This paper explores the confidence freshman engineering students have in being successful in the first study year and which study-related behaviour they believe to be important to this end. Additionally, this paper studies which feedback these students would like to receive and compares it with the experiences of second-year students regarding feedback. To this end, two questionnaires were administered: one with freshman engineering students to measure their expectations regarding study success and expected feedback and one with second-year engineering students to evaluate their first year feedback experience. The results show that starting first-year engineering students are confident regarding their study success. This confidence is however higher than the observed first-year students success. Not surprisingly, first-year students have good intentions and believe that most academic activities are important for student success. When second-year students look back on their first year, their beliefs in the importance of these activities have strongly decreased, especially regarding the importance of preparing classes and following communication through email and the virtual learning environment. First-year students expect feedback regarding their academic performance and engagement. They expect that this feedback primarily focuses on the impact on their future study pathway rather than on comparison to peer students. Second-year students indicate that the amount of feedback they receive could be improved, but agree with the first-year students that comparative feedback is less important. Conference Key Areas: Engineering Education Research, Attractiveness of Engineering Education, Gender and Diversity Keywords: academic self-confidence, feedback, reasons for students success, student beliefs

1. CONFIDENCE IN AND BELIEFS
ABOUT
FIRST-YEAR ENGINEERING
STUDENT SUCCESS
Tinne De Laet, Tom Broos,
Jan-Paul van Staalduinen,
Martin Ebner, Greet
Langie, Carolien Van
Soom,
Wim Schepers

2. STELA PROJECT
Successful Transition from secondary to higher Education using Learning
Analytics
Project partners:
The main goal of the STELA project is to enhance a successful transition from
secondary to higher education by means of learning analytics.
The STELA project…
Involves designing and building student and staff-facing analytics dashboards
Aims to develop dashboards that go beyond identifying as-risk students;
allowing actionable feedback for all students on a large scale
STELA Project: 562167-EPP-1-2015-1-BE-EPPKA3-PI-FORWARD
www.stela-
project.eu@STELA_projec

3. INTRODUCTION
STELA Project: 562167-EPP-1-2015-1-BE-EPPKA3-PI-FORWARD
www.stela-
project.eu@STELA_projec
Aim of this study
★ study confidence of freshman
engineering students in being
successful in the first year
★ study-related behaviour they believe
to be important to this end
★ feedback freshman students would like
to receive in the first-year
★ contrast with experiences of second-
year students
Learning dashboards
with
actionable feedback
supporting
first-year engineering
students success
How confident are they?
What do they believe
to be important?
Which feedback would
they like to receive?

4. BACKGROUND & LITERATURE
STELA Project: 562167-EPP-1-2015-1-BE-EPPKA3-PI-FORWARD
www.stela-
project.eu@STELA_projec
transition from secondary to higher education
 challenging from academic and social perspective
 students have to adapt study and learning strategies, but how?
social-comparison theory
 people evaluate abilities
through comparison with
others, when objective
measures are lacking
 freshman students lack
comparative framework
self-efficacy
 “expectation to be
successful for specific
task” ≈ situation-specific
self-confidence
 academic self-
confidence influences
student performance
feedback
 considered important for
improving student
achievement

5. DATA COLLECTION AND
METHODOLOGY
survey 1 (16 questions, 5-point Likert scale)
 first-year engineering students
 confidence in first-year success
 beliefs regarding study-related behavior
 expectations regarding first-year feedback
 experiences feedback in transition
STELA Project: 562167-EPP-1-2015-1-BE-EPPKA3-PI-FORWARD
www.stela-
project.eu@STELA_projec
survey 1
★ KU Leuven, TU Delft, TU Graz
★ first week of academic year or welcome week
★ n= 2,127 students
(409 KU Leuven, 777 TU Graz, 941 TU Graz)
★ paper and pencil for KU Leuven & TU Graz
★ electronic for TU Delft
survey 2 (41 questions, 5-point Likert scale)
 second-year students
 behavior that was important for study success
 experiences regarding first-year feedback
survey 2
★ KU Leuven
★ 271 students
★ paper and pencil

