This mixed methods research study focuses on two relevant factors instudents’ decisions to pursue and complete an engineering major: mathematicspreparation and mathematics self-efficacy. This study describes therelationship of mathematics self-efficacy on engineering students’ performance,behavior, and attitudes in their first college mathematics courses.Participants completed a mathematics self-efficacy survey (n=408); 11 wereselected to be interviewed. A grounded theory approach was used to examineparticipants’ behaviors and attitudes in college mathematics courses, theirmathematics self-efficacy beliefs, and how these beliefs aligned with theirmathematics competence. Interview participants reported relatively highmathematics self-efficacy, but many revealed a mismatch between theirmathematics self-efficacy beliefs and mathematics competence levels.Participants who had a balance between these two factors reported being morelikely to spend extra time working to overcome their mathematics deficienciesand seeking extra help. However, participants with a mismatch reported beingmore likely to procrastinate and put little effort into improving theirmathematics competence, blaming external factors for their struggles. Despiteshowing different behaviors and attitudes, all participants reported beinglikely to continue taking mathematics courses required for their major evenafter failing their first college mathematics course.
No takes yet. Share an insight, caveat, or question.
Morán-Soto et al. (2018) studied this question.