Cross-Validation of a Global Citizenship Scale: Constructs for Evaluating Undergraduate Engineering Perspectives

Rachel Roberts; Denise Wilson

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Conference: 2016 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition
Location: New Orleans, Louisiana
Publication Date: June 26, 2016
Start Date: June 26, 2016
End Date: June 29, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-692-68565-5
ISSN: 2153-5965
Conference Session: Research Methods I: Developing Research Tools and Methods
Tagged Division: Educational Research and Methods
Tagged Topic: Diversity
Page Count: 20
DOI: 10.18260/p.26201
Permanent URL: https://peer.asee.org/26201
Download Count: 1543

Paper Authors

biography

Rachel Roberts University of Washington School of Environmental and Forest Sciences

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Rachel completed her Bachelor’s degrees at the University of Wyoming in International Studies and Spanish, spending a semester in Guatemala interviewing business owners and local residents in Antigua as part of a project to understand conflicts over the growing ecotourism industry. She also completed a Masters with the School of Environmental and Forest Sciences at the University of Washington, collaborating on projects focusing on engaging stakeholders in forest management issues, surveys on public values of cultural ecosystem services, and psychographic market segmentation of sustainable tourism.

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biography

Denise Wilson University of Washington

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Denise Wilson is a professor of electrical engineering at the University of Washington, Seattle. Her research interests in engineering education focus on the role of self-efficacy, belonging, and other non-cognitive aspects of the student experience on engagement, success, and persistence and on effective methods for teaching global issues such as those pertaining to sustainability.

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Abstract

Cross-Validation of a Global Citizenship Scale: Constructs for Evaluating Undergraduate Engineering Perspectives

In this effort, an assessment tool designed for researchers to assess global citizenship values among undergraduate students is cross-validated. Past research shows that engineering students can be resistant to the introduction and addition of global citizenship components into the classroom including social responsibility, environmental sustainability, and economic equality. While some studies have delved qualitatively into how engineering undergraduates approach, accept, and understand global values including sustainability, this study seeks to evaluate a quantitative assessment tool and its ability to measure global citizenship values in a consistent manner for a wide variety of populations. With a validated assessment tool for global citizenship, undergraduate engineering students can be evaluated on their knowledge of critical global problems, but also their sense of responsibility for and willingness to engage in solutions to these problems.

To cross-validate this scale, 438 students from four different colleges and schools within one large research university in the Pacific Northwest were surveyed using scale items designed to evaluate global citizenship. Participants represented majors in Engineering, Education, Business, and Environment; these fields were selected in order to validate the scale among a diverse pool of students which differed significantly from the original pool of students used to develop these global citizenship constructs. Factor analyses on this dataset produced 9 distinct measures of such values. Of 62 initial items (42 drawn from the original scale and 20 newly written items for this tool development effort), 39 items remained after factor analysis while 23 items were discarded through rigorous assessment. Newly written items that referenced engineering-oriented global citizenship values and used similar language to the original scale were added in order to validate this scale’s appropriateness for use among engineering undergraduate students. Adding to previous research that used these survey items to study a more narrow population of students, this study provides measures of perspective, values, and beliefs regarding sustainability that are likely to be reliable across diverse populations of undergraduates and be particularly relevant to engineering students.

Citation
Format

Roberts, R., & Wilson, D. (2016, June), Cross-Validation of a Global Citizenship Scale: Constructs for Evaluating Undergraduate Engineering Perspectives Paper presented at 2016 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition, New Orleans, Louisiana. 10.18260/p.26201

TY  - CPAPER
AB  - Cross-Validation of a Global Citizenship Scale:
Constructs for Evaluating Undergraduate Engineering Perspectives

In this effort, an assessment tool designed for researchers to assess global citizenship values among undergraduate students is cross-validated. Past research shows that engineering students can be resistant to the introduction and addition of global citizenship components into the classroom including social responsibility, environmental sustainability, and economic equality. While some studies have delved qualitatively into how engineering undergraduates approach, accept, and understand global values including sustainability, this study seeks to evaluate a quantitative assessment tool and its ability to measure global citizenship values in a consistent manner for a wide variety of populations. With a validated assessment tool for global citizenship, undergraduate engineering students can be evaluated on their knowledge of critical global problems, but also their sense of responsibility for and willingness to engage in solutions to these problems.  

To cross-validate this scale, 438 students from four different colleges and schools within one large research university in the Pacific Northwest were surveyed using scale items designed to evaluate global citizenship. Participants represented majors in Engineering, Education, Business, and Environment; these fields were selected in order to validate the scale among a diverse pool of students which differed significantly from the original pool of students used to develop these global citizenship constructs. Factor analyses on this dataset produced 9 distinct measures of such values. Of 62 initial items (42 drawn from the original scale and 20 newly written items for this tool development effort), 39 items remained after factor analysis while 23 items were discarded through rigorous assessment. Newly written items that referenced engineering-oriented global citizenship values and used similar language to the original scale were added in order to validate this scale’s appropriateness for use among engineering undergraduate students. Adding to previous research that used these survey items to study a more narrow population of students, this study provides measures of perspective, values, and beliefs regarding sustainability that are likely to be reliable across diverse populations of undergraduates and be particularly relevant to engineering students.  

AU  - Rachel Roberts
AU  - Denise Wilson
CY  - New Orleans, Louisiana
DA  - 2016/06/26
PB  - ASEE Conferences
TI  -  Cross-Validation of a Global Citizenship Scale: Constructs for Evaluating Undergraduate Engineering Perspectives
UR  - https://peer.asee.org/26201
DO  - 10.18260/p.26201
ER  -