Investigating Demographics and Motivation in Engineering Education Using Radio and Phone-Based Educational Technologies

Despite the best intentions to support equity with educational technologies, they often lead to a “rich get richer” effect, in which communities of more advantaged learners gain greater benefit from these solutions. Effective design of these technologies necessitates a deeper understanding of learners in understudied contexts and their motivations to pursue an education. Consequently, we studied a 15-week remote course launched in 2021 with 17,896 learners that provided engineering education through a radio and phone-based system aimed for use in rural settings within Northern Uganda. We address shifts in learners’ motivations for course participation and investigate the impact of demographic features and motivations of students on persistence and performance. We found significant increases in student motivation to learn more about and pursue STEM. Importantly, the course was most successful for learners in demographics who typically experience fewer educational opportunities, showing promise for such technologies to close opportunity gaps.