and development of science curriculum, technology, and assessment that can help middle and high school students develop an integrated understanding across topics and disciplines over time. Page 14.450.1© American Society for Engineering Education, 2009 Developing an Instrument to Measure Engineering Design Self-Efficacy: A Pilot StudyKeywords: self-efficacy, engineering designAbstractThe following pilot study is an investigation of how to develop an instrument thatmeasures students’ self-efficacy regarding engineering design. 36 items weredeveloped and tested using three types of validity evidence
afundamentals-focused math and science freshman curriculum. A second goal was todevelop students’ self-efficacy in a range of abilities associated with engineeringincluding design, problem solving, innovation, communication, teamwork, application offundamental engineering and math concepts, teamwork, and being able to consider socialimpacts in technology in design. A third goal was to examine impact of different types ofsubjects by gender. The final goal was to discern if any gains in self-efficacy weresustained over time.An engineering self efficacy survey tool was developed for this study, with an expandedset of engineering self efficacy measures, that permit a more nuanced portrait of theimpact of different types of engineering curricular
tested. A keydistinguishing feature of expectancy of success is that relates to beliefs about a future potentialoutcome. It is this future component that theoretically distinguishes expectancies of successfrom self-concept of ability which is perception of current competence. Expectancies of successare also theoretically distinguished from self-efficacy, an individual’s beliefs about his or herability to perform a task at a designated capability level 10. However, researchers have argued Page 14.348.3these three constructs are difficult to differentiate empirically 11-14 and are often operationalizedin such a way as to be equivalent. 12, 15
programs overtime.Among the numerous studies on women and minority students and why they fail to achievedegrees in STEM fields, the focus is on the students’ characteristics, but less attention is focusedon institutional characteristics and peer perceptions. When young women entering technicalcareers were asked what social factors concerned them about the climate of STEM fields, theresponses indicated the traditionally high indicators of “discrimination,” “prejudice/hostility,”and “lack of acceptance.”3Another limiting factor for women and minority students to achieving degrees in STEM fields istheir individual perception of their ability to succeed in a given situation, known as self efficacy,influences their thoughts, feelings, motivation, and
students’ perceptions of ways of thinking in engineering student and practice. 36th ASEE/IEEE Frontiers in Education (FIE) Conference. Oct. 28-31, San Diego, CA. S2G, 1-6.11. Besterfield-Sacre, M., M. Moreno, L.J. Shuman, C.J. Atman. 1999. Comparing Entering Freshman Engineers: Institutional Differences in Student Attitudes. Proceedings of the American Society for Engineering Education Conference, South Carolina. Session 1430.12. Fuertes, J.N, M.L. Miville, J.J. Mohr, W.E. Sedlacek, D. Gretchen. 2000. Factor structure and short form of the Miville-Guzman Universality-Diversity Scale. Measurement & Evaluation in Counseling and Development. 33(3), 157-170.13. Miville, M.L., P. Holloway, C. Gelso, R. Pannu, W. Liu, P. Touradji
, studies in college student retention, which address students who remain at the sameinstitution where they start until they complete a program,4 have found retention is influenced by Page 14.919.2individual and institutional factors such as student background; ethnicity; high school grades andSAT scores; socioeconomic status; participation in social activities; faculty; size of theinstitution; and attachment to the institution.11,12,13 For instance, Bean’s13 study defines self-efficacy as students’ beliefs in their abilities to survive and adapt to the academic environment.He states that students who believe they can achieve their goals increase
AC 2009-885: THE TECT WORKSHOP: RAISING HIGH-SCHOOL TEACHERS’AND GUIDANCE COUNSELORS’ SELF-EFFICACY IN COUNSELINGSTUDENTS ABOUT ENGINEERING CAREERS AND MAJORSBruce Gehrig, University of North Carolina, Charlotte Associate Professor, Department of Engineering Technology and Construction Management. PI for the Teaching Engineering to Counselors and Teachers (TECT) project.Lyndon Abrams, University of North Carolina, Charlotte Associate Professor, Department of CounselingDeborah Bosley, University of North Carolina, Charlotte Associate Professor, Department of EnglishJames Conrad, University of North Carolina, Charlotte Associate Professor, Department of Electrical and Computer EngineeringStephen Kuyath
careers.3 The expressed purpose of URPs is criticallyimportant given that minorities tend to have lower self-efficacy, lower confidence in their mathand science skills, and less access to scientific courses and highly technical learning experiencescompared to their majority peers.4 And while previous research has focused on the intendedpurpose and general nature of URPs, as well as sex differences in URP participants’ perceptionsof the program,5 no studies were readily uncovered that measured the influence of URPparticipation on specific learning outcomes such as research self-efficacy. This is the gapaddressed by the present study.PurposeThe purpose of this study was to measure the influence of background traits and research-relatedexperiences
