Useful but Not Interesting: Illuminating Student Task Values Surrounding Engineering Writing Classes

Students’ learning motivation in their engineering writing classes is typically regarded as low—by researchers, educators, and students themselves. This low motivation is often attributed to students’ lack of value for writing in general or engineering writing classes in particular. However, the claim that engineering students don’t value writing has not been explored in great detail through research. In this paper, we report the results of mixed-methods research on student learning motivation. The results of this work suggest that, contrary to common perception of engineering students, these students in aggregate readily identified their writing courses as equally useful to their non-writing courses. However, these students were significantly less interested in their writing courses’ content than that of other concurrent engineering classes. We conclude by providing actionable insights for educators that are suggested by our data. Q: Imagine that you are the instructor of an engineering writing class. What would you do to ensure that students stayed interested and motivated to learn? A: Ha! Good one. Honestly, I'm glad that's really not my problem, 'cause I have no clue. Best of luck with that, though. –Participant ID #13055947