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Validating a scale to measure engineers’ perceived self-efficacy for engineering education outreach

Fogg-Rogers, Laura; Moss, Tim

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Authors

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Dr Laura Fogg Rogers Laura.Foggrogers@uwe.ac.uk
Associate Professor of Knowledge Exchange in Engineering

Tim Moss Tim.Moss@uwe.ac.uk
Director of PGR Studies and Associate Professor



Abstract

Education outreach in schools has been identified as a critical route to influence children's perceptions and capabilities for Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics careers. Evidence suggests that providing non-teaching professionals like engineers with training programmes and structured experience can boost perceived self-efficacy to perform education outreach, which in turn means better quality and more frequent public engagement. A validated measure of the construct of perceived self-efficacy for engineering education outreach will be useful for effective science communication participation, research, and practise. This article presents the methods used to develop the Engineering Outreach Self-efficacy Scale (EOSS), along with initial reliability and validation results to support the scale's use. The 10-item scale was found to have good internal consistency and reliability (Cronbach's alpha α = .92) with a sample of 160 engineers. The scale had convergent validity with general self-efficacy. Engineers with more experience of education outreach had higher self-efficacy for engineering education outreach. There were no significant differences between male and female engineers. Initial test-retest results showed engineers receiving training in education outreach significantly improved their EOSS scores, indicating capability to detect change over time. It is hoped this scale will prove useful for further evaluation of engineering education outreach and public engagement with science activities.

Citation

Fogg-Rogers, L., & Moss, T. (2019). Validating a scale to measure engineers’ perceived self-efficacy for engineering education outreach. PLoS ONE, 14(10), Article e0223728. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0223728

Journal Article Type Article
Acceptance Date Sep 26, 2019
Online Publication Date Oct 16, 2019
Publication Date Oct 16, 2019
Deposit Date Oct 17, 2019
Publicly Available Date Mar 29, 2024
Journal PloS one
Electronic ISSN 1932-6203
Publisher Public Library of Science
Peer Reviewed Peer Reviewed
Volume 14
Issue 10
Article Number e0223728
DOI https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0223728
Keywords education outreach, STEM careers, self-efficacy, scale validation, science communication, public engagement
Public URL https://uwe-repository.worktribe.com/output/3861996
Publisher URL https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0223728

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Article: Validating a scale to measure engineers’ perceived self-efficacy for engineering education outreach (451 Kb)
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Licence
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Publisher Licence URL
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Copyright Statement
© 2019 Fogg-Rogers, Moss. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which
permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.


Supporting Info: Engineering Outreach Self-efficacy Scale (EOSS) (467 Kb)
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