How Students Develop and Meet Their Need for Additional Education

Abstract

We analyze how university students develop and meet their need for additional education as the critical way to engage in lifelong learning, which begins during the student days and continues throughout the life cycle. The article investigates into the theoretical approaches to the nature, content and orientation of the need for additional education, identifying the key factors encouraging university students to acquire additional major-related knowledge so as to sharpen their competitive edge in the labor market. We show that 71% of students experience the need for additional education, and 51% have already received some along with their regular university studies. We rely upon the determination theory to allow for not only extrinsic factors of development of the need for additional education (employer requirements, current trends) but also intrinsic ones (commitment to increasing one’s competitiveness in the labor market, the need for personal fulfillment). The article also explores how students develop and meet their need for supplementary knowledge and skills depending on their major field of study. We suggest taking specific measures to develop the additional education system, notably developing more actively students’ need for constant improvement of their competitive power and better self-fulfillment in career and life, and expanding significantly the range of services offered by additional education institutions.