Comparison of intrinsic motivation of freshmen engineering students as they participate in a multinational design project

Incorporation of collaborative multinational global design projects into engineering courses early in the curriculum has the purpose of not only highlighting the significance of professional competencies but also creating a learning experience where students can start developing those skills. Therefore, of particular importance is to determine the intrinsic motivation, as indicated by interest and perception of value, which students have about a collaborative multinational design projects introduced in the first year. This paper presents the results of an evaluation aimed to determine the level of those constructs, interest and perception of value that a group of students in US institutions have when participating in a collaborative multinational design project. The evaluation was done with a questionnaire based on the Intrinsic Motivation Inventory (IMI) and was given to the students at the beginning and at the end of their participation in the multinational design project. The complete set of data collected provides information in five subscales or constructs, with only two of them included in this comparison due to their direct influence on students' beliefs and feelings about the international project and, consequently, in the motivation of students on this learning experience. The results show a statistically significant change in the level of intrinsic motivation that is contrary to the educational intention of the learning experience. Such difference follows the same trend that their international counterparts, but at larger scale. Possible causes and recommendations are provided as part of this work.