Motivation and Engagement Factors of Undergraduate Students in Computing: A systematic mapping study

This paper presents a systematic mapping study on factors that affect motivation in computing undergraduate students. Although there are several initiatives to improve teaching and learning computing, the panorama is still negative. Motivation and engagement are usually singled out as reasons for students' retention or success, but we found a lack of standards in studies on motivation of computing students, and we have not found literature reviews about this subject. We identified twentynine (29) motivation factors presented in 32 selected studies. We divided the factors into five categories: student, professor/teaching, program/course/content, environment/university, and social aspects. The most mentioned factor was related to the teaching-learning strategies (37.5%), professor-student interaction (31.3%) and prior knowledge (31.3%). We also have identified that there is no convergence on literature about the identification and measurement of motivation and engagement. Another interesting aspect was that, despite the literature saying that intrinsic motivation has a greater impact on the student's results, many studies are being carried out considering extrinsic aspects. This shows the concern of the computing community regarding these aspects. However, there are only a few studies with controlled studies and evaluations on the impact of the factors in the motivation of students.