Motivation to use digital educational content – differences between science and other STEM students in higher education

Abstract Digitalization leads to an increased importance of digital educational content for learning in higher education as well as in the sciences. The investigation of individual factors (e.g., motivation, self-efficacy, attitudes) influencing the intention to use digital educational content is a major research interest in design and implementation of suitable content (Hsu, J.-Y., Chen, C.-C., & Ting, P.-F. (2018). Understanding MOOC continuance: An empirical examination of social support theory. Interactive Learning Environments, 26(8), 1100–1118), yet to date without differentiation by discipline. A questionnaire following the Theory of Planned Behavior (Fishbein, M., & Ajzen, I. (2010). Predicting and changing behavior: The reasoned action approach. Psychology Press. http://site.ebrary.com/lib/alltitles/docDetail.action?docID=10462474) was developed to analyze relationships between STEM students’ individual beliefs and their personal motivation to use digital educational content. In November 2021, a total of 662 STEM students from 8 universities in Germany participated in the study. Analyses showed differences within the group of STEM students: science students rated their digital skills lower and expected more difficulties compared to other STEM students, but did not differ in terms of their motivation. For science students, unlike other STEM students, motivation was predicted only by attitudes and digital skills. Moreover, the present results suggest that, first, the focus of the design should be on learning environment rather than on digital tools, and second, the potential of collaboration is largely unrecognized by students.