CAREER: Student Motivation and Learning in Engineering

This project seeks to help educators understand factors contributing to engineering students' motivation to learn and perform academically, and to examine correlations between these factors and students' cognitive processes. Specifically, we are examining differences between student motivation factors in different engineering majors, and correlations between these factors and evidence of knowledge transfer when students are working on problems in contexts that are new to them. Understanding these relationships will address the challenges facing engineering educators: increasing interest in engineering, creating a more diverse engineering workforce, and preparing students for a future of rapid technological change and globalization. The first phase of this project involved identifying and understanding factors that contribute to engineering students' motivation to learn and succeed, and compare these for different student types (by demographics and choice of major). A quantitative study was conducted in which the Motivation and Attitudes in Engineering (MAE) survey was developed using achievement value as the theoretical framework. Three constructs were identified through factor analysis: Expectancy, Present Perceptions (students' perceptions of their present tasks in engineering studies), and Future Perceptions (students' perceptions of their future tasks as engineers). Survey responses over the course of the first year in engineering for a single cohort of students (n=959) were collected and tested for internal reliability and validity, and to analyze relationships between constructs and student retention and choice of major data two years later (n=424). Comparison of constructs over the course of the first year in engineering showed a significant decrease in expectancy, and significant increases in student perceptions about present and future. Binomial regression analysis revealed that students' perceptions about the future were significantly positive predictors of persistence in engineering. The interaction between perceptions about the present and future was a negative predictor of persistence. No significant differences were observed in motivation construct values by gender. The MAE survey and an informal Beginning of Semester (BOS) survey (used to assess how students choose their majors) were examined for differences in engineering student motivation based on major. While no differences in any of the MAE survey constructs were observed by major, differences in individual survey items were examined between majors grouped by overall features (traditional versus interdisciplinary). Students in interdisciplinary majors placed greater importance on making a difference and the availability of scholarship money, while students in traditional majors valued engineering work and designing and building things. This data is being used to identify appropriate frameworks for future research, such as extrinsic value (scholarship money), identity formation and possible selves (I know an engineer who I admire, or goal theory (benefiting society). These findings will help direct more in-depth qualitative research into student motivation, which will be followed by studies of how students with different motivational attributes transfer knowledge when working problems in contexts they have not seen before.