Impact of self-efficacy and outcome expectations on first-year engineering students' major selection

Deciding on a major is one of the critical decisions first-year students make in their undergraduate study. Framed in Social Cognitive Career Theory, this work investigates differences between measures of self-efficacy and outcome expectations by students intending to pursue different engineering majors. Our results show that tinkering self-efficacy, experimental self-efficacy, and professional outcome expectations are statistically significantly different for students intending to pursue different majors. Students from Biomedical Engineering, Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering, Computer Engineering, Computer Science, Electrical Engineering, and Mechanical Engineering have different average scores from at least one other group of students on at least one construct. Differences by gender are also explored, as well as student major changes, confidence in major choice, and the importance of both professional and lifestyle outcome expectations.