Academic Passion and the Influence of Learning Orientations: A Comparative Analysis Between European-American and Chinese Students in University

DOI

10.2991/978-2-38476-551-5_43How to use a DOI?

Keywords

Intrinsic learning orientation; Extrinsic learning orientation; Academic passion; European-American; Chinese students

Abstract

The interest in achieving academic success by students is driven by their academic passion, which is driven by both external social factors of achieving target goals and rewards, as well as the internal interest of improving their expertise and the enjoyment of learning among university students. These factors comprise the extrinsic and intrinsic motivational factors that define the engagement of the students in learning activities. This research paper studies whether these intrinsic and extrinsic learning motivational factors that form the learning orientation influence the development of academic passion among the students of Chinese and European-American universities. Consequently, it also studies whether the cultural factors contribute to shaping these intrinsic and extrinsic learning orientations and affect the motivation of engagement among the students. Accordingly, the paper established two hypotheses, which it verified using the hypothesis testing approach in a quantitative analysis of the data gathered through an online survey of 100 participants from these universities. Conveniently sampled through online communication and distribution of the survey questionnaire, the paper balanced the proportion of participants from the two geographical regions for a fair comparative analysis. The findings note that intrinsic motivation functions as a stable psychological framework irrespective of the cultural background among university students, while extrinsic factors are the motivational push to influence their engagement and participation. This research contributes to the ongoing discussions of the influence of intrinsic and extrinsic learning motivation among university students in a culturally diverse setup.

Copyright

© 2026 The Author(s)

Open Access

Open Access This chapter is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/), which permits any noncommercial use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license and indicate if changes were made.

Download article (PDF)

TY  - CONF
AU  - Xiaole Ma
PY  - 2026
DA  - 2026/03/26
TI  - Academic Passion and the Influence of Learning Orientations: A Comparative Analysis Between European-American and Chinese Students in University
BT  - Proceeding of 2025 8th International Conference on Humanities Education and Social Sciences (ICHESS 2025)
PB  - Atlantis Press
SP  - 375
EP  - 384
SN  - 2352-5398
UR  - https://doi.org/10.2991/978-2-38476-551-5_43
DO  - 10.2991/978-2-38476-551-5_43
ID  - Ma2026
ER  -