Impact of Effective Assessment towards Students' Motivation in Computer Programming Course
Nor Azlinda Azmi, Khairiyah Mohd‐Yusof, Fatin Aliah Phang · 2017 7th World Engineering Education Forum (WEEF) · 2017
Motivation is essential for successful engagement in learning. This factor is especially important in courses that are considered difficult and require high cognitive engagement. The focus of this work is computer programming education among engineering students. In previous studies, motivation to learn appeared to be a common issue in computer programming courses. In regards to motivation issues, the assessments in the course is considered as important as the other aspects of learning environment. This work presents a qualitative study on undergraduate engineering students' motivation towards learning programming in the perspective of improving the assessment methods. The assessment-centred aspect from How People Learn framework and three motivational components: expectancy, value and affective are used as the theoretical lens of this study. The methods used in this study are observations and interviews while the data was analyzed using thematic analysis method. The findings suggest that the students struggled with their perceived value towards computer programming and were lack of excitement during learning. Hence, several suggestions were mapped from the findings as meaningful teaching guide for the instructors in the future.