Computing Educator Attitudes about Motivation

TL;DR

This study quantitatively examines computing educators' attitudes toward student motivation, revealing that while most see it as essential across courses, its importance varies with class structure and audience.

Contribution

It provides new quantitative insights into faculty perceptions of motivation's importance in different computing course contexts.

Findings

Majority of educators see motivation as necessary in all courses.

Perceived importance of motivation varies with class structure.

Certain classes elevate the importance of student motivation.

Abstract

While motivation is of great interest to computing educators, relatively little work has been done on understanding faculty attitudes toward student motivation. Two previous qualitative studies of instructor attitudes found results identical to those from other disciplines, but neither study considered whether instructors perceive student motivation to be more important in certain computing classes. In this work we present quantitative results about the perceived importance of student motivation in computing courses on the part of computing educators. Our survey results show that while a majority of respondents believe student motivation is necessary in all computing courses, the structure and audience in certain computing classes elevate the importance of student motivation.