2023 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

African engineering students' academic prospects may be limited by stereotype threat and rote memorization (Beem, 2022). Project-based learning can present as causality to increasing these students' self-efficacy (Beem, 2021). Students are likely experiencing multiple significant changes in the first year of their university learning journey, perhaps beyond self-efficacy. For example, they may be nurturing the skill of thoughtful and planned decision-making and leveraging their interest and passion in driving them to academic success.

This research paper explores the relevance of various frameworks in describing the transformations that the African first-year engineering student uncovers, especially as they go through hands-on, design-build experiences. These frameworks and constructs include but are not limited to self-determination, agency, self-authorship, validation theory, and capacity to aspire.

The incoming batch of first-year students at XX University in Ghana (N=135) was administered a pre-course survey. The survey gathered students' information on their past design-build experience and assessed their self-efficacy, self-determination, and agency levels through Likert Scale responses. First, a single-factor ANOVA, t-Test, and Hedge's test analyses were used to compare the frameworks and ascertain which was dominant. Secondly, the same analysis was done after disaggregating the results, based on students' past design-build experiences.

A single-factor ANOVA on the three frameworks gave a p-value of 6.7879E-05, representing significant differences. A further comparison between frameworks showed that students rated themselves significantly higher on the self-determination metrics than self-efficacy and agency. Self-determination was substantially higher than self-efficacy, and with a medium-effect size (p=4.8371E-05, g=0.5). Self-determination was also significantly higher than agency, and with a medium-effect size (p=1.7155E-04, g=0.5). Conversely, no statistically significant difference between agency and self-efficacy was found. Further analysis indicates significant differences (p=1.9566E-04) between students' responses to having and not having past design-build experience.

These results suggest that self-determination may be the most relevant framework, of the three in question, in describing the initial attitude and mindset adopted by first-year students starting their coursework at XX University. The second analysis indicates there is a likelihood that students rely on their past design-build experience to be self-confident, self-determined, and agentic. However, these preliminary results may be limited by how questions were framed to measure students' sense of agency and self-determination. The results indicate that aside technical skills students gain through project-based learning, certain traits such as self-determination and agency are nurtured.