Fostering Motivation for Chemical Engineering Students' Academic Success: An Example from a Sophomore Materials and Energy Balances Course

An introductory sophomore-level chemical engineering course was redesigned, and this redesign included cyber-assisted learning through online videos, team formation, and team evaluation software. We compared the traditional 2018 course (n = 48) with the redesigned 2019 course (n = 67) on student persistence (DFW rates), motivation, and course performance (final GPA). We found descriptively lower DFW rates (-10.4%) and higher performance predicted by students' positive changes in their competence beliefs after the cyber-assisted redesign.