F9-C&D1-3 - The initial validation of the Self-Efficacy for Engineering Design (SEED) instrument

3. Research Work In Progress
Ahmed Ibrahim¹ , Deeksha Seth^2
1 Johns Hopkins University
² Villanova University

Introduction
Despite the significant increase in the emphasis on design in engineering education, there is a lack of validated assessment instruments that measure students’ engagement with design-related activities.  Measuring students’ self-efficacy for engineering design can be one way to evaluate student engagement and assess the effectiveness of engineering design teaching strategies. This Work in Progress (WIP) paper describes the development and initial validation of a student-focused Self-Efficacy for Engineering Design (SEED) survey. Content validity was examined using experts’ judgments.  Construct validity was performed using confirmatory factor analysis (CFA).  The initial survey validation was done using 256 mechanical engineering students, distributed over three classes. The SEED survey consists of 8 subscales, which are (a) identifying customer needs, (b) establishing target specifications, (c) generating product concepts, (d) selecting a product concept, (e) system-level design, (f) detailed design, (g) prototyping, and (h) evaluating the design. The initial validation of the SEED instrument showed that it can be reliable and valid for measuring mechanical engineering undergraduate students’ self-efficacy for engineering design.