Students’ Commitment to Attend Classes in Management Higher Education: A Comparative Study of Working Executives and Non Working Students Pursuing Full Time Post Graduate Management Programme

Abstract

The purpose of the present study is to identify the commitment of students to attend classes amongst postgraduate management students (male vs. female, working professionals vs. non working MBA students). The paper attempts to apply the concept of commitment to students in the business higher education. For this the Meyer and Allen’s (1991) Three Component Model of Commitment was adapted to measure student’s commitment to attend classes and finally the commitment of students was mapped who are working executives and non working students perusing full time post graduate management studies. The study was conducted on 371 MBA students out of which 171 were working professionals and 200 were non working MBA students. The male/female composition of the sample was 223/148 respectively. A commitment to attend class questionnaire was administered on the participants measuring three type of commitment i.e. Normative Commitment, Affective Commitment and Continuance Commitment. The results of the study show that working professional MBA students significantly differs from non working MBA students on Continuance Commitment where Non working MBA students are significantly higher than working professionals. The interaction results of male/female with working/ non working students comparison shows that the Male non working MBA students are higher on Normative Commitment as compared to the Male working professionals, while the Female non working MBA students are lower than the Female working professionals on Normative Commitment.

Research limitations/implications – Why a student is coming to the class will determine his attention and learning in the class. If he/she is attending classes just to abide by norms (Normative Commitment), or coming to class because not attending the same will generate negative results or the student has nothing else to do (Continuance Commitment), then effective learning will not take place. The teachers can identify the type of commitment students are using and can try to convert this into Affective Commitment by new learning methods. The study is conducted in Metro city; differences may even be prominent if extended to three tier and two tier cities.