Type

Article

Keywords

self-efficacy, mathematics, quantitative skills, statistics, geoscience

Abstract

Self-efficacy is often investigated as a key attitudinal component of academic persistence and performance, and self-efficacy surveys can serve in research models as efficient and non-threatening assessment tools to augment or substitute for achievement or performance measures. The Geoscience Mathematics Self-Efficacy Scale (GeoMSES) builds on prior work in measurement of self-efficacy for mathematics by focusing specifically on students’ capacity to apply mathematical skills to typical problems encountered in majors-level undergraduate geoscience courses or in professional geoscience settings. The scale was developed as part of program evaluation research for a set of learning modules designed to augment existing geoscience curricula. In samples of undergraduate students in courses at 20 institutions (n = 351), data collected using the new 18-item scale had good psychometric properties including normal distributions, high internal reliability and stability, and significant predictive correlations with mathematics performance. Responses to particular items were highly intercorrelated yet not redundant; the questions may be useful when used individually or in subsets for targeted assessment of self-efficacy for particular skills. The GeoMSES may serve as a research or program evaluation tool or as a classroom assessment tool for instructors interested in using student self-efficacy to help them plan or assess their teaching.

Department(s)

Science Education Resource Center (SERC)

Journal or Book Title

Education Sciences

Publication Year

2026

DOI

https://doi.org/10.3390/educsci16020288

Publisher

MDPI

Rights Management

The original authors own the copyright to this work and have granted Carleton College permission to display and distribute it online through the Carleton College Library. For more information on the copyright status of this work, refer to the current copyright holder.

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

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