Engineering Students Motivation on Multinational Projects: A Comparison Based on Interest, Value , and Gender

In today’s world, it has become very common to find engineers working on multinational projects. As a result, educational institutions need to prepare students to succeed in this global working environment by incorporating global collaborative projects as a learning experience. At the same time, students should be aware of the importance of this experience, recognize its benefit, and be motivated to participate on the projects. It is documented in the literature that students’ interest and motivation are important factors contributing to the learning process in any discipline, and of particular importance when students are exposed to a project-based educational experience in a collaborative and multinational context. Authors have used the multinational collaborative projects to prepare students with global competencies but no formal assessment of the impact of this experience has been done. As part of a formal evaluation of this experience, the main goal of this study is to determine the level of interest and perception of value of engineering students participating in a multinational collaborative project, and make a comparison of such indicators based on gender. For this purpose, a survey based on the Intrinsic Motivation Inventory (IMI) was given to students before starting their participation in the multinational projects. The data collected provides information in five constructs which are: interest, perceived competence, pressure, perceived choice, and value. These constructs provide a perception about students’ interests, beliefs, and feelings about the international project that reflect their level of motivation to carry on the tasks