"The Relationship between Self Efficacy, Critical Thinking, Grades, and the Quality of First Year Engineering Students"

It is hypothesized that four qualities including strong content knowledge, good critical thinking skills, high self efficacy, and a high cognitive thinking level define a successful student.In an effort to increase these qualities in first year engineering students at the University of Nevada, Reno, new course content was developed for a pair of first-year classes, which also utilized teaching methods that were customized to how people learn most efficiently.Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) and Pearson"s correlation were used to study the relationship between content knowledge, self efficacy, cognitive level, and critical thinking level.It was found that critical thinking and self efficacy scores are positively correlated with each other, but neither is correlated with the student"s course grade.In addition students who stated that they believed they would earn an "A" in the first year course performed significantly better in critical thinking.Critical thinking and self efficacy scores did not have a correlation with overall course grades, which suggests that course grades may not be the best method for defining the quality of a student.This research supports the common belief held by many faculty: student grades are not the best indicator of student quality.