Flores, L. Y., Navarro, R. L., Lee, H. S., Addae, D. A., Gonzalez, R., Luna, L. L., Jacquez, R., Cooper, S., & Mitchell, M. (2014). Academic satisfaction among Latino/a and White men and women engineering students. Journal of Counseling Psychology, 61(1), 81. (Flores et al., 2014)
What social cognitive factors contribute to students’ academic satisfaction in engineering? Are there gender or racial/ethnic differences?
Key Findings
General Findings
- Students who possessed high confidence in their abilities to successfully perform engineering tasks had higher interests, persistence intentions, and satisfaction in engineering.
- The anticipation of positive outcomes for receiving a Bachelor’s degree in engineering was related to higher interests, persistence intentions, and academic satisfaction in engineering.
- High levels of interest in engineering activities were not directly related to persistence intentions, but they were related to academic satisfaction in engineering.
Racial Differences
- These relations were similar for Latino/a and White engineering students, suggesting that both Latino/a and White engineering students who have high engineering self-efficacy, positive outcome expectations, and interests are highly satisfied with their academic program in engineering.
Gender Differences
- These relations were similar for men and women in engineering, suggesting that both men and women who have high engineering self-efficacy, positive outcome expectations, and interests are more likely to be satisfied with their academic program in engineering.
Implications of these Findings
- Psychologists who help develop and evaluate STEM academic and career interventions might benefit from designing interventions that increase Latino/a and women students self-efficacy beliefs (i.e. performance accomplishments, social persuasion, vicarious learning, and managing emotional arousal).
- Interventions can focus on the positive benefits to self, family, community and society for pursuing engineering careers as well as the potential negative expectancies that students might encounter, particularly those specific to being a member of an underrepresented group in engineering.
- Future research should evaluate the effects of engineering-related academic and career interventions on engineering outcome expectations. Professionals should also expand their interventions with families, teachers, and educational institutions to provide stereotype-free learning environments that convey positive messages about engineering to women and Latino/a students and to educate these key adults on their influences on the development of engineering self-efficacy beliefs and outcome expectations in these youth and young adults.
- Finally, exposing students to and allowing them to engage in engineering-related activities that they are interested in is another potential avenue for developing and strengthening students’ engineering interests. Future research can examine the effectiveness of interventions that include one, two or three of these components (self-efficacy, outcome expectations, interests) in enhancing students’ engineering goals or academic satisfaction.
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