AWE Survey Tables

AWE offers validated and tested instruments for engineering self efficacy, typical engineering outreach activities and for Middle School and High School engineering-related outreach activities. The tables below link to detailed descriptions and downloads of AWE instruments. You may also download the table in PDF form.

Pre-College (Middle School and High School) Participation Instruments

Audience

Middle School and High School girls who participate in recruitment/skills development activities.

Options:

These three rigorous surveys provide data on the effectiveness of an activity in meeting its objectives:

Survey: When to Administer: For your high visibility, highly resourced activities use all 3 instruments
Pre-Participation

Prior to student participation

Immediate Post Participation

At the end of the activity

Follow-up

Three to six months after activity to see if activity's impact is lasting.

For situations when administering the Pre-participation, Immediate Post, and 6-month post-participation surveys is not possible, you can use the immediate post. This would be applicable for activities that are not high impact for your program or are not highly resourced (in both human and financial terms).

Note: Using this version of the instrument will provide formative feedback on the event but because of the lack of a pre-assessment, you will not be able to determine the impact of the activity.

Measures:

  • Impact of participation in WIE/WISE recruiting/skills development activities.
  • Course-taking plans for high school.
  • Intentions to study engineering.
  • Knowledge of what engineers do.
  • Aspects of being an engineer that are appealing.
  • Satisfaction with the activity.

Using the Results:

  • Determine whether specific activities meet objectives.
  • Compare pre- and post- results to assess activity impact.
  • Report results to stakeholders.
  • Determine how to improve activities.
  • Make evaluation decisions regarding activity (e.g., enhance, delete from schedule).
  • Determine satisfaction of participants.
  • Correlate with student enrollment to measure impact of activity on recruiting
   

More Details and Instrument Download

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Longitudinal Assessment of Engineering Self-Efficacy (LAESE)

Audience

Undergraduate Engineering students.   NOTE: This instrument has been validated on women students only.

When To Use:

Longitudinally, at beginning of each academic year.

Measures:
An overall measure of a student's sense of self-efficacy in the context of studying engineering, as well as the outcomes they expect from the study of engineering. Specific measurement areas include the following.

  • Student efficacy in "barrier" or challenge situations.
  • Student expectation of outcomes from studying engineering.
  • Student coping strategies in difficult situations.
  • Student expectations about work load in college.
  • Student process of choosing a major.
  • Influence of role models on study and career decisions.

Using the Results

  • Determine changes in student self-efficacy in engineering over course of studies.
  • Correlate student retention with student self- efficacy data collected with LAESE.
  • Ascertain overall impact of different levels of participation in a program or participation in specific activities on women's self efficacy in studying engineering.
  • Correlate with participation in activities to identify impact of program activities on self efficacy.
  • Make evaluation decisions regarding overall program activity (e.g., add, change or delete programming).
  • Identify opportunities for institutional interventions, change and remediation.

More Details and Instrument Download

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Undergraduate Mentee Instruments

Audience

Undergraduate women students who participate in mentoring programming recipients of the mentoring - the "mentees".

Options:

There are two versions of this instrument:

  • The Undergraduate Pre Mentee instrument is to be administered before mentees begin to participate in the mentoring program in order to collect baseline data on each participant.

  • The Undergraduate Post Mentee instrument is to be administered to mentees after or towards the end of participating in the mentoring program in order to collect data on the impact of the activity on participants.

AWE Recommends: Use both the pre and post surveys in order to see how participant responses change from one time to the next. Although you cannot directly attribute these changes to the mentoring program, these changes do provide some evidence of the programs effect.

Measures:

The instrument measures whether the activity meets its objectives.  Specifically, the instrument assesses the following topics that are the most common objectives for mentee participants in mentoring programs.

  • Feelings of isolation or inclusion in engineering.
  • Impact of role models on behaviors and feelings.
  • Commitment to completing an engineering degree.
  • Influence of activity participation on academic/social behaviors.

Additionally, the instrument includes formative items that are designed to determine level of respondent participation in the activity and her overall satisfaction with the activity.

Using the Results:

  • Determine whether specific activities meet objectives.
  • Compare pre and post results to assess activity impact.
  • Report results to stakeholders.
  • Determine how to improve activities.
  • Make evaluation decisions regarding activity (e.g., enhance, delete from schedule).
  • Use results in conjunction with other AWE tools to gain a more complete understanding of impact.
  • Correlate with student retention to measure impact of activity on retention
   

More Details and Instrument Download

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Undergraduate Mentor Instruments

Audience

Undergraduate women students who participate in mentoring programming as the mentors.

Options:

There are two versions of this instrument:

  • The Undergraduate Pre Mentor instrument is to be administered before mentors begin to participate in the mentoring program in order to collect baseline data on mentors/leaders.
  • The Undergraduate Post Mentor instrument is to be administered to mentors after or towards the end of participating in the mentoring program in order to collect data on the impact of the program on mentors/leaders.

AWE Recommends: Use both the pre- and post- mentor surveys to see how participant responses change from one time to the next.

Measures:

The instrument measures whether the activity met its objectives.  Specifically, the instrument assesses the following topics that are the most common objectives for the mentors participating in a mentoring program.

