<p>Although ABET has outlined educational outcomes
to help prepare students with the necessary competencies to succeed in
professional engineering practice, it is unclear how confident students are in
their professional engineering skills. <i>Competency</i>
refers to the<i>“generic, integrated and
internalized capability to deliver sustainable effective performance in a
certain professional domain, job, role, organizational context, and task
situation.” </i>Understanding their competency provides students with a bridge
to connect their academic experiences with their ability to perform their
workplace duties. To help students assess their competency, I developed the
Self-efficacy Inventory for Professional Engineering Competency (SEIPEC), an
inventory that aims to measure engineering students’ self-efficacy for
professional engineering competencies. Unlike other inventories in engineering
that measure the academic experience or other self-efficacy inventories that do
not focus on the engineering population, this career assessment is designed for
college-level engineering students to evaluate their subjective readiness for
successful performance in the workplace. </p>
<p>SEIPEC is a tool for students to self-assess
their professional competencies, aiming to empower students to become
reflective about their learning and increase awareness of workplace
competencies. SEIPEC was developed based on the American Association of
Engineering Societies’ Engineering Competency Model (ECM). The ECM identifies factors
that contribute to self-efficacy for professional engineering competency. ECM
was developed using the Delphi method and
encompasses a comprehensive list of competency statements that were approved by
industry leaders and engineering educators to encapsulate the competencies
needed for a professional engineer.</p>
<p>The data include 434 complete responses from
bachelor’s and master’s students at a Midwest
research-intensive university. The sample represents 13 engineering disciplines,
such as electrical and computer engineering and mechanical engineering, and includes
282 male and 146 female students, 48 first-generation students, and 63
international students. After the exploratory factor analysis and the
confirmatory factor analysis, a four-factor model with 20 competency statements
was validated as the measurement for self-efficacy for professional engineering
competency. The four factors that contribute to the self-efficacy of
professional engineering competency include (a) sustainability and societal
impact, (b) health and safety, (c) application of tools and technologies, and (d)
engineering economics. </p>
<p>The SEIPEC tool has the potential to empower
engineering students to reflect upon and connect their academic experience with
professional competencies. SEIPEC would provide students with a method to
self-evaluate their skills in addition to other assessment methods such as
course grades and traditional engineering exams. <a>The
results of self-assessment for professional engineering competencies could
increase students’ awareness of professional competencies, thus helping
students to become more intentional in connecting learning with their
professional preparation. </a>Career advisors and counselors can also use this
tool to guide career advising conversations revolving around students’ choice
to pursue and prepare for engineering as a career path. </p>
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:purdue.edu/oai:figshare.com:article/9456026 |
| Date | 16 August 2019 |
| Creators | Xinrui Xu (7171778) |
| Source Sets | Purdue University |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Text, Thesis |
| Rights | CC BY 4.0 |
| Relation | https://figshare.com/articles/Xu_Xinrui_The_Self-efficacy_Inventory_for_Professional_Engineering_Competency_SEIPEC_/9456026 |
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