Assessing Students' Motivation to Engage in Sustainable Engineering

Autor/inn/en	McCormick, Mary; Bielefeldt, Angela R.; Swan, Christopher W.; Paterson, Kurtis G.
Titel	Assessing Students' Motivation to Engage in Sustainable Engineering
Quelle	In: International Journal of Sustainability in Higher Education, 16 (2015) 2, S.136-154 (19 Seiten)Infoseite zur Zeitschrift PDF als Volltext Verfügbarkeit
Sprache	englisch
Dokumenttyp	gedruckt; online; Zeitschriftenaufsatz
ISSN	1467-6370
DOI	10.1108/IJSHE-06-2013-0054
Schlagwörter	College Students; Measures (Individuals); Student Attitudes; Sustainability; Engineering; Engineering Education; Reliability; Experiential Learning; Extracurricular Activities; Gender Differences; Self Efficacy; Correlation; Student Surveys; Expectation; Online Surveys; Likert Scales; Validity; Student Motivation; Regression (Statistics) + Suchen Sie Ihr Suchwort? Collegestudent; Messdaten; Schülerverhalten; Nachhaltigkeit; Maschinenbau; Ingenieurausbildung; Reliabilität; Experiental learning; Erfahrungsorientiertes Lernen; Außerunterrichtliche Aktivität; Geschlechterkonflikt; Self-efficacy; Selbstwirksamkeit; Korrelation; Schülerbefragung; Expectancy; Erwartung; Likert-Skala; Gültigkeit; Schulische Motivation; Regression; Regressionsanalyse
Abstract	Purpose: The purpose of this study was to design an assessment instrument to evaluate students' attitudes toward sustainable engineering (SE). Factors that impact SE beliefs could then be explored. Design/methodology/approach: Using the definition of sustainability from the Brundtland report and expectancy value theory, students' sentiment toward SE was evaluated using items to assess SE self-efficacy, SE value and SE affect. The survey was distributed at three diverse universities with 515 responses from students ranging from first year through graduate studies in a variety of engineering majors. The survey instrument was validated using principal components analysis, and internal reliability was established via high Cronbach's alpha for each construct. Findings: Participation in more experiential, enriching learning experiences correlated to higher SE self-efficacy, value and affect. Extracurricular club involvement correlated with a lower self-efficacy but high SE value. Students who had participated in undergraduate research had a high SE self-efficacy, particularly in the environmental and social sub-scales. The students who participated in internships had high SE self-efficacy but lower SE affect. A greater number of volunteer hours correlated with increased SE affect. Female students possessed higher SE value and affect than male students, but self-efficacy was not significantly different. SE self-efficacy increased with academic rank. Originality/value: This is the first effort to measure engineering students' attitudes toward SE using the three sub-scales of expectancy value theory and assessing correlations in these attributes with students' participation in various learning experiences. (As Provided).
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Erfasst von	ERIC (Education Resources Information Center), Washington, DC
Update	2020/1/01