This paper examines the change in student motivation through a yearlong senior capstone design course with respect to their choice of project type. The senior capstone design projects offered at the university fall into one of two major project types: industry sponsored and non-industry sponsored. Industry-sponsored projects are provided through industry partnerships and include government funded and privately funded. Non-industry projects at the university include competition based projects, such as SAE Formula and SAE Baja; and humanitarian based projects. The students opt for either of the two major project types based on their interest and future career goals.
The students were given an adapted version of Motivated Strategies for Learning Questionnaire (MSLQ) to self-identify their motivation levels by rating various questions on a 7-point Likert scale. The surveys were conducted at two different points in time throughout the yearlong senior capstone design course: at beginning of the fall semester, two weeks into the school year when the students were not fully introduced to their project topics; and again at the end of the spring semester after their projects were completed and the senior capstone design course was concluding. Five motivation factors were studied to examine student motivation within and between the cohorts: cognitive value, self-regulation, presentation anxiety, intrinsic value, and self-efficacy. The data was collected from three cohorts of mechanical engineering senior capstone design students, through three different yearlong senior capstone courses: 2013-2014, 2014-2015, and 2016-2017. The data was analyzed using an ANOVA Single Factor analysis and a t-test for single variance to examine which factors affected student motivation.
The goal of this research is to examine the effect of the student’s choice of project type on their motivation and changes in motivation in senior capstone design. This will thereby provide educators with insight on the impact of the student’s project selection on their senior capstone design experience. Thus, this research aims to revolutionize the senior capstone design curriculum by catering the project offerings that positively impact the student’s experience, increasing their motivation and improving their performance in the course.
The results indicate that students working on industry-sponsored design projects exhibit increased motivation throughout the course of the year versus their non-industry counterparts. However, the non-industry project groups typically had higher motivation levels entering into the senior capstone design experience than the industry-sponsored project teams.
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