Workers’ motivation and their intentions to learn: Does age matter?

In the extensive field of work-related learning (Streumer & Kho, 2006), only few studies have focused on the nomological network of older workers motivation to learn. To advance the literature, the present exploratory study focused on the impact of workers’ personal, contextual characteristics and the role of motivation to learn as mediator by using a sample of 561 adults. Based on expectancy-value theory (Eccles & Wigfield, 2000) and socio-emotional selectivity theory (Carstensen, 2006) a multi-mediational model was constructed to examine the mediating effect of learning value and learning self-efficacy on the relationship between future time perspective, goal orientation, proactive personality, work design, work centrality and the outcome variable, intention to learn. Results highlight the importance of workers’ learning value and their learning self-efficacy as mediators in prediction of their intention to learn. Multiple regression analysis showed some age differences in the investigated variables, especially in relation to future time perspective. However, age had no impact on intention to learn once tested in the overall model. These findings suggest that when examining workers’ learning motivation, age-related variables as future time perspective should be also taken into account