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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This content will become publicly available on June 23, 2025
Exploring the Relationships between Artistic Creativity and Innovation Attitudes in Engineering Students
This research explored potential relationships between the innovation self-efficacy (ISE) of engineering students and their artistic creativity and life experiences revealed on an ice-breaker assignment. In a community-building assignment, students were directed to introduce themselves through cartoon monster drawings that communicated various personal attributes (such as the number of languages they speak, and the number of states visited). Previous research has found that multicultural experiences can shape feelings of self-efficacy concerning innovation and creativity. This pilot study was conducted in a single junior-level course for environmental engineering students. The innovation self-efficacy of participants was measured using a survey that included items from the Very Brief Innovation Self-Efficacy scale (ISE.6), the Innovation Interests scale (INI), and the Career Goals: Innovative Work scale (IW). The drawings were analyzed for Artistic Effort (AE) and Creative Work (CW) by engineering and art evaluators, respectively. The ISE survey results were compared with the AE and CW scores and the correlations with travel, gender, and multilingualism on creativity attributes were explored. A strong correlation between CW scores and AE scores was observed. A negative correlation between CW and ISE.6 was found. The CW scores were significantly different between female and male students, except for black/white shading in the cartoon drawings. There were no significant differences between the AE scores for female versus male students. Our results do not support the existence of a correlation between multilingualism and travel with artistic creativity and innovation self-efficacy attributes. Overall, we did not find that the students’ artistic creativity or life experiences revealed through the self-portrait activity provided insights into innovation attitudes.
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- Award ID(s):
- 2205067
- PAR ID:
- 10529229
- Publisher / Repository:
- ASEE PEER
- Date Published:
- Subject(s) / Keyword(s):
- Innovation self-efficacy artistic creativity creative work
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Location:
- https://peer.asee.org/47442
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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