Motivation and Emotions in Competition Systems for Education: An Empirical Study

A lack of student motivation is a problem in many courses in electrical engineering. Introducing competition between students can enhance their motivation, but it can also generate negative emotions. This paper presents an empirical study of students in a telecommunications engineering degree; it measured their level of motivation, and their emotions about competition in education in general, and in particular about the Information System for Competition based on pRoblem solving in Education (ISCARE). ISCARE makes adaptive matches, pairing students who share a similar knowledge level. The study results show that students had moderate levels of motivation and experienced no negative emotions while using ISCARE. Under certain circumstances, therefore, competition in education, using technology systems that provide competition, can produce motivation without generating negative emotions. Female students and students with low ISCARE scores were less motivated and experienced more negative emotions. In addition, motivation and emotions toward ISCARE were more positive than they had been toward competition in general.