The Development of an Instrument to Measure Engineering Faculty's Self-Efficacy and Perceptions of Teaching Laboratory Intensive Online Courses

In this work-in-progress study, we describe a development of an instrument aimed at capturing engineering faculty's perceptions of and confidence in teaching laboratory intensive online courses. Whether they want to or not, engineering faculty are being asked to design and deliver laboratory intensive courses remotely. Among the reasons are the most recent Covid-19 pandemic and the increasing number of programs and degrees offered in distance or on the Internet. A typical engineering education laboratory environment has been substantially evolved because of the advancements in communication technologies. Virtual realities are the most recent inventions where students and teachers can interact with one another similar to how they would interact in physical laboratory environments. Most of the tools and machines used in the laboratories will soon be simulated in those environments. It is not well studied and documented in the literature what the engineering faculty perceive about the quality of their teaching and what their self-efficacies in designing laboratory intensive online courses are. After the Covid-19 pandemic lock-down, majority of the engineering faculty have experienced teaching lab-intensive courses online. Those experiences led the engineering faculty develop some perceptions about the feasibility or the quality of their teaching, and beliefs about their capabilities and skills to offer the courses. To capture those perceptions and capabilities, a valid and reliable instrument should be developed. In this paper, we report and discuss the findings from a study aimed at developing a valid and reliable instrument to capture engineering faculty's perception of and self-efficacy in teaching laboratory intensive online courses. The survey items were specifically written to capture engineering faculty members' experiences with teaching laboratory intensive online courses and their beliefs and confidence in teaching them effectively. The newly designed instrument was administered to a group of faculty on campus. We ran tests to compare the faculty's demographics and their average survey scores and reported the significant findings. © 2023 IEEE.