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

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.