Motivation is a multi-faceted construct encompassing orientation towards certain types of goals, the value and expectation of achieving those goals, and attributional beliefs. Our unique dataset tracks cohorts of mechanical engineering students through time and across multiple courses, allowing us to study context-dependent variables across time. We measured intrinsic goal orientation and extrinsic goal orientation in two cohort of mechanical engineering students at the beginning and end of the Fall 2019 and Fall 2020 terms. Though our original study was designed to evaluate instructional interventions in a "difference-of-differences" design, our cohorts were significantly impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic.
Based on the ongoing stress of the COVID-19 pandemic as well as widespread dissatisfaction with remote learning, we expected students to be less motivated overall in Fall 2020 compared to Fall 2019, and for motivation to erode more rapidly over the semester. Although intrinsic motivation was indeed lower in Fall 2020 compared with Fall 2019, the decrease in motivation over the course of the semester was the same. Furthermore, the availability of recorded lecture videos and class content may have mitigated against an expected drop in level of engagement for some students. Average student engagement, as measured by responses to in-class polling exercises remained constant between Fall 2019 and Fall 2020, and it appears that more students were able to maintain a 100\% participation rate in the remote context,
though there is significant variation in engagement within the class.
We seek input from the engineering education research community on this work-in-progress study. We especially invite a discussion about how to make sense of survey results in dramatically different teaching contexts.
Matthew J. Ford (he/him) received his B.S. in Mechanical Engineering and Materials Science from the University of California, Berkeley, and went on to complete his Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering at Northwestern University. After completing a postdoc with the Cornell Active Learning Initiative, he joined the School of Engineering and Technology at UW Tacoma to help establish its new mechanical engineering program. His teaching and research interests include solid mechanics, engineering design, and inquiry-guided learning. He has supervised undergraduate and master's student research projects and capstone design teams.
Soheil Fatehiboroujeni received his Ph.D. in mechanical engineering from the University of California, Merced in 2018 focused on the nonlinear dynamics of biological filaments. As an engineering educator and postdoctoral researcher at Cornell University, Sibley School of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, Soheil worked in the Active Learning Initiative (ALI) to promote student-centered learning and the use of computational tools such as MATLAB and ANSYS in engineering classrooms. In Spring 2022, Soheil joined Colorado State University as an assistant professor of practice in the department of Mechanical Engineering. His research is currently focused on the long-term retention of knowledge and skills in engineering education, design theory and philosophy, and computational mechanics.
Elizabeth M. Fisher is an Associate Professor in the Sibley School of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at Cornell. She received her PhD from U.C. Berkeley.
Hadas Ritz is a senior lecturer in Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, and a Faculty Teaching Fellow at the James McCormick Family Teaching Excellence Institute (MTEI) at Cornell University, where she received her PhD in Mechanical Engineering. Among other teaching awards, she received the 2021 ASEE National Outstanding Teaching Award.
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