Classifying Survey Items related to Engineering Self-Concept for Application in First-Year Engineering

Jahnavi Dirisina; Randa L. Shehab

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Conference: 2024 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition
Location: Portland, Oregon
Publication Date: June 23, 2024
Start Date: June 23, 2024
End Date: July 12, 2024
Conference Session: First-Year Programs Division Technical Session 10: Curricular & Program Design
Tagged Division: First-Year Programs Division (FYP)
Page Count: 11
DOI: 10.18260/1-2--48464
Permanent URL: https://peer.asee.org/48464
Download Count: 12

Paper Authors

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Jahnavi Dirisina University of Oklahoma

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Jahnavi Dirisina is a Ph.D. Candidate in the School of Industrial and Systems Engineering at the University of Oklahoma, with a research focus on Engineering Education and Undergraduate Retention.

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Randa L. Shehab University of Oklahoma orcid.org/0000-0002-2857-6082

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Dr. Randa L. Shehab serves as the Senior Associate Dean for the Gallogly College of Engineering at the University of Oklahoma. She is a professor of Industrial and Systems Engineering and holds the Nettie Vincent Boggs Professor of Engineering. Her academ

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Abstract

Certain constructs that are prevalent within engineering education have their roots in other domains. However, when theories from one domain are translated and applied in another, it is sometimes done so using a different conceptual framework or understanding of theory. This leads to confusion in the interpretation and application of the theories across domains. Five constructs that are critical to engineering self-concept, with roots in educational psychology and extensive applications in engineering education were considered in this analysis – perceived competence, engineering intrinsic value, belonging, academic self-description, and self-efficacy. This paper illustrates how some self-evaluative survey items designed to assess these constructs have inconsistent interpretations among users. A search of the literature sought surveys designed to assess each of the 5 engineering education constructs. The goal was to build a new survey instrument that could provide measurement of the unique constructs. Thus, statements were extracted from the existing surveys that were aligned with the theory as framed in educational psychology. This search identified 43 self-evaluative statements from 5 surveys used in engineering education, each claiming to measure one of the five constructs. However, the researchers found that survey items from multiple instruments had similar language when purporting to measure distinct constructs. To verify the perception that the measurement of constructs was confounded among the identified survey items, a sorting task was performed. The objective of the sorting task was to interrogate these statements to identify distinct alignment with each engineering self-concept construct. Ten faculty members with significant experience teaching and working with first-year engineering students were considered subject matter experts for this task. The faculty were asked to match each survey item (self-evaluative statements) to the construct best represented by that statement. They were instructed to sort each statement to the single most relevant construct, as informed by their expertise and knowledge. Results were collated anonymously and statements were (re)assigned to their most distinct construct. The outcome of the sorting demonstrated difficulty in separating the constructs and classifying the survey items accordingly. This paper discusses the findings of the card-sorting experiment and proceeds to propose a more robust set of statements to potentially measure engineering self-concept within first-year engineering students.

Citation
Format

Dirisina, J., & Shehab, R. L. (2024, June), Classifying Survey Items related to Engineering Self-Concept for Application in First-Year Engineering Paper presented at 2024 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition, Portland, Oregon. 10.18260/1-2--48464

TY - CPAPER
AB - Certain constructs that are prevalent within engineering education have their roots in other domains. However, when theories from one domain are translated and applied in another, it is sometimes done so using a different conceptual framework or understanding of theory. This leads to confusion in the interpretation and application of the theories across domains. Five constructs that are critical to engineering self-concept, with roots in educational psychology and extensive applications in engineering education were considered in this analysis – perceived competence, engineering intrinsic value, belonging, academic self-description, and self-efficacy. This paper illustrates how some self-evaluative survey items designed to assess these constructs have inconsistent interpretations among users.
A search of the literature sought surveys designed to assess each of the 5 engineering education constructs. The goal was to build a new survey instrument that could provide measurement of the unique constructs. Thus, statements were extracted from the existing surveys that were aligned with the theory as framed in educational psychology. This search identified 43 self-evaluative statements from 5 surveys used in engineering education, each claiming to measure one of the five constructs. However, the researchers found that survey items from multiple instruments had similar language when purporting to measure distinct constructs.
To verify the perception that the measurement of constructs was confounded among the identified survey items, a sorting task was performed. The objective of the sorting task was to interrogate these statements to identify distinct alignment with each engineering self-concept construct. Ten faculty members with significant experience teaching and working with first-year engineering students were considered subject matter experts for this task. The faculty were asked to match each survey item (self-evaluative statements) to the construct best represented by that statement. They were instructed to sort each statement to the single most relevant construct, as informed by their expertise and knowledge. Results were collated anonymously and statements were (re)assigned to their most distinct construct. The outcome of the sorting demonstrated difficulty in separating the constructs and classifying the survey items accordingly. This paper discusses the findings of the card-sorting experiment and proceeds to propose a more robust set of statements to potentially measure engineering self-concept within first-year engineering students.

AU - Jahnavi Dirisina
AU - Randa L. Shehab
CY - Portland, Oregon
DA - 2024/06/23
PB - ASEE Conferences
TI - Classifying Survey Items related to Engineering Self-Concept for Application in First-Year Engineering
UR - https://peer.asee.org/48464
DO - 10.18260/1-2--48464
ER -