orientation toward cultural differences 35 Learning self-efficacy instrument: confidence in self-directed learning25, 36, 37 Miville-Guzman Universality-Diversity Scale (MGUDS-S) survey – cultural competency38, 39 Need for Cognition Scale: self-directed learning measure40 Pittsburg Freshman Engineering Attitudes Survey (PFEAS) 41, 42 Situational Intrinsic Motivation Scale: base motivation measure 43 Student Self-Determination Scale (SDSS) 44 Student Thinking & Interacting Survey 27, 28Bland notes that quantitative data such as the IDI should be linked with qualitative information,because the IDI can show that movement is taking place along the
World Academy of Science and Engineering Volume 28. ISSN 2030-37409. Irizarry, R. (2002). Self-efficacy and motivation effects on online psychology student retention. USDLA Journal, 16(12). Retrieved September 5, 2008, from http://www.usdla.org/html/journal/DEC02_Issue/article07.html.10. Joy, Ernest H. and Garcia, Federico E. Measuring Learning Effectiveness: A New Look at No-Significant- Difference Findings. Journal for Asynchronous Learning Networks, Vol. 4, Issue 1, pp. 33-39, June 2000.11. Nitsch, W. B. (2003). Examination of factors leading to student retention in online graduate education. Paper – ED 7212 Administration and Leadership of Distance Education Programs. Retrieved September 5, 2008, from http
interest inventories (also referred to as measured interests) assess interests forschool subjects, occupational titles, work-related activities, and vocational activities.Students with science and engineering-related measured interests choose related majors ata higher frequency, and are more persistent in those majors. A recent meta-analysissuggests that interests begin to stabilize in early adolescence (Low, Yoon, Roberts &Rounds, 200510) indicating potential for early career intervention. It also appears thatSTEM-related self-efficacy beliefs are important co-determinants of college major choiceand performance. Self-efficacy beliefs are developed through a number of psychologicalmechanisms – the most influential being personal performance
a Ph.D.12. Thesurvey uses attitudinal scales to measure undergraduate students’ attitudes toward graduatestudies, their engineering skills self-efficacy, and their level of school-related self-confidence.Development of the Attitudes toward Graduate Studies SurveyThe Attitudes toward Graduate Studies Survey was modeled after the Attitudes to EngineeringSurvey6-10. Several drafts of the survey were reviewed and revised based on feedback fromengineering faculty and interviews with a group of students who took the survey. Students areasked to indicate the degree to which they agreed or disagreed with a total of 30 statementsabout careers in engineering, the benefits and or disadvantages of graduate studies, their desireto pursue graduate
the female populations tend to have lower eight-semester persistence rates forthe same six-year graduation rate. Men, conversely, will derive self-efficacy from a diverse set ofachievements, including simply passing their classes. Attributing failures to the professor, badluck, or other sources bolsters the self-efficacy of men at times beyond reasonable limits,resulting in their languishing in degree programs and, at times, exhausting their options. We willcontinue our work to test this hypothesis by examining the populations with high eight-semesterpersistence rates but low six-year graduation rates to determine if they do indeed have feweroptions available to them when they leave engineering as measured by their academic standing attheir
instructors takingstudents’ gender, ethnicity, engineering skills, science backgrounds, and leadership skills intoconsideration. All teams were composed of three or four members. Two of the teams weremixed-gender and each one included two male and two female members. Students’ initial andfinal self-efficacy scores were measured using an engineering self-efficacy instrument designedin alignment with the course objectives. Page 14.1188.4Selection of Case StudiesThree students, Bryan, Eric, and Alex (the most supportive, the most responsive, and the mostdisruptive) were chosen for in-depth analysis. All student names reported in this paper
did not present any significantcorrelations with efficacy. However, the number of high school preparatory courses (e.g.calculus, physics) was significantly correlated with the third measurement of academic self-efficacy (0.476, p = 0.006). The positive correlation signifies that students who took morepreparatory courses achieved higher levels of academic self-efficacy by the end of the semester.Additional significant correlations are found in Table 6.Students who experienced an increase in academic self-efficacy throughout the semester reportedsignificantly higher results for two outcome variables: perceived quality (p = 0.017) andsatisfaction (p = 0.034). Additionally, students who reported an increase in academic self-efficacy throughout
