Abstract: The purposes of this study were to examine the relationships between factors of quality of life of University students and their learning motivation, to find out predictive variables of the students’ learning motivation, to analyze factors of the students’ quality of life as well as to regroup these variables and then to construct predictive equations of learning motivation of the students. The sample used in this study consisted of 1,300 Rajabhat Mahasarakham University students, obtained using the stratified random sampling technique. Data were collected using questionnaires on the quality of life with discriminating powers ranging 2.55-8.59 and reliabilities ranging 0.91-0.94 and a scale on learning motivation with discriminating powers ranging 2.56-7.02 and a reliability of 0.95. The collected data were analyzed using an exploratory factor analysis and stepwise multiple regression analysis. The results of the study were as follows: the variables, which could predict learning motivation of University students at the 0.01 level of significance included quality of life in terms of relationship with other people (D), quality of life in learning (A), quality of life in the services received from the university (E) and quality of life in terms of society with multiple correlation coefficient (R) of 0.708, an adjusted predictive coefficient (R²_adj) of 0.497 and a Standard Error (SE_est) of 0.318. For the results of factors analysis of the quality of life and regrouping the variables, seven factors were obtained and the factors were named in this order: social welfare (X₁), the learner development process (X₂), convenience and safety of the residence (X₃), promoting commitment with other people (X₄), the university’s utilities and materials to support learning (X₅), the university’s health welfare and guidance services (X₆) and creating learners’ human relationship (X₇). The variables after factor analysis, which could predict University students’ learning motivation at the 0.01 level of significance included: factors in terms of creating learner’s human relationship (X₇), social welfare (X₁), promoting commitment with other people (X₄), learner development process (X₂) and the university’s utilities and materials to support learning (X₅) with a multiple correlation coefficient of 0.707, an adjusted predictive coefficient (R²_adj) of 0.496, a predicting power at 49.6%, a standard error of 7.9723 and constance of the predictive equations in the raw-score form of 13.270. The predictive equations could be constructed in a raw score form an a standardized score form as: the predictive equation in the raw-score form Y’ = 13.270 + 0.680X₇ + 0.183X₁ + 0.375X₄ + 0.218X₂ + 0.259X₅, the predictive equation in a standardized score form Z_y’ = 0.311Zx₇ + 0.133Zx₁ + 0.164Zx₄ + 0.164Zx₂ + 0.131Zx₅.

INTRODUCTION

Human resources are currently regarded as the most significant factor of country development because personnel resources with advanced knowledge and abilities can perform different beneficial activities, which can well compete with foreign countries. Personnel resources of the nation that will have knowledge and abilities depend on mainly upon the process of education provision Also, it is necessary to have the process of providing education ready to lead Thai people and the Thai society to catch up with further global changes. (National Primary Education Commission, 1996).

Higher education provision is a part of human resource development of the country regarded as a mission of different universities and higher educational institutions, which have to develop personnel resources of the nation to have necessary to knowledge, ability and skills for earning livings. Therefore, all the higher educational institutions should give the importance to develop students to be graduated with good quality to earn their livings as important mechanisms or man powers to develop economy or the society of the country in the future (Srisa-ard, 2001). There are three guidelines for developing the quality of life. First, it is elimination of poverty by considering from household incomes. This is the solving of basic human problems: physical needs. Humans still have basic necessities for living including food, shelter, clothing and drugs. Without these things, humans will be in trouble be unable to live with good quality of life. Therefore, development of human resources to have knowledge and ability will lead to employment and incomes for expenses on providing adequate basic factors for living in their families. Second, it is distribution of fairness involving the disadvantage. It is necessary to distribute opportunities for them to be able to access different services, which can be used to improve the quality of life. Because, most of the people still have poor status, lack basic factors to live on and lack an opportunity to receive education, their poverty increases more severely. Accordingly, distribution of fairness is provision of opportunities for the poor to have equal opportunities to the rich in order to develop and create incomes for themselves to live with quality thoroughly. And third, it is participation of the people. Because, the limitations of upgrading the quality of live are upon blockage from the process of decision-making and participation of families, community and different organizations. Thus, opportunities should be provided for general people to be able to make decision on choosing their own future (Ayuwat, 2005). It can be seen that the quality of life and education are related to each other like chains. That is, when each family has good quality of life it will be a part to support education. Higher education provision is important and can affect development of quality of life of people in the country to achieve the goals of life. People will have better being in physical health, mental health and freedom. Good quality of life has different levels, depending on personal factors including gender, age, race, religion, marital status, occupation, income and level of education, social and cultural factors such as social values and different beliefs; environmental factors and health factors. The quality of life can be evaluated by themselves, which is affective evaluation and evaluation by other people, which in objective evaluation. The quality of life may be evaluated both affectively and objectively or either of them. However, research studies conducted in the past were often affective evaluation because it was believed that the quality of life was perception of people with differences. Affective evaluation can indicate the quality of the best life (Worasittha, 1998).

