Implementing Hands-On Learning in Engineering Classrooms: What Should Instructors Worry Most About?

• In Event: 18.072 - Roundtable Session 6
  In Roundtable Session: 18.072-4 - Fostering Engagement, Motivation, and Achievement in Engineering Education

Abstract

Instructors often try out innovative interventions in their classrooms to promote student engagement and learning interest. While such effort is commendable, investigating how individual and environmental characteristics influence interest development in learners is crucial to meeting such teaching objectives. This study examines the role of personal interest, meaningfulness and the instructional intervention on the development of triggered and maintained situational interests in an engineering classroom that used hands-on learning modules. The result of this study shows that instructional intervention and meaningfulness are significant predictors of situational interest. Theoretical and practical implications of the findings are discussed.

Authors

• Nathaniel Hunsu, University of Georgia

• Olusola Olalekan Adesope, Washington State University

• Bernard VanWie, Washington State University