Pre-Collegiate Factors Influencing the Self-Efficacy of Engineering Students Academic Article uri icon

abstract

  • BACKGROUND Many engineering colleges have the goal of increasing the quality and number of students choosing to pursue engineering and therefore are heavily invested in programs that expose pre-collegiate students to engineering. Most commonly, these institutions are involved with summer outreach programs and weekend or fieldtrip opportunities for students to visit engineering campuses, and some curriculum development. A lesser, often untapped resource for engineering colleges is through K-12 technology and pre-engineering teacher training. PURPOSE (HYPOTHESIS) This study addresses the long term effects of pre-collegiate engineering experiences on student selfefficacy. It is hypothesized that the greater the rigor of a pre-colligate experience, the more it will contribute to a student's self-efficacy related to engineering studies. The pre-collegiate experiences examined in this study include pre-engineering classes, multi-day programs, engineering hobbies, working in an engineering environment, extra-curricular engineering programs, and single-day field trips. DESIGN/METHOD The long term effects of pre-collegiate experiences were evaluated by comparing the self-efficacy of firstyear students who had the experiences to first-year students who did not have the experiences. RESULTS Significant differences in self-efficacy were only found between groups of students who had pre-engineering classes and engineering hobbies versus students who did not have these experiences. CONCLUSIONS Based on the findings, engineering colleges with the goal of increasing the self-efficacy of engineering students should consider focusing resources on developing K-12 technology and pre-engineering teachers. Additional recommendations for practice, pedagogical implications, and areas for further research are offered. 2011 ASEE.

published proceedings

  • JOURNAL OF ENGINEERING EDUCATION

author list (cited authors)

  • Fantz, T. D., Siller, T. J., & DeMiranda, M. A.

citation count

  • 41

complete list of authors

  • Fantz, Todd D||Siller, Thomas J||DeMiranda, Michael A

publication date

  • January 2011

publisher