Maarten Pinxten

This study contributes to the current research in career and professional identity development in that it developed a validated competency-based framework to enhance professional and self-awareness of future engineers. Through a mixed-method design, key competencies were identified for three professional roles for early career engineers. Ninety-six engineers and HR experts from different fields were involved. This resulted in three portraits of early career engineers in practice (engineers in a role focusing on radical innovation, on process optimisation and/or on customised solutions) and what it requires to be successful in these roles. For example, perseverance and creativity were deemed essential for engineers in an innovative role, whereas positive critical attitude and stress resistance were indicated essential for engineers focusing on optimisation. The competency profiles with an aspiration to career perspectives can be a valuable instrument in creating more diversity in engineering. Implications for education, industry, and future research are discussed.

It is recognised that engineers end up in a wide variety of engineering positions and that the importance of professional competencies might vary accordingly. However, most studies regarding professional competencies, employability or career guidance fail to address this variety in professional roles. This systematic literature review aims to identify professional roles for early career engineers and explores the defining attributes. Twenty-four publications were selected for inclusion by screening and appraising results obtained from three databases. Three frameworks that fulfilled the analysing criteria described similar roles focusing on innovation, optimisation and customisation. The majority of studies investigated professional competencies as identifying attributes, but inconsistency in and a lack of definitions hindered to determine the distinct professional competencies per role. Further research is recommended to identify role attributes and to investigate how a professional roles framework can support career development in engineering education, more particular in creating professional and self-awareness.

In this study, we present a case study involving two self-service dashboards providing feedback on learning and study skills and on academic achievement. These dashboards were offered to first-year university students in several study programmes in Flanders, Belgium. Data for this study were collected using usage tracking (N = 2875) and a survey taken at the beginning of the second year before (N = 484) and after (N = 538) the introduction of the dashboards. We found that early dashboard usage is related to academic achievement later in the academic year and that students’ review of the feedback received in the first year improved. Although these results are modest in comparison to how high the bar is sometimes set for learning analytics applications, we argue that low-cost deployments of self-service dashboards are an interesting approach to start building experience with similar tools and to start paving the way for future developments.

Holding students back when they do not meet a specific attainment level is common practice in a lot of countries. However, this practice is not without controversy and recent studies point at the negative effects of grade retention, especially in the long-term. The majority of these studies focused on grade retention in primary education. In our study, we focused on the effect of grade retention in Grade 8 on language achievement and academic self-concept. We matched students who were and were not retained based on their propensity to be retained and compared both groups using a growth curve analysis. The basic treatment “grade retention vs. promotion” was extended with the certificate these students received at the end of Grade 8. With this growth curve analysis, we were able to draw conclusions on the effect in the short-term, as well as in the long-term. In the short-term (i.e. the year of retention), it seems that grade retention had no negative effect on language achievement in the short-term, and even a positive effect on academic self-concept in the year of retention. The effects became more negative when we considered effects in the long-term. Especially for language achievement, we found a strong decline in the achievement of grade retainees. We found no negative effect of grade retention on academic self-concept. We can conclude that grade retention has a negative effect on the achievement of retained students in the long run, but has no negative effect on academic self-concept. When we take into account the certificate they received, it seems that following the teacher’s advice to change track is a better decision than repeating the grade in the same track.

This study examines the choice of a university major with a special focus on the type of major chosen in the first year and success/failure at the end of this first year, using a sample of 2,284 students in Flanders (Belgium). Extending previous research, the effects of prior subject uptake, occupational interests, prior math and Dutch achievement, gender, SES, academic self-concept and future aspirations on major selection were tested using multinomial regression. In summary, our results showed that prior subject uptake in Grade 12 was the main predictor of the type of university major chosen. Furthermore, a persuasive association between students’ interest pattern and major chosen was observed and different interest patterns between male and female students primarily explained gendered choices. A binary logistic regression model revealed that higher achievement, more math subjects chosen in Grade 12 and a higher SES are important buffers against failure in the first year of university.status: publishe

Academic emphasis, collective efficacy, and faculty trust in students and parents (3 school characteristics positively associated with student achievement) are assumed to form a higher order latent construct, “academic optimism” (Hoy, Tarter, & Woolfolk Hoy, 2006a Hoy, W. K. , Tarter, C. J. , & Woolfolk Hoy, A. (2006a). Academic optimism of schools: A force for student achievement. American Educational Research Journal, 43, 425–446. doi:10.3102/00028312043003425 [Crossref], [Web of Science ®] [Google Scholar] , 2006b Hoy, W. K. , Tarter, C. J. , & Woolfolk Hoy, A. (2006b). Academic optimism of schools: A second-order confirmatory factor analysis. In W. K. Hoy & C. G. Miskel (Eds.), Contemporary issues in educational policy and school outcomes (pp. 135–158). Greenwich, CT : Information Age. [Google Scholar] ). The aim of the present study is to corroborate the latent factor structure of academic optimism and to investigate its association with student achievement in Flanders while taking the hierarchical structure of the data into account. Data from 1,375 staff members and 3,538 fifth-grade students within 117 schools were analysed using multilevel confirmatory factor analysis and multilevel structural equation modelling. The results indicated that all three school characteristics make up one latent school construct, “academic optimism”. Academic optimism was found to be positively associated with student achievement in mathematics and reading comprehension. School mean socioeconomic status and school mean prior achievement are mainly indirectly associated with student achievement through academic optimism.

Background: The multidimensionality of the academic self‐concept in terms of domain specificity has been well established in previous studies, whereas its multidimensionality in terms of motivational functions (the so‐called affect‐competence separation) needs further examination. Aim: This study aims at exploring differential effects of enjoyment and competence beliefs on two external validity criteria in the field of mathematics. Sample: Data analysed in this study were part of a large‐scale longitudinal research project. Following a five‐wave design, math enjoyment, math competence beliefs, math achievement, and perceived math effort expenditure measures were repeatedly collected from a cohort of 4,724 pupils in Grades 3–7. Method: Confirmatory factor analysis ( CFA ) was used to test the internal factor structure of the math self‐concept. Additionally, a series of nested models was tested using structural equation modelling to examine longitudinal reciprocal interrelations between math competence beliefs and math enjoyment on the one hand and math achievement and perceived math effort expenditure on the other. Results: Our results showed that CFA models with separate factors for math enjoyment and math competence beliefs fit the data substantially better than models without it. Furthermore, differential relationships between both constructs and the two educational outcomes were observed. Math competence beliefs had positive effects on math achievement and negative effects on perceived math effort expenditure. Math enjoyment had (mild) positive effects on subsequent perceived effort expenditure and math competence beliefs. Conclusion: This study provides further support for the affect‐competence separation. Theoretical issues regarding adequate conceptualization and practical consequences for practitioners are discussed.