How Do Student Perceptions of Engineers and Engineering as a Career Relate to their Self-Efficacy, Career Expectations, and Grittiness?

This complete research paper examines the potential connection between student beliefs about engineering as a profession, as well as the perceptions of their family and friends, to their reported self-efficacy, career expectations, and grittiness. The student responses examined were obtained from non-calculus ready engineering students at a large land grant institution in the Mid-Atlantic region. The students participated in a wellestablished program focused on cohort formation, mentorship, professional skill development, and fostering a sense of inclusion and belonging in engineering. The program, consisting of a oneweek pre-fall bridge experience and two common courses, was founded in 2012 and has been operating with National Science Foundation (NSF) S-STEM funding since 2016. Students who received S-STEM funded scholarships are required to participate in focus groups, one-on-one interviews, and complete Longitudinal Assessment of Engineering Self-Efficacy (LAESE), Motivated Strategies for Learning Questionnaire (MSLQ), and GRIT questionnaires each semester. The researchers applied qualitative coding methods to evaluate student responses from focus groups and one-on-one interviews which were conducted from 2017 to 2019. Questions examined in this paper include: 1) How would you describe an engineer? 2) Please describe what you think an engineer does on a daily basis. 3) What do you think your friends/family think of engineering? 4) What skills or characteristics do you think good engineers have? 5) What types of careers do you believe are filled by degree holding engineers? Student responses on the aforementioned questions were related to the self-efficacy, career expectations, and grit values obtained from the LAESE, MSLQ, and GRIT instruments. The nature of this longitudinal study allows the evolution of student responses to also be examined as they matriculate through their education. Results of this research are presented in an effort to further highlight the importance of exposure to STEM fields during an individual’s K-12 education, and express how student perceptions, selfefficacy, GRIT, and career expectations evolve over their undergraduate education. 1.0 Introduction In an effort to provide the context in which this research was conducted, a background summary of current research related to reported self-efficacy, career expectations, and grittiness among engineering students is included in addition to a brief description of the program where the study data was collected. 1.1 Summary of Background Research Social cognitive career theory suggests that many factors impact a person’s choice of career. One of the more influential factors according to the theory is a person’s belief that they will succeed, or self-efficacy, in a career [1]. Engineering is frequently discounted as a career option due to misconceptions about the field including: (1) engineering is only for very smart students, (2) engineering is a career for only men, (3) engineers must love mathematics, (4) engineers only work in offices, and (5) engineers do not help and serve people [8]. Self-efficacy beliefs are reportedly linked to mastery experiences, vicarious experiences, social persuasions, and physiological states. Mastery experiences have the strongest impact on a student’s efficacy beliefs and refer to an individual’s perception of their performance on a certain task. Selfefficacy can also be influenced by vicarious experiences, the observation or awareness of another person’s experience with a certain task, and through social persuasions, the shared thoughts of others, positive or negative, toward an individual and their likelihood to accomplish a task. Physiological states that are experienced by an individual during an activity such as emotions or stress also have been shown to impact one’s self-efficacy [15]. In an effort to relate the self-efficacy aspect of cognitive career theory to engineering students’ and engineers’ perceptions of important skills and abilities Winters et al. [9] conducted a longitudinal study. This research study questioned engineering students about their perceived importance of various abilities such as math, science, and business. The individuals were surveyed throughout their undergraduate education and then again four years post-graduation. The researchers determined that as students’ progress through their undergraduate engineering education, the importance of math ability decreases, with the most drastic decrease occurring between graduation and four years post-graduation. The importance rating of professional skills such as communication steadily increased from freshman year to post-graduation [9]. Anderson-Rowland et al. [7] cite lack of information about engineering as a major factor contributing to a low interest in engineering among high school and community college students. This lack of knowledge about engineering as a career leads to a lack of confidence in an ability to succeed in engineering, and therefore engineering is not viewed as a viable career option. It has been well established that if a student has a parent who is an engineer they are more likely to select engineering as a career than a student without an engineer for a parent. Media such as movies and television programs are widely available sources of information. Many storylines include doctors, lawyers, and nurses, while few feature engineers. Due to the lack of exposure in entertainment media and daily interactions, students commonly lack an understanding of engineering as a career and therefore are less likely to pursue it [11]. Godwin et al. [10] found that high school students’ interest and believed competence in math and physics contribute significantly to the likelihood of them pursuing engineering as a career choice. The study also found that students who have a high level of feelings of empowerment to make change coupled with strong physics and math identities are more likely to select engineering as a career than students who have strong physics and math identities, but lack the high level of empowerment to make change. The reported self-efficacy of engineering students has been shown to relate to their retention persistence, and interest in their major [12],[13]. It is common for male engineering students to report higher self-efficacy scores than their female peers [14]. Beyond self-efficacy, motivation has been linked to student retention. Students who find intrinsic value in engineering are more likely to retain in engineering than those who lack interest in engineering topics [16]. Jones et al. [17] studied students’ self-efficacy, intrinsic interest value, and extrinsic utility value throughout their freshman year of their engineering curriculum. At the end of the freshman year the reported values of self-efficacy, the intrinsic value of learning engineering, and the utility value of engineering all decreased from the initial values reported when students entered their freshman year. This research also showed that intrinsic interest in engineering and the utility value of engineering were better predictors of career path than self-efficacy. 1.2 Brief Description of AcES Program The Academy of Engineering Success (AcES) program was established in 2012 to increase retention of students who are traditionally underrepresented in engineering with the goal of ultimately diversifying the engineering workforce. The program has been funded through an NSF S-STEM grant since 2016. The main aspects of the program include a focus on cohort formation, professional development, student success skills, career guidance, scholarship opportunities, and an industry mentor program. AcES students arrive on campus a week prior to the start of their first semester to participate in a bridge experience, complete a two credit hour professional development course in the fall semester, and in the spring semester students complete a three credit course which covers the role of engineers in shaping society throughout history. Since fall of 2016 select students from the AcES program have received scholarships funded by the NSF S-STEM grant. Table 1 displays the number of scholarship recipients from each incoming AcES cohort. Table 1: Scholarship Distribution per Cohort 2.0 Methodology Scholarship participants in the AcES program consented to participate in qualitative and quantitative data collection for this research project. Quantitative data was obtained by employing three survey instruments, the GRIT, an abbreviated version of the Motivated Strategies for Learning Questionnaire (MSLQ), and a modified version of the Longitudinal Assessment of Engineering Self-Efficacy (LAESE). The aforementioned survey instruments were administered to all AcES scholarship recipients at the start and end of each fall semester, and the end of each spring semester starting in the fall of 2017. Table 2 displays the survey distribution schedule. Fall 2016 Fall 2017 Fall 2018 Fall 2019 # of Students 5 7 6 3 Scholarship Distribution per Cohort Table 2: Survey Distribution Schedule The GRIT survey was developed by Angela Duckworth and consists of 12 Likert Scale questions [2]. Grit, defined as “perseverance and passion for long term goals”, was recognized as a trait by Duckworth [3]. The LAESE survey was developed at Penn State University with support from the National Science Foundation. The LAESE was designed to measure the self-efficacy of undergraduate engineering students by using 31 Likert scale questions. Self-Efficacy aspects of students measured by the survey include outcomes expected from studying engineering, the process of selecting a major, expectations about workload, coping strategies in challenging situations, career exploration, and the influence of role models on major and career decisions [4]. The research discussed in this paper focused on three subscales of the LAESE survey, (1) Engineering SelfEfficacy 1, (2) Engineering Self-Efficac