Title: Student engagement and course motivation through experiential learning pedagogy

Authors: Richa Sharma; Goldie Gabrani; Sunil Gupta

Addresses: Business and Computer Science Department, The Stephen Poorman College of Business, Information Systems and Human Services, Lock Haven University, Pennsylvania, 17745, USA ' Department of Computer Science and Engineering, BML Munjal University, Gurgaon – 122413, India ' School of Computer Science and Engineering, Department of Cybernetics, University of Petroleum and Energy studies, Dehradun – 248007, India

Abstract: The first-year engineering courses are, in general, challenging for both students and faculties. There have been several studies and surveys conducted to find pedagogical solutions to address the challenges with first year courses. BML Munjal University from India has introduced 'Joy of Engineering' course for first year engineering students so that the students' transition from senior secondary school to engineering becomes seamless, and students get motivated to start enjoying the professional engineering course. The course aims at introducing the very notion of 'engineering' principles to the students. We conducted a study for this course to understand students' engagement and motivation while they were doing this course. In this paper, we present our study on feedback of this course conducted across two years. We have used statistical analysis and machine learning algorithms for comprehending the students' feedback. Our study reveals while the course is appreciated by the students, there are challenges in the implementation of this course.

Keywords: joy of engineering; engineering education; experiential learning; active learning; student engagement; course motivation; learning solutions; teaching challenges; pedagogies; learning-by-doing.

DOI: 10.1504/IJSSE.2022.123323

International Journal of System of Systems Engineering, 2022 Vol.12 No.1, pp.1 - 17

Received: 10 Dec 2020
Accepted: 25 Jan 2021
Published online: 08 Jun 2022 *

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