Developing a learning module to enhance motivation and self-efficacy of students participating in multinational design projects

The rapid developments in communications along with the global integration of resources around the world are making the creation of global collaborative networks a common practice for global competiveness. Many engineering projects are the result of efforts of culturally diverse teams working collaboratively. The collaboration could be in person where teams are located in the same site but formed by culturally diverse members or the collaboration can take place remotely where teams are geographically dispersed and use technology for communication and interaction. In both scenarios, members of the team must be prepared to work with culturally different peers; however, geographically dispersed teams have additional challenges to function effectively. As a result, many American institutions are adopting learning approaches to educate engineers with global competencies so they can work effectively in multinational projects. Different initiatives, including study abroad experiences and international collaborative projects, have been incorporated with the aim of facilitating the development of global competencies. However, the lack of motivation and self-efficacy of traditional U.S. students to participate in those international experiences diminishes the learning outcomes of these educational efforts. It is documented in the literature that motivation and interest are important factors contributing to learning and are also factors influencing students' confidence in succeeding in a course or and specific task. Therefore, the aim of this work is to develop a learning module that increases motivation and self-efficacy of students participating in multinational projects in an introductory engineering design course. This paper reports the preliminary findings from a survey based on the Intrinsic Motivation Inventory (IMI) given to students before starting their participation in the multinational projects. The data collected provides information in five constructs which are: interest/enjoyment, perceived competence, pressure/tension, perceived choice, and value/usefulness. These constructs provide a perception about students' interests, belief, and feelings about the international project that reflect their level of motivation and confidence to carry on the tasks. The data is evaluated and considered in the development of the learning module to be incorporated before the project in the same course in the future. The intervention will then be assessed again and the results and further actions will be reported in a future paper.