The Effect of Ego Network Structure on Self-efficacy in Engineering Students

Engineering students' self-efficacy-a self-judgment of capability in a given field-is an accepted predictor of college success. Many factors affecting self-efficacy have been identified in previous research, such as positive performance in classes, practical experiences, and access to mentors. Previous studies have also found that many of these factors are, in turn, affected by aspects of students' social circles, namely homophily and social capital. Students with more homophilous networks (that is, networks with greater similarity between the student and the people in their network) tend to demonstrate higher in-class performance and may feel a greater sense of belonging in engineering as a whole. Homophily most typically explores similarities in gender and/or race: non-male and non-white engineering students see people similar to themselves less frequently and therefore have more to gain by making social connections with people of the same gender and/or race. Social capital also plays a vital role in friendships and education, affecting social outcomes and academic achievement, including improved grades, test scores, and overall performance. Social capital is a measure of the resources a student has access to within their social network. For example, a student who has friends performing higher than themselves or friends further along in their engineering education can leverage these friendships as resources while studying for exams or working on a final project. This study aims to draw a direct connection between students' social lives and their engineering self-efficacy by answering the following research questions: 1) What is the relationship between homophily and self-efficacy in engineering students? and 2) How does the number and quality of friendships of an engineering student relate to their self-efficacy? A survey was distributed to engineering students at a mid-sized, MidAtlantic University that included Marra's 2005 self-efficacy instrument and also asked about participants' quality and quantity of friendships with fellow engineering students. The survey found that the number of studying friends yielded the highest self-efficacy scores among engineering students, while factors such as GPA, gender, and major homophily had little to no effect on engineering self-efficacy.