Assessment of Social Problem-Solving Self-Efficacy of Freshmen Engineering Students

Abstract—This paper presents an instrument designed to assess the Social Problem-Solving Self-Efficacy of freshmen engineering students. This instrument included 34 items and comprised of 5-dimensions: rational problem solving (RPO), positive problem orientation (PPO), avoidance style (AS), negative problem orientation (NPO) and impulsivity or carelessness style (ICS). This instrument was administered in the fall 2019 to freshmen engineering students at a large private southern Indian university. Exploratory factor analysis revealed 4-factors: positive approach towards problems (PAP), AS, NPO and ICS. For these 4-factors, Cronbach’s alpha ranged between 0.63 to 0.87. t-test was conducted on the 4-factors to find the differences related to gender, background, and prior experience. For PAP, participants with prior experience reported higher self-efficacy than the participants without experience. For AS and NPO, participants without prior experience reported higher self-efficacy than the participants with experience. However, there were no significant difference on the four factors with respect to gender and background. Keywords—exploratory factor analysis; freshmen engineering; self-efficacy; social problem-solving; survey instrument