A pilot validation study of the Epistemological Beliefs Assessment For Engineering (EBAE): first-year engineering student beliefs

Abstract

This paper presents a study assessing first-year students’ engineering epistemological beliefs or beliefs about engineering knowledge and knowing. A small cohort of first-year engineering students pilot tested a new quantitative instrument called the Epistemological Beliefs Assessment for Engineering (EBAE). Student responses to the EBAE were used to validate the instrument and analyze the epistemological beliefs – certainty of knowledge, simplicity of knowledge, source of knowing, and justification for knowing – of first-year engineering students. Results of this study produced thirteen validated items, which gauged first-year engineering students’ epistemological beliefs as slightly sophisticated – mean score of 63.8 +/- 8.4 out of 100