From the study of the quality of life of the people in an urban area by examining the quality of life in six dimensions (Ayuwat, 2005), it was found that for the quality of life as a whole, 54.2% of the people in Northeast Thailand evaluated that they had better life conditions during the past 5 years. Only 5.8% of them evaluated that their life conditions became worse. For the quality of life in the families, it was found that the group of people with high education had higher quality of life in terms of family than the other groups.

For the quality of life in jobs, it was found than the group with high education had higher quality of life in terms of jobs than the other groups. For stress, it was found that the group with low education had more stressful than the other groups. In terms of the environment, it was found that the group with high education had awareness of the environment the most. It could be clearly seen that the quality of life had significant relationships with levels of education of people. Development of people to have quality or good quality of life depends on the process of continuous education. It begins from primary education, which it regarded as basic education or compulsory education. Every child must pass this process. This will be in accordance with the purposes of compulsory education, which focuses on developing leanness to have basic knowledge and skills in living, catching up with global changes, having sound physical and mental health and being able to do work causing living the life joyfully (Pachari, 1981).

According to Erikson’s theory of social developments, an emphasis is on the importance of social relationships and needs. Erikson says about developments of people at this age that they are during the fifth interval of developments. That is, they have their own identity and role confusion by having relationships with their age-group peers and finding other people for upholding. They begin seeking roles appropriate to their own lives in such roles as sex, responsibility, reasoning and attitudes and determining values for themselves. Then, it develops to the sixth interval of development. That is, intimacy and isolation will be relationships with close peers and opposite gender.

The most importance characteristic of relationships is the feeling of friendship, which wants to work together or to compete with each other. Those who pass adolescent hood with the feeling of being selves will have roles of adulthood that can build good relationships with other people such as either people of the same gender or of the opposite gender. However those who pass adolescent hood with the feeling of isolation will not know what they themselves want to be in the future. It may be said that major missions of higher education institution are: having responsible duties for creating people to have knowledge and abilities in advanced techniques ready to graduate to be the personnel in different agencies with respond sib ties for functional work as assigned and to be able to apply their knowledge and ideas to work correctly and appropriately, as well as to create personality and to develop characteristics and behaviors of the students to the ready to be sound persons with morality and ethics and able to live and work joyfully with other people in the society. Also, they will be ready to create the country to progress. Or in other words, higher educational institutions must create people to have good quality of life to graduate to be good citizens of the country with participation in creating prosperity of the country.

Provision of higher education to be successful must rely on learning motivations of learners because motivation are what cause person to originate powers to express different behaviors, which will influence learning and work much more. Whether, a person can perform activities in full potential or not often depends on how much that person is willing to do it. If there is a motivation witch satisfies that person, it will stimulate him/her to pay more attention to learn and work move. Also, if humans have satisfaction, they will devote their creative thinking to their work and learning. Therefore, a study of motivations is important to organization of the learning-teaching process (Ansongkhram, 2002). Causes of motivation for studying of people at each level are different according to age, status and different environments including support from families. It can be seen that the causes affecting these motivations are all the matter of the quality of life of learners. Therefore, if the components of the quality of like involved or affecting learning motivations can be analyzed and classified, it will be beneficial to implementations of the study results in supplement to decision-making on developing the quality of life of the students it help in learning motivations in order to create stimulation to pay attention to learning the most. In this study, the researcher implemented Hendershott et al. (1992) concept in classifying the components of the quality of life of these students. The components were classified into these five aspects: learning life, social life, dwellings, relationships with other people and services received form the university. The results of this study would be basic information for developing management of higher educational institutions to be efficient in the future.

To examine the relationships between the components of the quality of life of University students and learning motivations and to find out predictive variables of learning motivations University Students and to analyze the components of the quality of life of university students and to regroup the variables and then construct predictive equations of learning motivations of university students.

MATERIALS AND METHODS

Population: The population used in this study consisted of 8,671 Rajabhat Mahasarakham University first fourth year students from all faculties in the academic year 2006, divided into 3,477 males and 5,194 females.

Sample: The sample used in this study consisted of 1,300 Rajabhat Mahasarakham University Students, selected by the use stratified random sampling technique.

The instruments used
Types of the instruments:

Data collection: In the data collection, the researcher had operation by took the official letter, which had passed the operation with the president of university for prepared questionnaires to administer with the sample by the research himself and took the results obtained from testing to analyze for testing hypothesis.

