A cross institutional comparison of freshman engineering attitudes

Summary form only given. We have piloted a cross-institutional study using the Pittsburgh Freshman Engineering Survey. (This questionnaire measures students´ attitudes towards the engineering profession, the reasons they chose to study engineering, and their self-assessed confidence in: background knowledge and skills, and abilities to succeed in engineering.) We are conducting this research to (1) understand the initial attitudes freshman engineers´ have about engineering and their abilities to succeed in engineering, (2) capture how these attitudes change during the first year, and (3) investigate differences attributed to the institution the student attends, as well as gender and ethnicity. In addition to the University of Pittsburgh, schools participating in the study are: the North Carolina State University, the Florida State University, Arizona State University, the University of Pittsburgh-Johnstown, and the University of Texas-El Paso. We present the results of analyses conducted on the mentioned institutions as students began their freshman studies and as they have concluded their first year for the academic years 1995-96 and 1996-97. Initial research comparing programs at the University of Pittsburgh and North Carolina State University indicate that the questionnaire has been successful at measuring student attitudes and has identified aspects useful in evaluating different freshman engineering programs. In addition, we present differences in students´ attitudes about engineering and about themselves, with respect to gender and minorities