2025 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

This complete research paper explores the advancement of educational measurement tools for engineering courses incorporating entrepreneurial thinking. One common entrepreneurial pedagogical approach for entrepreneurial course design within engineering education is through Entrepreneurial Minded Learning (EML). The Entrepreneurial Minded Learning is a commonality shared between educators of the Kern Entrepreneurial Engineering Network (KEEN) that embraces entrepreneurial pedagogy through the 3Cs: curiosity, connections, and creating value. This project is a smaller component of a larger project exploring students’ conceptual understanding of the 3Cs both directly and indirectly. Therefore, this project focuses on the two indirect assessments for connections and creating value to equip engineering educators within entrepreneurial course contexts with novel assessment tools for educational interventions and their effect on students' conceptual understanding of connections and creating value within EML.
The initial validation analysis was anchored in identifying face validity and content validity of the instrument. Expert reviews from reviewers with expertise in EML and/or item construction were collected for assessment items based on clarity, relevance, necessity, and accuracy for each item aligned to the two indirect assessments. Face validity, or the extent to which items appear associated with connections and creatin value at their face level, was constructed using quantitative statistical analyses for Item Face Validity Index, Universal Agreement Scale Validity Index, and Average Scale Face Validity Index. Content validity refers to the extent to which the instrument is associated with the construct of interest from an expert point of view. The content analysis validation is anchored in Item Content Validity Index, Universal Agreement Scale Content Validity Index, and Average Scale Content Validity Index as appropriate validity metrics. Benchmarks for inclusion factors in item reduction to improve the validation evidence of the instrument were informed by item construction best practices. Additionally, the strength of expert reviewers was identified using Fleiss κ statistical analyses to enhance the considerations within content validation. Benchmark values were informed by instrument construction best practices and psychometric instrumentation standards to support the reduction of items for both face validity analyses and content validation analyses to improve the instrument before investigating further validation investigations.
This initial investigation into the validation of these instruments supports a larger endeavor to advance assessment tools for entrepreneurial engineering education. Equipping engineering educators with adequate and nuanced assessments tools could enhance the ways in which best EML practices in the classroom are evaluated with hopes of ultimately improving EML skillsets for engineering students entering professional practice