Motivation and critical thinking in undergraduate Civil Engineering students

Abstract

Introduction: The objective of this research is to determine the association of motivation and critical thinking of university students, the questionnaires were applied to students of cycles I and II of two universities in the city of Huaraz.
Materials and methods: Non-experimental and descriptive design with a sample of 118 students between men and women, who belong to the first cycles of the Civil Engineering career at the Huaraz subsidiary, in the year 2022, two motivation and thought questionnaires were applied. Critical with options on the Likert scale, it was evaluated by means of calculation tables, classifying them into categories of high, medium and low.
Results: From the motivation survey, 82.2% consider the high level, 16.1% at the medium level and with a percentage of 1.7% the low level, the correlation according to Spearman's Rho between motivation and critical pentamer is 0.651.
Discussion: In order to achieve critical thinking, cognitive processes must be fulfilled in an ascending way from less to more with the analysis, conceptualization, synthesis and evaluation of the information obtained; In the educational process there are teachers and students, whose roles must be active, which is supported by the line of research on the development of critical thinking.
Conclusions: The level of motivation in university students of the first cycles is high and the correlation between motivation and critical thinking is moderately positive, stating that if motivation increases, critical thinking also increases.