Enhancing the First Year Engineering Student Motivation through an Introductory Engineering Course

Abstract

This study is conducted to investigate the degree of enhancement of motivation obtained by the first year engineering students after going through an introductory engineering course. This is done at various engineering departments to help students undergo a smooth transition from school to university. In this paper, the learning environment criterion using How People Learn (HPL) framework in different introductory engineering courses is observed. The four lenses in the HPL (knowledge-, learner-, assessment-, community-centered) introduced by Bransford are used as the basis to evaluate the effectiveness of the course to enhance student motivation. A pre- and post-test questionnaires using Motivated Strategies for Learning Questionnaire (MSLQ) are administered to the engineering freshmen in four selected engineering departments, quoted as Departments A, B, C and D, in a technology-based university in Malaysia. This instrument is used to measure individual rate using the 7 point Likert-scale items. The main constructs for this instrument consist of intrinsic goal orientation, extrinsic goal orientation, task value, self-efficacy for learning and performance and control of learning beliefs. The descriptive analysis provides the mean, standard deviation and mean-difference to see the significance of the pre- and post-test results. The paired sample t-test is used to determine the significant differences of motivation levels at the beginning and end of the course. The results show that students of Department A (which implements all four lenses of HPL framework) have improved their motivation after completing the introductory engineering course and this would help them to retain the program, as well as to improve their enthusiasm to learn.