The influence of project-based learning on engineering students’ academic and career motivation

Purpose This study explored students’ variations of insightful academic and career motivation variations of learning and working on defense manufacturing engineering (DME) before and after a project-based program (PBL). Design/methodology/approach Interview was adopted to collect students’ insights. The first-round interview was completed within the first week of this summer internship, and the second-round interview was conducted during the final week of this summer internship. Thematic and content analysis were used to explore the factors that affect students’ perception, understanding and attitude to DME before and after the summer internship. Findings This paper discloses the improved level of learning and working motivation at the beginning of the project, but with a decrease in the motivation level of working in the DME area at the end of the program. These students showed a continued motivation of interests in pursuing more knowledge in the field. This PBL didn’t bring significant improvement on students’ career motivation for working in the field of DME. However, it demonstrated a highly positive effect on enhance students’ academic motivation (AM) for learning knowledge in the field. Moreover, the students’ concerns and perspectives on this PBL were also explored, which is displayed in the study. Originality/value The project was done with support from the US Department of Defense (DoD) (No: N00014-19-1-2728). These findings are investigated from the project.