Impact of scaffolding and hands-on assignments within mechatronics on student learning outcomes of KEEN's entrepreneurial mindset

Scaffolding learning and incorporating hands-on activities are proven pedagogical techniques that improve student engagement. A growing movement within engineering education has been to educate beyond the technical skills and foster an improvement in students’ entrepreneurial mindset. A modified version of a validated self-efficacy tool is used here to assess the impact that scaffolding and hands-on activities within a Mechatronics course have on developing the three student learning outcomes associated with the Kern Entrepreneurial Engineering Network's entrepreneurial mindset: “curiosity,” “connections,” and “creating value” (3Cs). A total of 229 students were considered in this study. Presurveys and postsurveys were used to collect self-efficacy ratings for confidence, success, motivation, and anxiety with respect to each of the 3Cs. Additionally, for comparisons a baseline behavioral tool was assessed along with students self-reported prior experiences relevant to the course and overall time spent on course activities. The group was split into high-performers and low-performers for the purpose of analysis. For all 3Cs, aspects of student perceived confidence and success significantly increased between the presurveys and postsurveys for the entire group. However, student perceived motivation was not significantly improved for any of the 3Cs. Interestingly for “connections,” student perceived anxiety decreased only for the high-performing group. This study suggests that changes in these 3Cs can be identified within a single course when subaspects of the mindset are considered.