Understanding Gaps in Student Engagement and Motivation in Online and Hybrid Mechanical Engineering Courses

Abstract

The continuing growth of engineering courses with fully online or hybrid modalities provide novel opportunities and challenges in engineering education. to fully exploit the online teaching settings, educators should focus on increasing the students’ engagement with learning activities as well as the motivation of students to remain connected and follow the pace of the course, especially with the lack of face-to-face interaction. Research in educational psychology shows motivation and engagement are task-specific and interconnected phenomena, therefore assessing gaps in how students’ engagement and motivation associate with specific learning activities can lead to contextualized evidence for pedagogical decision making. In this paper we report on development and continuous research-based improvements for two online mechanical engineering courses. the presented analysis is based on a survey instrument and examination of open-ended student feedbacks.