Examining the Impact of Student Motivation on Performance in Mechanical Engineering Design Courses
Abstract
Design courses are an integral component of undergraduate engineering education.
Design is recognized as one of the primary responsibilities of an engineer in industry. New
designs are responsible for stimulating sales and company growth.1 This dissertation
outlines a study seeking to explore the impact of student motivation factors on course
performance of mechanical engineering students in design courses. The first design course,
cornerstone design, takes place during the first semester of freshman year. The second
course, capstone design, takes place during the student’s final year of undergraduate study.
An adapted version of the Motivated Strategies for Learning Questionnaire (MSLQ) is
used to measure five motivation factors: cognitive value, self-regulation, test/presentation
anxiety, intrinsic value, and self-efficacy. Motivation is measured against the final grade in
the course, which is used as the performance metric.
The major contribution of this research is the ability to examine the impact of
motivation on performance in design courses. The motivation and performance is also
measured against student demographic information with regard to student gender, residency (domestic or international), family income, and highest degree attained by
parents to determine if a correlation is realized. Additionally, the longitudinal study
focuses on a single cohorts of students. This affords the ability for the examination of the
differences in motivation between the students’ freshman and senior year to determine if
this can be correlated to student gender, residency (domestic or international), family
income, and degree attained by parents.
The results indicate that motivation is a key factor in the students’ performance in
design curriculum. All five of the motivation factors are found to impact the students’
performance; however, different motivation factors are found to impact the students’
performance at different points in time. This proves the multidimensional and dynamic
nature of motivation. The quantitative findings are further explored through qualitative
data analysis to explore variables impacting the students’ motivation and performance
throughout their capstone design sequence. A total of 69 unique codes were identified
through the student interviews, providing useful feedback on student experiences in senior
capstone design at Florida Institute of Technology.