What makes students enroll in engineering: A case study

Recently, Engineering programs in the Middle East have witnessed a remarkable increase in students' enrollment. To investigate the motives behind such increase, three universities in Lebanon were targeted as a case study. A Likert-scaled survey measuring different types of influences and motives was completed by (n=387) undergraduate engineering students. The results showed that the genuine interest in the field was the main influence affecting the students' own decision. Also, the study examined various intrinsic and extrinsic motivational factors through four categories: personal growth, professional growth, social growth, and financial growth. The descriptive statistics of the measured items showed the professional growth including job satisfaction that improves the level of students' creativity in a challenging environment was the leading motivator for choosing engineering. The analysis discusses the identical importance for intrinsic and extrinsic factors which suggest the students' need for a balance between intrinsic and extrinsic driven prospects for a life time profession.

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