Steps toward a sound measure of engineering student attitudes: Pittsburgh Engineering Attitudes Scale - Revised

Engineering education is currently undergoing a transition toward increased constructivist practices and a new philosophy of education that recognizes the active role of the learner in constructing knowledge. To meet the demands of the changing landscape, our research team has been reworking the Pittsburgh engineering attitudes scale so that valid and reliable inferences can be made about engineering student attitudes. The current study follows up on our analysis of the scale at FIE 2008, and presents evidence of structural validity, internal reliability, and external validity of student responses to a revised version of the scale. The results of the current study suggest the Pittsburgh engineering attitudes scale - revised overcomes previous problems with the original scale reported in the literature and that we are making positive steps toward a sound measure of student attitudes.