Understanding Engineering Students' Connection Making: A Sequential Explanatory Mixed Methods Study

Prior research has suggested the positive impact of the expectancy-value theory in STEM and engineering education. Nevertheless, it is not clear how expectancy-value theory can be used to inform and foster engineering students' entrepreneurial mindset. Therefore, in this paper, we describe how we applied the expectancy-value theory to examine engineering students' entrepreneurial mindset, specifically the component of making connections. We conducted a self-reflection study in a general lecture-based entrepreneurship education course with engineering students in various engineering majors. Our study followed a sequential explanatory mixed methods design. Specifically, in the quantitative phase, we used validated self-report instruments and examined students' prior knowledge about the course content, epistemic curiosity, entrepreneurial self-efficacy, and creative mindsets. The quantitative findings showed moderate prior knowledge of entrepreneurship-related concepts, high epistemic curiosity about learning about entrepreneurship, high growth creative mindset, and moderately high entrepreneurial self-efficacy. The qualitative results with students' written self-reflection data showed that students made meaningful but not elaborate connections. Findings of this paper suggest theory-supported and research-based avenues to evaluate students' connection-making through self-reflection in the classroom in the research area of entrepreneurial mindset.