AC 2009-2070: UNDERGRADUATE ENGINEERING STUDENT ATTITUDESTOWARD ENTREPRENEURSHIPAndrew Borchers, Kettering UniversitySung Hee Park, Kettering University Page 14.1289.1© American Society for Engineering Education, 2009 Entrepreneurial Self Efficacy, Locus of Control and Intent to Start a Business: An Expanded Study in an Engineering SchoolsAbstract This study extends the authors prior work on student attitudes towards entrepreneurship in a Midwestern US engineering school. Based on prior work by Chen (1998) and Rotter (1966), the study measures entrepreneurial self-efficacy (ESE) with 22 items, locus of
uses a combination of multiple choice and Likert-type summatedrating scales to address four measures of students’ energy literacy - energy-related knowledge(38 items), attitudes toward energy issues (13 items), feelings of self-efficacy (4 items, containedwithin the attitude subscale), and energy consumption behaviors and intentions (10 items).Questions contained in the Energy Literacy Survey are broad in nature, and are not intentionallyrelated to the course content. Table 3: Summary of Data Collection Procedures Administered to… A Measure of… Quantitative
between science, mathematics and real-worldengineering. Survey instrument were developed to measure Teachers’ Attitudes to Engineeringand Knowledge of Engineering Careers and Students’ Attitudes to Mathematics, Science andEngineering, Knowledge of Engineering Careers and self-efficacy for engineering skills.To help more students appreciate the role of technology and engineering in today’s society, andincrease the number of students interested in pursuing careers in STEM fields, particularly thosein generally underrepresented populations, the Center for Pre-College Programs has developed anew program centered on the unifying topic of robotics using biomedical engineeringapplications. Engineering design activities are powerful tools for the
they have enough knowledge (i.e., declarative,procedural, and conditional knowledge) to respond to such task. Self-appraisal includes“judgments about one’s personal cognitive abilities, task factors that influence cognitivedifficulty or cognitive strategies that may facilitate or impede performance.”4, p. 17 Self-appraisal has a motivational aspect. Students’ motivational components, such as Page 14.1089.3intrinsic goal orientation, self-efficacy, task value, and learning beliefs play an important role inself-directed learning. In this study, the self-appraisal aspect was identified by students’ self-confidence and self-efficacy to
attention is focused on institutional characteristics and peer perceptions. This isthe missing piece that will be examined.Another limiting factor for women and minority students to achieving degrees in STEM fields istheir individual perception of their ability to succeed in a given situation, known as self efficacy,influences their thoughts, feelings, motivation, and behavior [7]. Four factors contribute to thedevelopment of self efficacy: mastery experiences, vicarious experiences, social persuasion, andphysiological states. Vicarious experiences include peer comparisons, social comparisons withothers, and the impact of models. The vicarious experience of women and minority students canprove to have a strong effect on their individual self
personally meaningful.• Self-Efficacy: If students feel competent and empowered to succeed they will have high scores on self-efficacy.These MSLQ scales have been used on hundreds of campuses. The psychometric properties arereliable and predict achievement [12].Preliminary results from an initial test at Hope College are shown in Figure 1.The results are highly encouraging—after completing just one series of the initial version of thelaboratory activities in a technological literacy course for non-engineering majors, these studentsdemonstrated increased intrinsic motivation, increased task value, and improved self-efficacyabout science and technology. Self-efficacy increased by more than 10% and test anxiety abouttechnological topics decreased
-improvement and personal growth were found to be highly valued. In comparison with extrinsicgoals from the same study, further differences were found between intrinsic and extrinsicmotivation. Other studies have found that student motivation is directly linked to seeing valueand meeting goals and beliefs about the importance of a given task or subject.The value of motivation can be conceptualized through various approaches (e.g., learning vs.performance goals, intrinsic vs. extrinsic orientation, and interests); this motivational componenteffectively concerns students' motives for the completion of a task7. Self-efficacy has a majorrole in student motivation at both intrinsic and extrinsic levels. Students’ perceived self-efficacyinfluences as the
strategies in various subject areas such as statistics, chemistry, technology, socialstudies, and physical education.15 Research has shown that learner characteristics measured bythe MSLQ have strong associations with their self-regulative learning processes and academicperformance. Based on research conducted by Pintrich and his colleagues at the University ofMichigan, the MSLQ has become a standard instrument for conducting research on self-regulation and motivation. The generally accepted conclusion is that positive motivationalorientations (e.g., intrinsic goal, high task value, high self-efficacy, and low test anxiety) arerelated to higher levels of self-regulated learning strategies, which in turn are related to betteracademic performance.16
