Confirming Self-Regulation Construct Items for Students Learning Statics

Abstract

Learning and academic achievement are attributable to the complex cognitive phenomenon of selfregulation. There was a need to study self-regulation, a popular research area in education, on engineering students learning Statics. However, there was no specific instrument to measure self-regulation in fundamental engineering courses like Statics. Therefore, a modified self-regulated learning (SRL) instrument was used in the study that was carried out at four higher institutions in Malaysia, with a total of over 600 student participants. The Motivated Strategies for Learning Questionnaire (MSLQ) was modified for Statics and using Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA), nine new factors and respective items for self-regulation were confirmed.

Experiential Learning for Teaching Structural Analysis to Non-Engineering Students

“…The difficulty has resulted in architecture students to perform poorly in Statics and other follow-on courses [5][6], which consequently has often discouraged students. On the other hand, studies on engineering students' academic achievement revealed that students who are academically successful do not necessarily have a deep understanding of fundamental concepts [7][8][9][10]. Difficulties in learning Statics are mainly due to universal impediment such as the difficult concepts, local culture and work habit of students.…”