Data analysis: The researcher data analyzed by using a computes program in operation as follows: Checked the completeness of the data obtained from responses to the questionnaire totally 597 complete questionnaire copies were obtained. Then, the data were recorded on the computer program.

Next calculated descriptive statistics. Analyzed the components of the quality of life of university students by exploratory factor analysis. Found out relationships between the components of the quality of life of university students and learning motivations by using stepwise multiple regression analysis.

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

University students had the quality of life as a whole at a high level. When, each aspect was considered, it appeared that the quality of life was at a high level in every of these aspects: learning, social, dwellings, relationship with other people and services received from the university.

For the results of examining, the relationship between the components of the quality of life of university students and learning motivations by using stepwise multiple regression analysis, it was found that the matrix of correlation coefficient between the components of the quality of life of each university student had relationships with one another at the 0.01 level of statistical significance in every value. When, each aspect of the correlation coefficient between the variables of the quality of life and learning motivations, it appeared that the correlation coefficients ranged 0.524-0.636 at the 0.01 level of statistical significance. For the results of stepwise multiple regression analysis, it appeared that the variables, which could predict learning motivation of university students at the 0.01 level of statistical significance included: the quality of life in terms of relationships with other people (D), the quality of life in terms of learning (A), the quality, of life in terms of services received form the university (E) and the quality of life in terms of social (B), The multiple correlation coefficient (R) was 0.708. The adjusted predicting coefficient (R²_adj) was 0.497 and the standard errors were 0.318. The predictive equations could be constructed in a raw-score form and a standard-score form as:

The predictive equation in the raw-score form

The predictive equation in the standard-score form

In an analysis of the components of the quality of life of university students and in regrouping the variables.

For and analysis of rating communality values, which were variances with shared relationships with each other in each aspect in these components, it was found that communality-values ranged 0.436-0.719. It could be seen that the communality values were rather high so we could regard that the statement in each item could measure the components together.

For eigen value, which was the seem of square of coefficients of the components, there were 22 components, which each of them had eigen value >1. When all of the 22 components were considered, it was found that the accumulative variances of all the 22 components were at 61.04% of all the variances.

In considering component weights from the conditions of the selected component wrights of 0.30 and higher and each components consisting of at least 3 variables, it was found that 7 components were obtained. The components, which could be clearly analysis could be named in this order: Components 1 consisted of totally 18 statements with components weights ranging 0.339-0.606 and an eigen value of 22.811. This components was called social welfare component (X₁). Components 2 consisted of totally 22 statements with component weights ranging 0.333-0.583 and an eigen value of 5.265. This component was called leaner development process component (X₂). Components 3 consisted of totally 20 statements with component weights ranging 0.350-0.601 and an eigen value of 3.783. This component was called dwelling convenience and safety component (X₃). Component 4 consisted of totally 9 statements with component weights ranging 0.467-0.796 and an eigen value of 2.808. This component was called commitment-with other people promotion component (X₄). Component 5 consisted of totally 11 statements with component weights ranging 0.368-0.640 and an eigen value of 2.619. This component was called commitment of university utilities and learning supports (X₅). Component 6 consisted of totally 9 statements with component weights ranging 0.360-0.724 and an eigen value of 2.249. This component was called the university’s health welfare and guidance services (X₆). Component 7 consisted of totally 11 statements with component weights ranging 0.351-0.696 and an eigen value of 1.93. This component was called the commitment of learners human relationship creation (X₇).

For the results of an analysis for searching predictive variables of learning motivations or university students from the regrouped components by using stepwise multiple regression analysis, it was found that in each matrix of correlation coefficient between the components of the quality of life as regrouped, all values had relationships with one another at the 0.01 level of statistical significance. When, correlation coefficients between the variables of the quality of life as regrouped in each aspect and learning motivations were considered, it was found that there were correlation coefficients ranging 0.447-0.623 at the 0.01 level of statistical significance. For the results of stepwise multiple regression analysis it was found that the variables, which could predict learning motivations of university students at the 0.01 level statistical significance included: component of learners human relationships creation (X₇), social welfare component (X₁), commitment with other people promation component (X₄), learner development process component (X₂) and component of university utilities and learning supports (X₅), multiple correlation coefficient (R) was 0.707. Adjusted predicting coefficient (R²_adj) was 0.496 with predicting powers at 49.6% and Standard Errors (SE_est) of 7.9723.

The predictive equations could be constructed in a raw-score form and a standard-score form as:

Predictive equation in the raw-score form:

Predictive equation in the standard-score form: