Measuring engineering freshman attitudes and perceptions of their first year academic experience: the continuing development of two assessment instruments

Student perceptions and attitudes about their educational experiences have been found to make an important contribution to the retention of students in undergraduate science, math, engineering, and technology (SMET) programs. The present study describes the continuing development of the Freshman Engineering Attitude Survey (FEAS) and the Engineering Perception Test (EPT) Instruments. The FEAS was designed to measure engineering freshman attitudes towards concepts and competencies targeted by the Texas A&M University engineering program (i.e., communication skills, integration of knowledge, life-long learning, technological skills and teaming). The EPT pre test was designed to measure students' perceptions of their pre-college experience and post test aimed to measure students perceptions of their experience in freshman engineering program. The EPT focused on some of the same factors identified by the FEAS, as well as on math/science fundamentals. The process of measurement instrument development in this study begins with the rationale for inception; followed by item analysis, reliability, and exploratory or confirmatory factor analysis.