The Importance of Motivation in the Collaborative Learning Process in Pandemic and Post-pandemic Undergraduate Students

Motivation and collaborative learning are two aspects of utmost importance that entail benefiting or affecting the academic performance of an individual, although in normal times it may or may not affect, in times of the pandemic it could even benefit depending on the teaching-learning process that is applied. That is why, in this research, it is proposed to study the importance of intrinsic and extrinsic motivation in the collaborative learning process in higher education students in times of the pandemic and post-pandemic. The paradigm of the present research is positivist with a quantitative approach, the design is non-experimental and is of a longitudinal type of tendency. An instrument with predefined questions was applied using a Likert-type scale. To identify the different motivation profiles among the students, cluster analysis was used. Likewise, to examine the influence of contextual and individual level factors on student motivation, multilevel regression analysis was used. The results show the importance of motivation in the collaborative learning process in undergraduate students through various external and internal mechanisms to promote student motivation and thus increase their academic performance, such as teachers using varied and fun materials to explain their class as well as the use of incentives for students, among other aspects identified. Therefore, these aspects can be very useful to promote student motivation and, in this way, increase the academic performance of higher-level students.