Identification of Pre-University Factors that Affect the Initial Motivation of Students in Computing Programs: A multi-institutional case study

Abstract

This Research to Practice Paper presents the results of the evaluation of pre-university factors that impact the initial motivation of undergraduate students in computing. Although there are studies in the literature that have investigated some previous factors, this paper replicates a previous work that aims to consolidate several pre-university factors and, as the main differential, uses the AMS (Academic Motivation Scale), a scale already consolidated in the literature to measure students' initial motivation, and evaluate the relation between motivation and candidate factors. We applied a questionnaire to 159 students from different computing programs in ten universities, which evaluates 20 factors divided into 4 groups: personal and demographic data, taste and knowledge of the program and area, computing experience, and school performance. To evaluate the correlation between factors and motivation, we used Spearman's coefficient, t-student test, and ANOVA to evaluate the correlation between factors and motivation. As main results, we found significant variation in the initial motivation according to following factors: taste for programming and technology, knowledge about the undergraduate program content, correct perception about computing professionals, knowledge and experience in computer programming, and general school performance.