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Purpose: The presented study was conducted to unpack high school students’ motivational influences in engineering/computer science project-based learning (PjBL), using the attention, relevance, confidence, and satisfaction (ARCS) model of motivation as a conceptual framework. Methods: A qualitative research approach was used with student focus groups as the data source. A total of six focus groups with 32 student participants was conducted. The students were enrolled in high schools located in four different states in the U.S. The qualitative analysis of transcripts was performed using first and second cycle coding methods. Findings: The findings show that student motivation is nuanced in regard with attention, relevance, confidence, and satisfaction. The findings identify research-based strategies for fostering student motivation, such as implementing learner-focused scaffolding in PjBL environments, improving the relevance of the classroom content with the real-world context that students have experiences in or are knowledgeable about, and focusing on stimulating intrinsic motivation in addition to extrinsic rewards. Conclusion: The findings provide support for the comprehensibility and utility of the ARCS model of motivation in high school engineering/CS education, and more importantly empirically unpacks what the model factors mean from students’ perspective. Practitioners may use these findings to inform the design, development, and implementation of PjBL in high school settings.
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Supporting Students’ Science Content Knowledge and Motivation through Project-Based Inquiry (PBI) Global in a Cross-School Collaboration
Inquiry is featured prominently in the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) as a promising pedagogical approach. Building on current conceptions of inquiry, a mixed-methods research design was used to explore the effects of Project-Based Inquiry (PBI) Global on student science content knowledge, motivation, and perspectives related to inquiry in a cross-school collaboration. The data sources included pre-/post-tests on science content and student motivation (n = 75), transcripts from student focus groups (n = 26), and students’ multimodal learning products (n = 18 teams). The quantitative findings indicated School B students were more motivated by the project than School A students, which mirrored student performance. The student focus group findings generated three themes: constructing empathy, learning for impact, and navigating challenges. The discussion focuses on an integrated view of what students gained and did not gain from the PBI Global experience, including a nuanced explanation of how motivation and content knowledge may be influenced by student experiences and school contextual factors during PBI Global. Implications for instructional practice highlight how relationship building, mutual respect, and consensus making are essential components of constructing cross-school collaborations and the importance of integrating instructional frameworks with teachers and students. Future research will focus on investigating the effects of PBI Global on student learning in cross-school partnerships through experimental-designed studies, and the systemic and structural barriers to scaling cross-school inquiry-based learning.
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- Award ID(s):
- 1907895
- PAR ID:
- 10367058
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Education Sciences
- Volume:
- 12
- Issue:
- 6
- ISSN:
- 2227-7102
- Page Range / eLocation ID:
- 412
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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- Free Publicly Accessible Full Text
-
Accepted Manuscript
- Journal Article:
- https://doi.org/10.3390/educsci12060412
