Motivation in first year engineering students of the online course “Computer Programming in Python” in the context of a pandemic by COVID-19

Teaching-learning has changed drastically since the coronavirus pandemic and motivation in a pandemic context where students have had to radically change their learning system. The main goal of this research is to identify the relationship between the motivation of students in an online course of Computer Programming in Python, in the context of pandemic with sociodemographic variables (Internet connection, number of people living at home, employment status) and school variables (number of parallel subjects, grades and time spent). 75 first year engineering students participated and motivation was measured through the EME scale that provides Internal Motivation, External Motivation and Amotivation. The results indicate that there are no mean differences between motivation and socio-demographic variables, while significant differences are found in the Amotivation factor compared to students’ final grades and the total time taken to complete the learning units. The course in question took place in the second semester of 2020, which ended in January 2021, given the irregularity of the semester