  • Ability to lead other students.
  • Ability to communicate effectively
  • Ability to provide direction and offer productive suggestions.
  • Ability to solve problems that arise during activities.

Additionally, the instrument includes formative items that are designed to determine the extent that the respondent participated in the activity and her overall satisfaction with the activity

Using the Results:

  • Determine whether specific activities meet objectives.
  • Compare pre and post results to assess activity impact.
  • Report results to stakeholders.
  • Determine how to improve activities.
  • Make evaluation decisions regarding (e.g., enhance, delete from schedule).
  • Use results in conjunction with other AWE tools to gain a more complete understanding of impact.
  • Correlate with student retention to measure impact of activity on retention.
   

More Details and Instrument Download

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Undergraduate PDQ Instruments

Audience

Undergraduate women students who participate in WIE activities for which rigorous data collection is not practical.

Options:

There are two versions of this instrument:

  • The Undergraduate Engineering Participant PDQ survey is to be administered to student activity participants at the end of an activity.
  • The Undergraduate Engineering Leader PDQ survey is to be administered to student activity leaders at the end of an activity.

AWE Recommends: Use these surveys only for activities that are not highly resourced or highly visible in your program. The data collected will be helpful in gathering feedback on participant experience in the activity but does not provide information on long-term impact on students. For more visible activities, refer to other AWE instruments.

Measures:

These instruments collect formative data designed to determine the extent that the respondent participated in the activity, her overall satisfaction with the program and whether activity objectives are met in the short term. Formative items address:

  • Did participants receive adequate help?
  • Were the leaders helpful?
  • Do respondents have suggestions for improving the activity?
  • Did students understand the objectives of the activity?

Using the Results

  • Examine results for items that address participant satisfaction to determine how to improve activities.
  • Examine results to determine if participants are aware of activity objectives.
  • Report results to stakeholders.

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Students Leaving Engineering Instrument

Audience

Undergraduate women and men students who have recently transferred out of engineering or are planning on transferring out.

When To Use:

Administer the instrument to students when you determine they are transferring out of engineering.

Measures:

The survey measures student reasons for deciding to transfer out of engineering either into another campus academic unit, a different higher education institution or deciding to drop out of school completely. Specifically the instrument measures:

  • Initial commitment to and preparation for studying engineering.
  • Impact of course workload, climate, advising, teaching, etc. on decision to transfer.
  • Other factors /events that contributed to decision to transfer.
  • Participation in academic and in extra-curricular activities.
  • Retrospective confidence in finishing a degree in engineering.
  • Confidence in completing a(nother) degree.

Using the Results

  • Compare results to students who persist in engineering (see Students Persisting in Engineering Survey) to identify key characteristics of each group.
  • Quantify student initial commitment to completing engineering degree.
  • Report results to key engineering administrators and faculty.
  • Identify major factors that contribute to students' decision to leave.
  • Examine activity participation and satisfaction relative to student decision to leave.
  • Use results to influence curricular and programmatic initiatives.
  • Differentiate these factors between student groups (e.g. men / women, majority / minority students).
   

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Students Persisting in Engineering Instrument

Audience

Undergraduate women and men students who enrolled in/persist in engineering.

When To Use:
Administer the instrument to students as appropriate to your institution. Recommended times are at end of second and fourth years.

Measures:

The survey measures student reasons for deciding to persist in engineering. It is designed to be used in conjunction with the Students Leaving Engineering survey in order to compare characteristics of persisters and leavers. Specifically the instrument measures:

  • Initial commitment to and preparation for studying engineering.
  • Impact of course workload, climate, advising, teaching, etc. on decision to persist.
  • Other factors /events that contributed to decision to persist.
  • Participation in academic and in extra-curricular activities.
  • Retrospective confidence in finishing a degree in engineering.
  • Confidence in completing engineering degree.

Using the Results

  • Compare results to students who leave engineering (see Students Leaving Engineering Survey) to identify key characteristics of each group.
  • Quantify student initial commitment to completing engineering degree.
  • Report results to key engineering administrators and faculty.
  • Identify major factors that contribute to students' decision to remain in engineering.
  • Examine activity participation and satisfaction relative to student decision to persist.
  • Use results to influence curricular and programmatic initiatives.
  • Differentiate these factors between student groups (e.g. men / women, majority / minority students).
   

More Details and Instrument Download

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College Choice Survey

Audience

Undergraduate students who are accepted into engineering at your school but did not enroll.

Measures:
The instrument gathers data on why students (male and female) who were accepted into your college/department of engineering did not enroll and matriculate at your university.

There are many ideas about why students who are accepted at an institution don't come--better scholarship offered elsewhere, not enough personal contact, etc. Without effectively collected data, however, you may not end up correctly targeting your efforts and funding so to increase your "yield" of accepted students. This quick instrument (only 2 pages) will collect data that will allow your institution to take action.

Using the Results

  • Identify why accepted students did not enroll
  • Provide data that can help you take action to result in higher yields of accepted students.
  • Gather some data from those who do enroll and compare the two groups.
  • Gather and provide data to help support requests for additional resources to address identified problems.

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Funded by The National Science Foundation (HRD 0120642 and HRD 0607081)

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