Relationships among students’ perceptions of a first-year engineering design course and their engineering identification, motivational beliefs, course effort, and academic outcomes

Abstract

The MUSIC Model of Academic Motivation and a model of domain identification have been shown to be useful models to explainstudents’ motivation. We used these models to examine the extent to which students’ perceptions of a first-year engineeringcornerstone course affected their engineering identification and motivational beliefs (i.e., engineering utility, engineering programbelonging, and engineering program expectancy), as well as the extent to which students’ engineering identification andmotivational beliefs affected their course effort, course grades, and engineering major and career goals. We surveyed 365 first-yearengineering students enrolled in an introductory design course at a large U.S. public university. A series of structural equationmodels were estimated, with each model answering a different question and examining a different outcome. The results provideevidence to support the validity of the MUSIC model and model of domain identification with a sample of undergraduateengineering students. This evidence includes the fact that significant relationships existed between variables that the model predictedshould be related, such as course perceptions, domain identification, motivational beliefs, effort, and academic outcomes. Becausestudents’ perceptions of the MUSIC model components in the engineering course were related to students’ engineeringidentification and motivational beliefs, it might be possible to develop course curricula and methods directed towards the MUSICcomponents that could foster these important academic outcomes.

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