Abstract
There is a growing need for upper- and lower-secondary education institutions to provide computer science (CS) knowledge and skills to learners. As learners’ motivation plays an important role in their learning and female students have shown to be less motivated to study CS, the current study focuses on developing a scale for measuring lower- and upper-secondary students’ motivation to study CS and investigating the motivation of female and male students.
Data was collected from 740 Estonian students from 9th and 12th grade (55.1% female) by online questionnaire, which was based on value-expectancy theory. Nine factors of student’s motivation to study CS were differentiated by Confirmatory Factor Analysis: value of future work, importance, altruistic motivation, positive learning experiences from school, self-efficacy, positive learning experiences, social pressure, perceived abilities, interest. Multivariate analyses of variance with the Bonferroni adjustment for multiple comparisons revealed that the factor ‘value of future work’ was the highest and factor ‘interest’ was ranked the lowest among motivational factors. Multivariate test between-subjects’ effects with Bonferroni adjustment indicated that in all of these factors, boys showed higher motivation to study CS than girls.
The results are valuable for teachers who teach CS in school. When planning CS lessons, the teachers should consider the type of motivation that drives the students and put more effort on motivating the girls as the boys are generally more motivated to study CS. E.g., the teacher can raise students’ interest towards CS by bringing in real life CS problems and linking the tasks with possible future work, encouraging girls to participate in CS competition and giving them more recognition to increase girls’ self-efficacy and interest, which were more highly rated by boys than girls.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
References
OECD: Education at a Glance 2018: OECD Indicators. OECD Publishing, Paris (2018)
Anderman, E., Wolters, C.: Goal, values, and affect. In: Alexander, P., Winne, P. (eds.) Handbook of Educational Psychology, 2nd edn., pp. 369–389. Erlbaum Publishers, Mahwah (2006)
Munoz-Merino, P.J., Fernandez, M., Munoz-Organero, M., Delgado, C.: Motivation and emotions in competition systems for education: an empirical study. IEEE Trans. Educ. 57(3), 82–187 (2014)
Cerasoli, C.P., Ford, M.T.: Intrinsic motivation, performance, and the mediating role of mastery goal orientation: a test of self-determination theory. J. Psychol. 148(3), 267–286 (2014)
Ryan, R.M., Deci, E.L.: Self-determination theory and the facilitation of intrinsic motivation, social development, and well-being. Am. Psychol. 55(1), 68–78 (2000)
Schunk, D.H., Pintrich, P.R., Meece, J.L.: Motivation in Education: Theory, Research, and Applications, 4th edn. Boston Pearson (2014)
Eccles, J.S., Wigfield, A.: Motivational beliefs, values, and goals. Annu. Rev. Psychol. 53, 109–132 (2002)
Wigfield, A., Eccles, J.S.: Expectancy-value theory of achievement motivation. Contemp. Educ. Psychol. 25, 68–81 (2000)
Yukselturk, E., Bulut, S.: Gender differences in self-regulated online learning environment. Educ. Technol. Soc. 12(3), 12–22 (2009)
Cantwell Wilson, B.: A study of factors promoting success in computer science including gender differences. Comput. Sci. Educ. 12(1–2), 141–164 (2002)
Papastergiou, M.: Are computer science and information technology still masculine fields? High school students’ perceptions and career choices. Comput. Educ. 51(2), 594–608 (2008)
Peteranetz, M.S., Flanigan, A.E., Shell, D.F., Soh, L.K.: Future-oriented motivation and retention in computer science. In: Proceedings of the 49th ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education, pp. 350–355 (2018)
Kori, K., Pedaste, M., Altin, H., Tõnisson, E., Palts, T.: Factors that influence students’ motivation to start and to continue studying information technology in Estonia. IEEE Trans. Educ. 59(4), 225–262 (2016)
Pedaste, M., et al.: How do cognitive ability and study motivation predict the academic performance of IT students? In: Gómez Chova, L., López Martínez, A., Candel Torres, I. (eds.) ICERI2015, 8th International Conference of Education, Research and Innovation, pp. 7167 − 7176. IATED Academy (2015)
Barnes, T., Powell, E., Chaffin, A., Lipford, H.: Game2Learn: improving the motivation of CS1 students. In: Proceedings of the 3rd International Conference on Game Development in Computer Science Education, pp. 1–5 (2008)
Borrego, C., Fernández, C., Blanes, I., Robles, S.: Room escape at class: escape games activities to facilitate the motivation and learning in computer science. JOTSE 7(2), 162–171 (2017)
