Full Paper : Continued exploration of the relevance of self-efficacy, self-determination and agency in describing the first-year African engineering student’s experience

Charity Obaa Afi Ampomah; Heather Beem

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Conference: 15th Annual First-Year Engineering Experience Conference (FYEE)
Location: Boston, Massachusetts
Publication Date: July 28, 2024
Start Date: July 28, 2024
End Date: July 30, 2024
Tagged Topic: Diversity
Page Count: 9
DOI: 10.18260/1-2--48592
Permanent URL: https://peer.asee.org/48592
Download Count: 27

Paper Authors

biography

Charity Obaa Afi Ampomah Ashesi University

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Charity Obaa Afi Ampomah is a Research Assistant with the Ashesi Resourceful Engineering Lab (AREL) at Ashesi University. She received her bachelor's degree in Electrical and Electronics Engineering from Ashesi University.

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biography

Heather Beem Ashesi University orcid.org/0000-0003-2893-5177

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Dr. Heather Beem is a Mechanical Engineering Faculty at Ashesi University in Ghana, where she leads the Resourceful
Engineering Lab. Her research explores the mechanisms and manifestations of resourceful design, particularly along the
lines of indigenous innovation, experiential education, and bio-inspired fluid dynamics. Dr. Beem completed her Ph.D. in
Mechanical Engineering at MIT/WHOI, and moved shortly thereafter to Ghana, where she also founded and leads
Practical Education Network (PEN), a STEM education nonprofit building the capacity of African STEM teachers to
employ practical pedagogies.

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Abstract

A first-year engineering student experiences various transformations as they engage in their first project-based course in the university. This can be particularly pronounced for students on the African continent, who may have largely experienced theoretical instruction prior to entering a university which emphasizes a project-based approach. The target group here is first year engineering students at Ashesi University in Ghana. This paper builds on previous work with this target group in ascertaining which constructs are most relevant in describing their experiences in a project-based course. First-year students (N=49) in the 2023 offering of an Introduction to Engineering course were administered pre- and post-surveys. Drawing from validated scales in literature, these surveys asked students to report self-perceptions of their agency, self-determination, and self-efficacy on a Likert scale. They were also asked open-ended questions to enable them to articulate their project experience in their own words. Paired t-tests and Hedge’s g tests were conducted on the Likert scale responses to determine statistical significance and effect sizes to any changes reported. Qualitative analysis was done on the open-ended questions in terms of categorizing the dominant emotions and conducting thematic analysis to map their responses to the three constructs in view. These analyses were done for Cohorts A and B of the course separately, as Cohort B had taken an introductory design course prior to their official start to the university curriculum, and hence came in with a different exposure level. The results showed statistically significant increases with small to large effect size for both agency (p=4.59E-02, g=0.2) and self-efficacy levels (p=3.96E-03, g=1.7) in aggregate. Self-determination started high and remained high at the end. The majority of students from cohort A (50%) and cohort B (78%) had positive remarks to say about their project, while a few had negative and neutral remarks. The difference between cohorts suggests that the prior exposure they had coming into the course did influence their success in it. Thematic analysis revealed a trend of students starting with low self-efficacy, exhibiting self-determination and agency to persist through challenges, and ending on a level of high self-efficacy. These results posit that these three constructs may indeed be relevant constructs in describing the target students' experiences, albeit with a time dimension in view. Although self-efficacy and agency have been seen to increase amongst students engaged in project-based learning in contexts outside of Ghana, an exact comparison for the trend seen here for self-determination has not yet been found. Future work can probe further into this potentially unique dimension of African first-year students. Generally, this line of inquiry can result in informed curricular design to better serve engineering students in contexts where they may have had minimal prior exposure to project-based approaches.

Citation
Format

Ampomah, C. O. A., & Beem, H. (2024, July), Full Paper : Continued exploration of the relevance of self-efficacy, self-determination and agency in describing the first-year African engineering student’s experience Paper presented at 15th Annual First-Year Engineering Experience Conference (FYEE), Boston, Massachusetts. 10.18260/1-2--48592

TY - CPAPER
AB - A first-year engineering student experiences various transformations as they engage in their first project-based course in the university. This can be particularly pronounced for students on the African continent, who may have largely experienced theoretical instruction prior to entering a university which emphasizes a project-based approach. The target group here is first year engineering students at Ashesi University in Ghana.
This paper builds on previous work with this target group in ascertaining which constructs are most relevant in describing their experiences in a project-based course. First-year students (N=49) in the 2023 offering of an Introduction to Engineering course were administered pre- and post-surveys. Drawing from validated scales in literature, these surveys asked students to report self-perceptions of their agency, self-determination, and self-efficacy on a Likert scale. They were also asked open-ended questions to enable them to articulate their project experience in their own words. Paired t-tests and Hedge’s g tests were conducted on the Likert scale responses to determine statistical significance and effect sizes to any changes reported. Qualitative analysis was done on the open-ended questions in terms of categorizing the dominant emotions and conducting thematic analysis to map their responses to the three constructs in view. These analyses were done for Cohorts A and B of the course separately, as Cohort B had taken an introductory design course prior to their official start to the university curriculum, and hence came in with a different exposure level.
The results showed statistically significant increases with small to large effect size for both agency (p=4.59E-02, g=0.2) and self-efficacy levels (p=3.96E-03, g=1.7) in aggregate. Self-determination started high and remained high at the end. The majority of students from cohort A (50%) and cohort B (78%) had positive remarks to say about their project, while a few had negative and neutral remarks. The difference between cohorts suggests that the prior exposure they had coming into the course did influence their success in it. Thematic analysis revealed a trend of students starting with low self-efficacy, exhibiting self-determination and agency to persist through challenges, and ending on a level of high self-efficacy. These results posit that these three constructs may indeed be relevant constructs in describing the target students&#39; experiences, albeit with a time dimension in view. Although self-efficacy and agency have been seen to increase amongst students engaged in project-based learning in contexts outside of Ghana, an exact comparison for the trend seen here for self-determination has not yet been found. Future work can probe further into this potentially unique dimension of African first-year students. Generally, this line of inquiry can result in informed curricular design to better serve engineering students in contexts where they may have had minimal prior exposure to project-based approaches.
AU - Charity Obaa Afi Ampomah
AU - Heather Beem
CY - Boston, Massachusetts
DA - 2024/07/28
PB - ASEE Conferences
TI - Full Paper : Continued exploration of the relevance of self-efficacy, self-determination and agency in describing the first-year African engineering student’s experience

UR - https://peer.asee.org/48592
DO - 10.18260/1-2--48592
ER -