Glenda Stump

An exploratory factor analysis of the Pittsburgh Freshman Engineering Attitudes Survey

The Pittsburgh Freshman Engineering Attitudes Survey (PFEAS) has become an important tool in engineering education for measuring studentspsila attitudes about engineering and their confidence in their abilities to achieve in the engineering classroom. Although different versions of the scale have been developed for students at different points in their educational careers, 28 of the items are equable across the various forms of the survey. The authors administered these items to a large sample (N = 372) of engineering majors at a large public university in the southwest. Item and factor analysis of the items revealed problems with the structural validity of the scale, and items and factors were removed based on theoretical and empirical justification. The remaining items produced a structurally valid three factor solution. The authors found these factors were significantly correlated with student study strategies.

Addressing engineering educators’ concerns: Collaborative learning and achievement

Recent calls for engineering education reform have included collaborative learning as a means to prepare students for future careers in engineering. The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of collaboration and self-efficacy on undergraduate engineering studentspsila achievement. The results indicated significant positive correlations between collaborative learning and course grade (r = .29) and self-efficacy and course grade (r = .44). The linear combination of collaboration and self-efficacy accounted for 22% of the variance in course grade. Collaborative learning remained a significant predictor of course grade over and above self-efficacy. The results showed that students engaging in collaboration with peers achieved at higher levels than those who did not. In a field where individual work and competition has traditionally been valued, opportunities for collaboration may be beneficial to studentspsila academic achievement.

Steps toward a sound measure of engineering student attitudes: Pittsburgh Engineering Attitudes Scale - Revised

Engineering education is currently undergoing a transition toward increased constructivist practices and a new philosophy of education that recognizes the active role of the learner in constructing knowledge. To meet the demands of the changing landscape, our research team has been reworking the Pittsburgh Engineering Attitudes Scale so that valid and reliable inferences can be made about engineering student attitudes. The current study follows up on our analysis of the scale at FIE 2008, and presents evidence of structural validity, internal reliability, and external validity of student responses to a revised version of the scale. The results of the current study suggest the Pittsburgh Engineering Attitudes Scale - Revised overcomes previous problems with the original scale reported in the literature and that we are making positive steps toward a sound measure of student attitudes.

Increasing instrumentality without decreasing instructional time: An intervention for engineering students

Calculus is essential to the engineering curriculum, though its value is not necessarily apparent when the topics are first introduced to students. Our goal was to develop a series of interventions that credibly presented students with information about the utility of calculus topics through a 5-minute video segment. If successful, this intervention would provide instructors with a way to increase the perceived utility of the curriculum without significantly decreasing their instructional time. We recruited 463 students enrolled in Calculus II for engineers. All instructors teaching this course consented to participation in this study and classes were randomly assigned to video and no-video groups. The video group received three interventions during the weeks they were being exposed to the content. The no-video group did not receive any intervention of any kind but were measured at the same points in time as the video group. Results indicate that perceived instrumentality (PI) increased after the first intervention and remained high throughout the semester in the video group. The results suggest that the intervention influenced students perceptions of instrumentality. Theoretically, this provides additional evidence that PI, value, and orientation are constructs distinct from self-efficacy (SE); practically, it provides instructors with a way to improve student motivation without making extensive changes to their courses.

Pittsburgh engineering attitudes scale — Revised: Evidence for an improved instrument

In the current study, we present data from the administration of our third and final version of the PEAS-R instrument as well as a final set of items. We administered the scale to 980 engineering students in conjunction with established measures of student motivation and strategic learning. An item analysis and a principle axis analysis with an oblimin rotation indicated student responses to the items were internally reliable and structurally valid. A confirmatory factor analysis, a more rigorous test of structural validity, also produced useful results. Finally, a correlational analysis between parceled items from the revised scale and established motivational measures provided evidence of concurrent validity.