Work in Progress: A Study of Variations in Motivation and Efficacy for Computational Modeling in First-year Engineering Students

Polasik, Alison; Suggs, Anna Kathryn; Kajfez, Rachel Louis

doi:10.1109/fie49875.2021.9637463

Cited by 3 publications

(1 citation statement)

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“…While efficacy beliefs and performance have been studied in different university majors, disciplines, and class standing, as well as previous studies highlighting the differences in selfefficacy beliefs levels among students in different engineering majors [2], [17], [18] the researchers have not yet found a study that targets efficacy beliefs and performance of firstyear students from the five different engineering majors chosen, and especially in the programming course. In fact, Kittur [2] recommend that a study on student self-efficacy beliefs in different engineering majors should be conducted.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Measuring the Relationship Between Self-Efficacy Beliefs and Performance Attainments of First Year Engineering Students in the Programming Course

El Khoury,

Safa,

Khoury

et al. 2023

Preprint

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<p>This article targets first-year engineering students’ self-efficacy beliefs and their relationship with performance attainments in the first half of the semester and the final grade of the programming course. Self-efficacy is the belief in one’s capabilities to reach a desired goal or outcome by setting and implementing the required courses of action. In education, self-efficacy is crucial to academic growth, for it helps students take charge of their own learning, develop their skills, set goals, and regulate their motivation in order to accomplish these goals. Considering the difficulty of the programming course, self-efficacy plays a vital role in the challenges the students face in the programming course, their magnitude, and the skills the students use to overcome them. Self-efficacy beliefs were measured through a survey administered twice to 118 engineering students in the first half of the semester and correlated with the first quiz of the semester and the midterm grade, then with the final grade. The analyses targeted all engineering students, then each engineering major separately: Computer, Electrical, Mechatronics, Mechanical, and Industrial engineering. The results showed that there is in fact a relationship between students’ self-efficacy beliefs and performance in the programming course. However, the relationship was shown to be inverse in the first half of the semester but positive with the final grade. These findings highlight the importance of student efficacy beliefs especially in the first half of the semester while also presenting new empirical findings regarding each engineering major targeted.</p>

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