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This study examines the relationship between participation in extracurricular college activities and its possible impact on students’ career interests in entrepreneurship and innovation. This work draws from the Engineering Majors Survey (EMS), focusing on innovation self-efficacy and how it may be impacted by participation in various extracurricular college activities. The term self-efficacy as developed by Albert Bandura is defined as “people’s judgment of their capabilities to organize and execute courses of action required to attain designated types of performances” (Bandura, 1986, p.391). Innovation self-efficacy is a variable consisting of six items that correspond to Dyer’s five discovery skills seen as important for innovative behavior. In order to investigate the relationship between participation in certain activities and innovation self-efficacy, the 20 activities identified in the EMS survey were grouped thematically according to their relevance to entrepreneurship-related topics. Students were divided into two groups using K-means cluster analysis according to their innovation selfefficacy (ISE.6) score. Cluster one (C1) contained the students with higher ISE.6 scores, Cluster two (C2) included the students with lower innovation self-efficacy scores. This preliminary research focused on descriptive analyses while also looking at different background characteristics such as gender, academic status and underrepresented minority status (URM). The results show that students in C1 (high ISE.6) have significantly greater interest in starting an organization (78.1%) in comparison to C2 students (21.9%) (X²=81.11, p=.000, Cramer’s V= .124). At the same time, male students reported significantly higher ISE.6 scores (M=66.70, SD=17.53) than female students (M=66.70, SD=17.53) t(5192)=-5.220 p=.000 and stronger intentions to start an organization than female students (15% and 6.1 % respectively). Cluster affiliation representing innovation self-efficacy as well as gender seems to play a role when looking at career interest in entrepreneurship. According to Social Cognitive Career Theory, self-efficacy is influenced by learning experiences. In this work activities referring to hands-on activities in entrepreneurship and innovation are highly correlated with ISE.6 (r=.206, p=.000), followed by non-hands-on exposure to entrepreneurship and innovation. At the same time, students in C1 participated almost twice as often in hands-on activities in entrepreneurship and innovation (28.6%) as compared to students in C2 (15.2%). Interestingly in C1, there were no gender differences in participation in hands-on activities in entrepreneurship and innovation. Overall, female students (M=4.66, SD=2.5) participated in significantly more activities than male students (M=3.9, SD=2.64), t(5192)=9.65 p=.000. All in all, these results reveal interesting insights into the potential benefits of taking part in innovation and entrepreneurship-related activities and their impact on students’ innovation self-efficacy and interests in corresponding careers.
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Impact-Driven Engineering Students: Contributing Behavioral Correlates.
Engineering has a long history of developing solutions to meet societal needs, and humanity currently faces many and varied societal challenges. Who are the engineering students motivated to address such challenges? This study explores a sample of 5,819 undergraduate engineering students from a survey administered in 2015 to a nationally representative set of twenty-seven U.S. engineering schools. The survey was developed to study the background, learning experiences, academic activities and proximal influences that motivate an engineering undergraduate student to pursue innovative work post-graduation. As part of this survey students indicated their interest in pursuing work that addresses societal challenges. A step-wise regression analysis is used to predict interest in societal impact and by contrast interest in financial potential with respect to 71 demographic, background and academic experience variables. The results confirm previous studies – a large majority of engineering undergraduates are interested in impact-driven work with an over-representation of female and under-represented minority students. This study sheds new light on the background and academic experiences that predict interest in impact-driven as compared to financially-driven engineering work. It is found that experiences promoting a service ethic and broadening oneself outside of engineering are important predictors of interest in impact-driven work. What is less expected is the significant importance of innovation interests and innovation self-efficacy for engineering students interested in creating societal impact. Deeper exploration reveals that certain academic experiences and proximal influences have a direct and significant effect on a student’s interest in impact-driven work, and this relationship is strengthened by the partial mediation of innovation self-efficacy. As such, this study suggests that the development of innovation self-efficacy is important in cultivating engineering students who are interested in impact-driven work, and to a lesser extent, financially-driven work. These findings have implications for how engineering educators and employers attract, inspire, and equip future engineers, particularly female and under-represented minority students.
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- Award ID(s):
- 1636442
- PAR ID:
- 10042999
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Proceedings of the American Society for Engineering Education Annual Conference, June 25-28. Columbus, OH.
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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null (Ed.)The Rocky Mountain Scholars Program (RMSP) was developed, in part, to improve student success and persistence in Engineering disciplines at Colorado State Universi-ty through a portfolio of engagement activities focused around undergraduate research experiences. Female RMSP participants exhibited substantially higher retention rates and grade point averages relative to other female engineering students at CSU. To better understand the impact of the RMSP, and its effectiveness among female engi-neering students, researchers focused on whether, and how, experiences and percep-tions differ between male and female students in engineering programs. That is, how do male and female students differ, if at all, in their subjective perception of life as an engineering major at CSU? A survey was developed measuring resilience, self-efficacy, motivation, social support, academic support, and perceived sexism. Data was obtained from 144 first-year engineering students at CSU. Results indicated that social support from extracurricular activities is particularly important among female students. This points to an increasing need for programs like the RMSP to create social networks among students and faculty, link students to the broader impacts of their work, and ultimately improve the undergraduate experience of under-represented groups in STEM programs.more » « less
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