Resumen de Improving motivation in learning programming skills for engineering students

José M. Jerez, David Bueno i Torrens , I. Molina, Daniel Urda Muñoz , Leonardo Franco

• Engineering degree students sometimes feel that programming courses are not particularly relevant to their main subject andconsequently are unmotivated and underperform. In view of this fact therefore, we have realized that in order to motivate them,programming practices must be related to other areas of their degree, in accordance with some principles of the EHEA (EuropeanHigher Education Area) process currently being implanted in European universities. This paper presents the work done over a tenyear period in which we have tried to motivate the participation of the students studying Telecommunications Engineering in theUniversity of Malaga during their studies. Conceptual maps produced as the result of a coordinated process between severalprofessors in the different areas of the syllabus were used to design the practices and as a result the student success rate hasimproved while absenteeism has dropped.