Is It Possible to Increase Motivation for Study Among Sophomore Electrical and Computer Engineering Students?

Abstract

In the Department of Electrical Engineering at the Technion—Israel Institute of Technology—a unique course is being held—“Introductory Project in Electrical Engineering”. The course is intended to expose second-year students of electrical and computer engineering to the occupational areas of electrical and computer engineers, to strengthen their sense of relatedness to the Department and increase their intrinsic motivation towards their studies. The core of the course is a team project for planning a window-cleaning robot. Using quantitative and qualitative tools, the study described in this paper has followed students who participated in the course, examining changes in the motivational factors driving them to study electrical and computer engineering. Findings point out a significant improvement in students’ intrinsic motivation and identified regulation—an improvement explained in light of the self-determination theory.