Events that Promote Engineering Students' Intrinsic Motivation to Learn

Research based on Self Determination Theory (SDT) focuses on autonomy and competence as the most important psychological needs in fostering intrinsic motivation. Although relatedness, a third psychological need central to SDT, plays a role in motivation, its importance is often considered tertiary. This study seeks to describe what events changed students' motivational orientations toward learning in a second-year engineering course that was redesigned to promote students' sense of autonomy and how the three psychological needs of SDT affected those events. After completing the redesigned course, students were interviewed to gain an understanding of their experience through the semester. Interviews were coded to capture students' motivational orientation changes during the course and the psychological needs they mentioned in relation to their experience. The analysis of students' descriptions overwhelmingly pointed to relatedness as key to their motivational orientation in the course. Contrary to expectations based on the SDT literature, the analysis revealed a lesser importance of competence and autonomy. Students' statements were coded least frequently as pertaining to autonomy out of the three psychological needs of SDT, even though the course was specifically redesigned to support autonomy. Engineering educators should consider creating relatedness-supportive pedagogies and researchers should explore how the social context of large engineering courses may create a deep need for supporting relatedness.