Pre- and Post- Evaluation of Students Interest on Multinational Projects based on Class Standing and Gender

Published in: Global Partnerships for Development and Engineering Education: Proceedings of the 15th LACCEI International Multi-Conference for Engineering, Education and Technology
Date of Conference: July 19-21, 2017
Location of Conference: Boca Raton, FL, United States
Authors: Jorge Rodriguez, PhD. (Western Michigan University, US)
Ivan Esparragoza, PhD. (The Pennsylvania State University - Brandywine, US)
Full Paper: #472

Abstract:

Multinational engineering design projects have been implemented at various academic institutions in order to offer their students exposure to the issues present when work needs to be carried out globally. Such implementation tries to emulate the environment that actually exists in many engineering projects being done nowadays in practice. These experiences is something that academic institutions needs to include and emphasize in their programs, and is gaining acceptance at a variety of colleges and universities worldwide. The importance of such activities is something that students need to be aware because of its benefit, and students should be motivated to participate. The main goal of this study is to determine the level of interest by engineering students participating in a multinational collaborative design project, and to make a comparison of such indicator at the start and at the end of their participation. Such comparison is as a group of students, and as well based on class standing and gender. For this purpose, a survey based on the Intrinsic Motivation Inventory (IMI) was administered to the students, and data collected provides information on the level of interest or enjoyment that they declare. This interest construct provide an indication of the students’ interests, beliefs, and feelings about the international project that reflect their level of motivation to undertake such task. The results of the comparison indicate the need to define intervention that result in more uniform level of interest by students.