Exploring engineering students' epistemic beliefs and motivation: A case of a South African university

Makhathini, Thobeka Pearl; Mtsweni, Sphesihle; Bakare, Babatunde Femi

doi:10.20853/34-4-3625

Cited by 2 publications

(2 citation statements)

References 31 publications

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“…In terms of the education field, its researchers have ventured to explore varying facets, such as 1) how students know; 2) how the essence of knowledge and knowing is correlated to student learning processes, and 3) how inherent student epistemological beliefs affect the way instruction is delivered in the classroom across different contextual areas (Faber and Benson, 2017;Makhathini et al, 2020). Regardless of the increasing number of researchers who express their keenness in studying student epistemological beliefs, they have yet to reach an undivided consensus regarding the definition of epistemological beliefs itself (Qian & Alvermann, 2011).…”

Section: Student's Epistemological Beliefsmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Pattern of Epistemological Belief in Design among Engineering Students

Daud

Khoo

Osman

et al. 2022

IJLD

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This study was geared toward identifying the pattern of epistemological belief in design among engineering students enrolled in one of the research universities in Malaysia. To this end, data collection was carried out by employing an adapted instrument of a Likert-type questionnaire with five scales consisting of 68 items. Then, 120 engineering students from several engineering disciplines, such as electrical engineering, mechanical engineering, and civil engineering, were selected from the overall population of Universiti Teknologi Malaysia to determine their epistemological beliefs on design. According to the literature, six dimensions of beliefs were commonly perceived. The students were to describe their beliefs about design knowledge and the nature of knowing and learning design, including the source of knowledge, the certainty of knowledge, structure of knowledge, speed of knowledge acquisition, innate ability of personal and general knowledge, and real-world applicability of knowledge. The study's findings revealed that the epistemological beliefs of engineering students in each dimension yielded a difference across varying engineering majors.

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Section: Student's Epistemological Beliefsmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Pattern of Epistemological Belief in Design among Engineering Students

Daud

Khoo

Osman

et al. 2022

IJLD

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Prior research has found that undergraduates may hold a range of epistemological beliefs on factors related to certainty and sources of knowledge [28]. Such research suggests some students may hold beliefs that engineering problems are well-structured and can be solved using certain knowledge that is shared via transmission, rather than constructed [28], [29]. Such beliefs may be fluid and contextualized by tasks [30].…”

Section: Epistemological Beliefs and Framing Agencymentioning

confidence: 99%

Origins of Requirement Development Skills in Engineering Undergraduates: Students’ Initial Thinking and Use in Engineering Decisions

Olewnik,

Svihla,

Wild

2022 ASEE Annual Conference &Amp; Exposition Proceedings

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A key challenge in engineering design problem framing is defining requirements and metrics. This is difficult, in part, because engineers must make decisions about how to treat qualitative and subjective issues, like stakeholder preferences, about how to prioritize different requirements, and about how to maintain tentativeness and ill-structuredness in the solution space. And this is made more challenging in light of the function of requirements in other types of engineering problems, like feasibility analysis, in which the requirements should converge on a decision. Given these challenges, it is unsurprising that there is limited research on how firstyear students approach such work, how they make sense of requirements, and how their conceptualizations of requirements change with instruction. Our purpose in this study is to investigate students' initial understanding and use of engineering requirements in a specific problem solving context.We developed a survey to measure students' perceptions related to engineering requirements based on constructs derived from the literature on engineering requirements. We implemented the survey in a first-year and in senior courses for the purpose of validating items using factor analysis. Following this, we conducted analysis of survey and interview data restricted to the first-year course, including epistemic beliefs and analysis of students' agency.Through exploratory factor analysis, we found that factors did not converge around constructs as described in the literature. Rather, factors formed around the forms of information leveraged to develop requirements. Through qualitative analysis of students' responses on the survey and to interviews, we evaluated the extent to which students expressed agency over their use of requirements to make decisions within a course project. We describe implications of this exploratory study in terms of adapting research instruments to better understand this topic. Further, we consider pedagogical implications for first year programs and beyond in supporting students to develop ownership over decision making related to engineering requirements.

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Exploring engineering students' epistemic beliefs and motivation: A case of a South African university

Cited by 2 publications

References 31 publications

The Pattern of Epistemological Belief in Design among Engineering Students

The Pattern of Epistemological Belief in Design among Engineering Students

Origins of Requirement Development Skills in Engineering Undergraduates: Students’ Initial Thinking and Use in Engineering Decisions

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