López-Fernández, D., Tovar, E., Raya, L., Marzal, F., Garcia, J.J.: Motivation of computer science students at universities organized around small groups. In: 2019 IEEE Global Engineering Education Conference (EDUCON), pp. 1120–1127. IEEE (2019)
Säde, M., Suviste, R., Luik, P., Tõnisson, E., Lepp, M.: Factors that influence students’ motivation and perception of studying computer science. In: SIGCSE 2019 Proceedings of the 50th ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education, pp. 873–878 (2019)
Kori, K., Altin, H., Pedaste, M., Palts, T., Tõnisson, E.: What influences students to study information and communication technology? In: L. Gómez Chova, A. López Martínez, I. Candel Torres (eds.) INTED2014 Proceedings, pp. 1477 − 1486. IATED Academy (2014)
Scapin, E., Mirolo, C.: An exploration of teachers’ perspective about the learning of iteration-control constructs. In: Pozdniakov, S.N., Dagienė, V. (eds.) ISSEP 2019. LNCS, vol. 11913, pp. 15–27. Springer, Cham (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-33759-9_2
Altin, H., Pedaste, M.: Learning approaches to applying robotics in science education. J. Balt. Sci. Educ. 12(3), 365–377 (2013)
Hooshyar, D., Lim, H., Pedaste, M., Yang, K., Fathi, M., Yang, Y.: AutoThinking: an adaptive computational thinking game. In: Rønningsbakk, L., Wu, T.-T., Sandnes, F.E., Huang, Y.-M. (eds.) ICITL 2019. LNCS, vol. 11937, pp. 381–391. Springer, Cham (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-35343-8_41
Dagienė, V., Futschek, G.: Bebras international contest on informatics and computer literacy: criteria for good tasks. In: Mittermeir, R.T., Sysło, M.M. (eds.) ISSEP 2008. LNCS, vol. 5090, pp. 19–30. Springer, Heidelberg (2008). https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-69924-8_2
Hacke, A.: Computer science problem solving in the escape game “Room-X”. In: Pozdniakov, S.N., Dagienė, V. (eds.) ISSEP 2019. LNCS, vol. 11913, pp. 281–292. Springer, Cham (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-33759-9_22
Spieler, B., Oates-Indruchova, L., Slany, W.: Female teenagers in computer science education: understanding stereotypes, negative impacts, and positive motivation. J. Woman Minor. Sci. Eng. (2019)
Chen, M.: The effects of prior computer experience and gender on high school students’ learning of computer science concepts from instructional simulations. In: 10th IEEE International Conference on Advanced Learning Technologies, Sousse, pp. 610–612 (2010)
Jawad, H.M., Tout, S., Abualkibash, M., Xie, Y.: Integrating art and animation in teaching computer programming for high school students experimental study. In: 2018 IEEE International Conference on Electro/Information Technology (EIT), pp. 0311–0317 (2018)
Tuleviku tegija teekond startup ökosüsteemi. Uuringu raport. Rakendusliku Antropoloogia Keskus (2018). https://media.voog.com/0000/0037/5345/files/Raport%2015.11.18.pdf. Accessed 02 May 2020
Kindsiko, E., Türk, K. Kantšukov, M.: Naiste roll ja selle suurendamise võimalused Eesti IKT sektoris: müüdid ja tegelikkus 1-27 (2015). https://majandus.ut.ee/sites/default/files/www_ut/naiste_roll_ikt._tu_mj-skype_uuring_2015.pdf. Accessed 02 May 2020
Senkbeil, M.: Development and validation of the ICT motivation scale for young adolescents. Results of the international school assessment study ICILS 2013 in Germany. Learn. Individ. Differ. 67, 167–176 (2018)
Luik, P., et al.: What motivates enrolment in programming MOOCs? Br. J. Educ. Technol. 50(1), 153–165 (2019)
Kori, K., et al.: Why do students choose to study Information and Communications Technology? Procedia Soc. Behav. Sci. 191, 2867–2872 (2015)
Lepp, M., et al.: MOOC in programming: a success story. In: Proceedings of the International Conference on e-Learning, pp. 138–147 (2017)
Acknowledgements
This research was partnered with TransferWise to research the technology skills gap in Estonian schools and how to fix it.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2020 Springer Nature Switzerland AG
About this paper
Cite this paper
Kori, K., Luik, P. (2020). Upper- and Lower-Secondary Students’ Motivation to Study Computer Science. In: Kori, K., Laanpere, M. (eds) Informatics in Schools. Engaging Learners in Computational Thinking. ISSEP 2020. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 12518. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-63212-0_6
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-63212-0_6
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-030-63211-3
Online ISBN: 978-3-030-63212-0
eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)