studies were a very positive experience in their learning ofengineering principles. They found the case studies to be informative, interesting, and enjoyable.One student said, “If you can find more case studies like this online, it would be worthwhile togive them to us.” Another applauded the fact that the case studies merged engineering principleswith information from other majors, such as business, architecture, and law. Their commentsranged from “overall it was a good experience” to “this is one of my most enjoyable classes.”Based upon the pre and post surveys that address the perceptual measures (gain in higher-ordercognitive skills, improvement in self-efficacy and improvement in team working skills), we findthat both the experimental
of the MotivatedStrategies for Learning Questionnaire—MSLQ [11] will be used with each activity. Specifically,data will be collected using these scales:• Intrinsic Motivation: Intrinsic motivation measures the extent to which students are inspired to learn because of curiosity about the topic, or the joy that comes from understanding complex material.• Extrinsic Motivation: Extrinsic motivation measures the extent to which students are inspired to learn because of rewards such as grades.• Task Value: Task value measures the extent to which students feel that what they are learning is relevant, useful and personally meaningful.• Self-Efficacy: If students feel competent and empowered to succeed they will have high
interviews indicates that the programis valued highly by students and improves learning and self-efficacy. For example, more than80% of students in these ICPT classes agreed with the statement “I wish my other courses usedpeer tutors.” Tutors appear to be motivated by the benefits of helping other students withoutfinancial reimbursement. WSU’s ongoing ICPT program can act as a model for otheruniversities, demonstrating the potential of peer tutoring to transform engineering education.IntroductionThe quality of the classroom experience for engineering undergraduates has the potential toimpact both retention of engineering students and student preparation for the workforce. Studentswho leave engineering often cite poor teaching as one of the primary
number of NSF projects including a Bridging Engineering and Education and a current TPC program. She has been a faculty member in science curriculum and instruction and has taught and developed courses in assessment, equity, and bridging engineering and education. She has been involved in the development of innovative science teaching curricular activities and is a co-PI of an NSF TPC project that is providing community college science teachers with authentic science inquiry and writing experiences. She is contributing to the effective formative and summative assessment of self-efficacy and learning of students in the course, which is critical in structuring of the Frets, Flutes, and
subfactors identified through factor analysis14; each subfactor isin turn comprised of individual items. The constructs include:- Motivation, consisting of 25 items in four subfactors: Control, Challenge, Curiosity and Career.- Metacognition: consisting of 20 items in four subfactors: Planning, Self-monitoring/Self- Checking, Cognitive Strategy and Awareness.- Deep Learning, consisting of 10 items in two subfactors, Motive and Strategy.- Surface Learning, consisting of 10 items in two subfactors, Memorization and Studying.- Academic Self-Efficacy, consisting of ten individual items that do not form specific subfactors.- Leadership, consisting of 20 items with four subfactors, Motivation, Planning, Self- Assessment and
, practical abilityand intuition about physical phenomenon remain important. In fact, the NAE cites “practicalingenuity” as one of the key attributes of the engineer of 20201. Because students today are lesslikely to have grown up in rural communities than their predecessors, they have probably hadfewer opportunities to tinker. Instead of fixing the family tractor or the hay bailer, theengineering students of today and tomorrow will have lived a cocooned virtual life of videogames and online chat forums. While facility with computers is advantageous, our curricula donot provide adequate opportunities for many students to overcome this tinkering deficit. Moreimportantly, there is some evidence that low self-efficacy with respect to tinkering may even
. National Research Council (2007). Taking science to school: Learning and teaching science in grades K-8. R. A. Duschl, H. A. Schweingruber, A. W. Shouse (Eds.). Washington, D.C.: The National Academies Press.5. Schoeneberger, M., & Russell, T. (1986). Elementary science as a little added frill: A report of two case studies. Science Education, 70, 519-538.6. Wallace, J., & Louden, W. (1992). Science teaching and teachers’ knowledge: Prospects for reform of primary classroom. Science Education, 76(5), 507- 521.7. Settlage, J., Southerland, S. A., Smith, L. K. & Ceglie, R. (2009). Constructing a doubt-free teaching self: self- efficacy, teacher identity, and science instruction within diverse settings