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Enhancing Students’ Engineering Self-Efficacy, Values, and Identity through Needs Finding and Engineering Design

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Conference

2022 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Location

Minneapolis, MN

Publication Date

August 23, 2022

Start Date

June 26, 2022

End Date

June 29, 2022

Conference Session

NSF Grantees Poster Session

Page Count

9

DOI

10.18260/1-2--42058

Permanent URL

https://strategy.asee.org/42058

Download Count

237

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Paper Authors

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Tobin Walton North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University (CoE)

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Social Psychology of STEM education.

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Stephen Knisley North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University

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Jared Webb North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University (CoE)

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Arvind Chandrasekaran North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University

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Abstract

Abstract Past research has identified an explanatory model of how Engineering Self-Efficacy, Values, and Identity combine to drive student engagement in engineering activities such as study groups, internships, design-workshops, and conferences (Walton, Knisley, McCullough, 2019). The model suggests that engineering self-efficacy is the most proximal driver of engagement while engineering identity and values by contrast are more indirect and distal motivators of engagement in engineering activities with their effects on student engagement being mediated by the more proximal influence of engineering self-efficacy. In essence, for students to be motivated to engage in engineering activities they must first feel capable within engineering (self-efficacy). Walton et al., (2019), further argue, given the right educational environment, these relationships constitute a positive feedback loop. Specifically, the more a student feels capable within engineering, the more likely they are to engage with curricular and extracurricular engineering content and activities. This increased engagement increases engineering self-efficacy, and these efficacious experiences, in turn form the building-blocks of engineering identity and promote the internalization of engineering values. This paper reports on an educational intervention that involved curricular changes that incorporate needs finding and engineering design education across all four undergraduate years. It is hypothesized that allowing students to gain practice at identifying important needs and designing solutions will increase their beliefs in their own capability to do engineering (self-efficacy), which will in turn help them see themselves as engineers (identity), and promote their valuation of the knowledge, skills, and utility of the field (values). This study reports on a Pre/Post-Test research design aimed at testing this intervention. Students in six undergraduate engineering courses that were reformulated to provide students with consistent opportunities to engage in needs finding and engineering design activities were administered a pre-test and post-test survey designed to measure their engineering self-efficacy, engineering identity, and engineering values.

Walton, T., & Knisley, S., & Webb, J., & Chandrasekaran, A. (2022, August), Enhancing Students’ Engineering Self-Efficacy, Values, and Identity through Needs Finding and Engineering Design Paper presented at 2022 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition, Minneapolis, MN. 10.18260/1-2--42058

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