6. DATA COLLECTION AND
METHODOLOGY
statistical analysis - goal
 descriptive statistics
 differences between institutes
STELA Project: 562167-EPP-1-2015-1-BE-EPPKA3-PI-FORWARD
www.stela-
project.eu@STELA_projec
testing significance differences between institutes
1. overall significance between groups
 Kruskal-Wallis rank sum test
2. significance between different groups
 pairwise Wilcoxon test
(with correction for multiple testing)
diverging stacked bar charts

7. STELA Project: 562167-EPP-1-2015-1-BE-EPPKA3-PI-FORWARD
www.stela-
project.eu@STELA_projec
“neutral answer”
centered
“positive answers”
right
“negative answers”
left

8. RESULTS – CONFIDENCE FIRST-YEAR
STUDY SUCCESS
STELA Project: 562167-EPP-1-2015-1-BE-EPPKA3-PI-FORWARD
www.stela-
project.eu@STELA_projec
★ ★ ★
★ ★ ★
★ ★ ★
Does difference in confidence comply with actual first-year study success? no
drop-out
60%
24%
42%
Are freshman confident in their study success?

9. RESULTS – CONFIDENCE FIRST-YEAR
STUDY SUCCESS
STELA Project: 562167-EPP-1-2015-1-BE-EPPKA3-PI-FORWARD
www.stela-
project.eu@STELA_projec
KU Leuven students are as confident as TU Graz students in their prior knowledge and skills
but are uncertain this will lead to study success.
no significant
differences between
KU Leuven and
TU Graz
social comparison
How do they rate their knowledge and academic skills?

10. RESULTS – BELIEFS FIRST-YEAR STUDY
SUCCESS
What activities/behavior freshman students believe will be important for study success?
STELA Project: 562167-EPP-1-2015-1-BE-EPPKA3-PI-FORWARD
www.stela-
project.eu@STELA_projec
KU Leuven = TU Graz
> TU Delft
KU Leuven >TU Graz
> TU Delft
KU Leuven = TU Graz
> TU Delft
KU Leuven > TU Graz
everything is important …. only doubts about communication

11. RESULTS – BELIEFS FIRST-YEAR STUDY
SUCCESS
What second-year students found to be important for study success?
beliefs changed … BUT studying hard remains,
extra: academic well-being and study techniques
STELA Project: 562167-EPP-1-2015-1-BE-EPPKA3-PI-FORWARD
www.stela-
project.eu@STELA_projec

12. RESULTS - FEEDBACK
Which feedback do freshman want to receive in their first year?
STELA Project: 562167-EPP-1-2015-1-BE-EPPKA3-PI-FORWARD
www.stela-
project.eu@STELA_projec
Students expect feedback, but prefer “absolute” feedback rather than “comparative” feedback

13. RESULTS - FEEDBACK
What was the second year students’ experience with feedback?
Room for improvement regarding feedback.
STELA Project: 562167-EPP-1-2015-1-BE-EPPKA3-PI-FORWARD
www.stela-
project.eu@STELA_projec

14. CONCLUSION & FUTURE WORK
STELA Project: 562167-EPP-1-2015-1-BE-EPPKA3-PI-FORWARD
www.stela-
project.eu@STELA_projec
feedback
 gap between expectations of freshman and
actual experiences of students
 “absolute” feedback & impact on future
study pathway more important than
comparative feedback
 Institutional differences are important
self-efficacy & important behavior
 freshman students confident in study success
 contrasts with actual first-year study success
 freshman believe most things are important for
study success
 second-year students find good study techniques,
well-being & studying hard important
What now?
 impact of gender and background variables
 feedback interventions!
 baseline measurement for impact of feedback interventions

15. LEARNING DASHBOARDS FOR
FEEDBACK
Attend our workshop!
Tuesday 19/09/2017
3.00 pm – 4.00 pm
Auditorium
bachelor in 3 years
bachelor in 4 years
bachelor in 5 years
drop-out