Whitesel, C., & Carberry, A. R. (2015, June), Measuring Community College Students’ Self-efficacy Toward Circuit Analysis  Paper presented at 2015 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition, Seattle, Washington. 10.18260/p.24474

\bibitem{asee_peer_24474}
  Whitesel, C., \& Carberry, A. R. (2015, June), \emph{Measuring Community College Students’ Self-efficacy Toward Circuit Analysis}
  Paper presented at 2015 ASEE Annual Conference \& Exposition, Seattle, Washington.
  10.18260/p.24474

Carl Whitesel and Adam R. Carberry.  "Measuring Community College Students’ Self-efficacy Toward Circuit Analysis".  2015 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition, Seattle, Washington, 2015, June.  ASEE Conferences, 2015.  https://peer.asee.org/24474 Internet.  26 Apr, 2024

\bibitem{asee_peer_24474}
  Carl Whitesel and Adam R. Carberry.
  "Measuring Community College Students’ Self-efficacy Toward Circuit Analysis".
  \emph{2015 ASEE Annual Conference \& Exposition, Seattle, Washington, 2015, June}.
  ASEE Conferences, 2015.
  https://peer.asee.org/24474 Internet.  26 Apr, 2024

@INPROCEEDINGS{asee_peer_24474
author = "Carl Whitesel and Adam R. Carberry"
title = "Measuring Community College Students’ Self-efficacy Toward Circuit Analysis"
booktitle = "2015 ASEE Annual Conference \& Exposition"
year = "2015"
month = "June"
address = "Seattle, Washington"
publisher = "ASEE Conferences"
note = {https://peer.asee.org/24474}
number = {10.18260/p.24474}
}

TY  - CPAPER
AB  -           Measuring Community College Students’ Self-Efficacy toward                             Circuit AnalysisDC circuit analysis is considered a difficult course for engineering students. Research on thedifficulties students face regarding this topic focuses solely on 4-year university students,neglecting the population studying this topic within community colleges. Prior literature hasshown that community college students are different from university students, with one commonlink, self-efficacy. This is rooted in the fact that many strategies to increase student interest,achievement, retention and persistence in engineering are based on increasing self-efficacy.An instrument was created in the fall 2013 semester to measure the relationships between self-efficacy for DC circuit analysis and personal and academic characteristics. Study participantswere students enrolled in three engineering technology circuit analysis courses at a southwesterncommunity college. The instrument asked students questions related to their confidence in theiranswers to a concept inventory. Questions were worded as “How confident are you about youranswers given for parts 1 (multiple choice assessment of understanding) and 2 (writtendescription of understanding)?” Responses were reported using a 100-point range on a Likertscale with 10-unit intervals. Prompts were provided at 0 - “Not at all confident”, 40 - “Maybe-Not Sure”, 70 - “Pretty Confident”, and 100 - “Completely Confident”. This was consistent withprior approaches in the literature. Personal and academic characteristics were measured viademographic questions that had been found in the literature to be related to self-efficacy.The instrument was given as part of a pre- and post-test to a sample (N = 37) of the population ofstudents enrolled in three engineering technology circuit analysis courses. SAS statisticalanalysis software was used to analyze the data. Internal reliability of the instrument was checkedfor both the pre- and post-test, and was found to be excellent (α = 0.935). Face and contentvalidity were established via research on past studies that used this approach for domains outsideof circuit analysis. Construct validity was not established due to the low number of subjects andthe large number of characteristics measured. Group effects for the population from the threeseparate classes was analyzed using Analysis of Variance (ANOVA). No differences werepresent for the pre-test [F(2,36) = 0.50, p = 0.612] or the post-test [F(2,36) = 0.20, p = 0.817].Finally, the data set was analyzed for correlations between self-efficacy for circuit analysis andthe personal and academic characteristics of the subjects. Two characteristics on the post-testwere found to be significantly correlated with self-efficacy for circuit analysis. Subject’s agewas moderately and positively correlated (R = 0.43, p = 0.008), while subject’s father’seducation level was weakly and negatively correlated (R = -0.34, p = 0.042). These results areinteresting because they are not common in the literature for students enrolled in 4-yearinstitutions. The community college population being different from the university studentpopulation may indicate another difference between the two populations. Knowing thisdifference could potentially lead to better approaches for improving the self-efficacy ofcommunity college students enrolled in a course that is traditionally considered difficult.
AU  - Carl Whitesel
AU  - Adam R. Carberry
CY  - Seattle, Washington
DA  - 2015/06/14
PB  - ASEE Conferences
TI  - Measuring Community College Students’ Self-efficacy Toward Circuit Analysis
UR  - https://peer.asee.org/24474
DO  - 10.18260/p.24474
ER  -