A Twinkle in Their Eye: Factors that Influcence Motivation in Remote Student Instructors and Colocated Students

This research paper discusses pedagogical and instructional approaches for K-12 education. As demand for engineers and computer scientists continues to increase, it is important to nurture a passion for STEM in high school students. However, a significant obstacle to contend with is low student motivation in rural and economically disadvantaged areas, which in turn may cause a lack of student success. In this paper, we examine students' motivation by using a STEM curriculum in which students from rural and economically disadvantaged schools are taught remotely using Zoom and a telepresence robot. Over the course of 11 weeks-approximately one semester-a curriculum that included a mixture of programming, engineering, and manufacturing was taught to 11th and 12th grade students in three different classes. Remote teaching was done by college students with a background in engineering (e.g., student instructors). These schools were used because of their remote location and underrepresentation in research. To measure student motivation in a teaching environment that uses telepresence robotics and Zoom, researchers collected the following data: a daily class progress document filled out by student instructors; weekly discussions between student instructors and researchers; and the submissions of student projects. Data on student instructor motivation was collected with surveys that had a mix of Likert scale and free response questions. The ratio of phrases about amotivation to phrases about motivation of the students was collected from surveys, discussions, and progress documents and analyzed. We found that the three classes exhibited varying levels of interest in the program, and that differences in class motivation fluctuated over the course of the semester. Classroom motivation may be influenced by the curriculum or technical issues unique to a remote course with co-located students. Finally, we found that the traditional relationship between student motivation and instructor motivation is not disturbed even though the students were co-located and the student instructor was remote.