Motivational and learning behaviour between skilled and un-skilled workers: a pilot case study

This paper presents work that has the overall objective of understanding the relationships between motivational and learning behaviours in manufacturing/assembly operations among skilled and un-skilled employees. The longer term aim is to use this knowledge to help with devising automation strategies. This paper has very much more limited objectives and is concerned with early pilot studies aimed at gaining an understanding of the perceptions of employees as a precursor to eventually attempting to measure motivation/learning relationships in objective ways. Two hypotheses relating skill level, task complexity, learning and motivation were tested in a pilot case study. A relationship was found between motivational and learning behaviours among immature and mature participants. Also it was found that most mature participants learned by doing complex tasks and this increased their work motivation. These findings will be used to develop an industrially based study conducted in local industries as well as industries in Malaysia.