Evaluation of an Instrument to Identify Factors that Impact the Motivation and Engagement of Undergraduate Students in Computing

Abstract

This Research Paper presents the evaluation of an instrument to identify the impact of motivation and engagement factors in undergraduate students in computing. Although researches indicate a direct impact of motivation and engagement on student performance and retention, few studies have been found that address which factors are relevant in this process. The instrument is a questionnaire based on the compilation of several works of the literature containing 48 items divided into 6 groups: personal and demographic data, general perception about motivation, perception about the university, student behavior, perception about program and perception about classes/teachers. The questionnaire evaluation is based on a case study with 112 undergraduate students in Software Engineering. As a result, we found that the questionnaire can be considered reliable (Cronbach’s alpha = .8904). Considering the validity of constructs, we found an acceptable degree of correlation between the most pair of items in each group (averaging 63%). We also found that the item-total correlation coefficient was only not adequate for one factor group, indicating satisfactory correlation for all other items. Finally, we found that the number of factors is coherent, but there are several items from different groups strongly correlated, indicating the need for a reorganization.