Are they simply interested? An exploration of engineering students' most favorite classes

This work in progress explores how instructional strategies and technology use were related to engineering students' affinity toward a class. Instructional strategies, such as contextual problem-based learning and teamwork, can increase student interest in a topic. Additionally using different technological tools affects student interest and learning. However, instructors can be challenged to encourage and maintain student interest, which makes this study worthwhile to pursue. To our knowledge, there is a dearth of engineering education research exploring the relationship between instructional technology, instructional strategies, and engineering students' course favoritism. This study aims to fill this gap by identifying effective instructional strategies and the use of educational technology that helped make a class engineering students' favorite.