Motivation, optimal experience and flow in first year computing science.

Abstract

We examine the concept of motivation from the perspective of Self Determination Theory and give a brief overview of relevant results. We also consider the optimal state known as Flow and give an account of its conceptualisation in the theory due to Csikszentmihalyi. After discussion of ways in which these concepts can be measured, we describe a set of preliminary studies that investigate motivation and flow in the context of a first year computing class. We analyse student responses to enquiries about perceptions of motivation and flow experiences and look at links between them. We also discuss intrinsic motivation within the subject.

Citation

MCDERMOTT, R., ZARB, M., DANIELS, M., CAJANDER, Å. and CLEAR, T. 2016. Motivation, optimal experience and flow in first year computing science. In Proceedings of the 2016 Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) conference on innovation and technology in computer science education (ITiCSE '16), 9-13 July 2016, Arequipa, Peru. New York: ACM [online], pages 206-211. Available from: https://doi.org/10.1145/2899415.2899474

• Conference Name: 2016 Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) conference on innovation and technology in computer science education (ITiCSE '16)
• Conference Location: Arequipa, Peru
• Start Date: Jul 11, 2016
• End Date: Jul 13, 2016
• Acceptance Date: Feb 29, 2016
• Online Publication Date: Jul 11, 2016
• Publication Date: Jul 11, 2016
• Deposit Date: Sep 15, 2016
• Publicly Available Date: Sep 15, 2016
• Publisher: ACM Association for Computing Machinery
• Pages: 206-211
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1145/2899415.2899474
• Keywords: Motivation; Self determination theory; Optimal experience; Flow; Computer science education
• Public URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10059/1710