Randomized trial assesses innovation self-efficacy changes in environmental engineering students, suggesting effective confidence-building through inquiry-based projects.
Key Points
The aim is to evaluate changes in innovation self-efficacy and interest among environmental engineering students participating in an inquiry-based learning course.
Implemented a junior-level environmental engineering course with inquiry-based projects.
Administered a validated Likert-scale survey based on expectancy-value theory at the beginning and end of the project.
Collected paired presurvey and postsurvey responses from 35 students.
Innovation self-efficacy increased significantly from a presurvey mean of 4.0 to a postsurvey mean of 4.8.
No significant change in students’ interest in innovation-related tasks or perceived importance for future work.
Female students initially had lower innovation self-efficacy but reported similar self-efficacy to male students by semester end.