requires to be developed which can be achieved by inducing high task motivation by clear demarcation of curriculum objectives, learning objectives of each course; blended method of learning with multiple reasoning approach, thus activating the task and intrinsic motivations of students.