Reported changes in students' perceptions of their abilities to succeed on the abet student outcomes during the first-year engineering program

American Society for Engineering Education, 2018. The purpose of this study is to explore students' perceptions of the engineering enculturation factors corresponding to the eleven ABET student outcomes and how their perceptions of their abilities change over time through the FYE program. During the 2016-2017 school year, 662 students, taking two consecutive First Year Engineering (FYE) foundation courses at a southwestern university, responded to at least one of the three online surveys arranged over time as either pre or post semester surveys and answered to the questions asking about students' perceptions of the eleven ABET student outcomes. Overall the students' reported that they believed the easiest ABET Outcome to achieve would be using their 'knowledge of mathematics skills to solve engineering problems'. Both the female and male students also perceived that their 'ability to function well in multidisciplinary teams as an engineer' was an easier ABET Outcome to achieve after completing the FYE foundation courses which focus heavily on this outcome. Students' responded that they believed that their 'abilities to design a system, component or process to meet desired needs within realistic constraints as an engineer' was the most difficult of the ABET Outcomes to achieve in all three of the surveys. There were some notable differences in the pre and post surveys by gender and ethnicity.

Reported changes in students' perceptions of their abilities to succeed on the abet student outcomes during the first-year engineering program Conference Paper