Impacts of School Administration Autonomy Support on Students' Learning Motivation and Intentions to Drop out of Vocational School

This paper presents the results of a study on the impacts of school administration autonomy support on students` learning motivation and their intentions to persist in versus drop out of vocational school. The data was collected from 209 students of the industrial vocational college of Hanoi through self-reported questionnaires assessing school administration autonomy support, academic motivation and intentions to persist versus drop out. Students reported the college staff respected them, offered them opportunities, provided choices, and adequate and detailed information. This style of administration predicted students` self-determined learning motivation. Results from linear regression analysis reported that learning motivation predicted their intentions to stay in school. Conversely, amotivation predicted their intentions to quit school. However no relationship could be established between the school administration autonomy support and students` dropout or persistence intentions. The implications are discussed for school managers and administrators.