Table 1
Participant Numbers Across Schools.
| SCHOOL LOCATION (TYPE) | FALL TERM FOCUS GROUPS | SPRING TERM FOCUS GROUPS | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| FEMALE | MALE | FEMALE | MALE | |
| Arizona (City) | 2 | 2 | 4 | 1 |
| Maryland (Suburban) | 2 | 3 | 6 | 2 |
| Virginia (Rural) | 1 | 2 | 2 | 2 |
| Washington DC (City) | 1 | 4 | N/A | N/A |
| Pennsylvania (Suburban) | 3 | 4 | 0 | 6 |
| Tennessee (Suburban) | 2 | 5 | N/A | N/A |
| Maryland (Suburban) | 6 | 2 | 5 | 0 |
| Maryland (Suburban) | 5 | 3 | 1 | 4 |
[i] NOTE: N/A represents locations where focus groups were not conducted due to COVID-19 restrictions.
Table 2
Emergent Themes, Descriptions, and Example Quotes.
| CURRICULUM THREAD | THEME | DESCRIPTION |
|---|---|---|
| Engineering Design | Hands-on Experience | Students’ perceived increased engineering-related self-efficacy through engaging in, or observing others, hands-on activities on the engineering design process in class. |
| Repetition | Students’ experience of repeating the engineering design processes in the course was either positively or negatively related to their engineering-related self-efficacy. | |
| Step-by-Step Process | One of the characteristics of the course curriculum that supports students in learning the engineering design process step by step which was perceived as helpful for developing engineering-related self-efficacy. | |
| Engineering Professional Skills | Coopertition (Competition + Cooperation) | Students’ perceived “good competition” that incorporates cooperation and communication alongside the spirit of competition, which was positively related to engineering-related self-efficacy. |
| Engineering in Society | Working with Clients | Interacting and communicating with real-world clients for the classroom engineering design project that boosted students’ engineering-related self-efficacy by guiding them to design viable solutions. |
| Connect with Engineering | Lack of Engineering Identity | Students’ doubts about their real-world design abilities outside the classroom were due to limited experience in mapping classroom learning to real-world design examples, which were negatively related to engineering-related self-efficacy. |
Figure 1
A Schematic Figure of Themes and Their Connections to Curriculum Elements and Sources of Self-Efficacy.