2023 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

As part of an overall research program investigating the impact of changes in teaching strategies on students' engineering social cognitions (self-efficacy and outcome expectations), this paper investigates students' confidence in their ability to learn and their instructor's ability to teach across 6 engineering courses. A group of 6 faculty formed a learning community focused on improved teaching strategies for their classes. The faculty chose selected strategies and implemented them in their classes. Surveys asked students to rank their confidence level in "their ability to learn" the specific class material and the instructor's "ability to teach" the class material using a sliding bar scale from 0-100. Surveys were conducted before and after the improvements to the teaching strategies at both the beginning and end of the semesters. The results of the surveys are compared before and after the teaching improvements, beginning to end of semester, per course, online to in-person, and per gender. In summary, the study found that while there was no significant difference in the control group, a decrease in students’ confidence to learn and in their confidence in their instructors’ ability to teach was observed in the treatment group. This decrease was also observed across specific courses and genders. Despite teaching improvements, students’ confidence decreased as they moved through the course material. Further research is needed to explore these findings and their implications for teaching strategies.