Guatemala vs. Germany - A cross-cultural study of students' motivation in basic mathematics courses

It is common to observe a lack of motivation in the freshmen engineering students enrolled in mathematics courses. In this paper, we present a first attempt to describe the similarities and contrast the differences between the students' motivation in engineering mathematics courses in Guatemala and Germany. Despite the cultural differences between these countries, the overall problem seems to have a similar pattern, which makes this study even more interesting. To measure the levels of motivation, we used the motivation section of the well-known Motivated Strategies for Learning Questionnaire (MSLQ). Our findings include a significant difference in intrinsic motivation, extrinsic motivation, and anxiety management between those groups. The results of the remaining sub-scales of the test are also discussed in this paper. As a result, this explorative study provides a first insight into the motivation level in engineering mathematics courses and the different cultural and pedagogical factors that may affect it.