IMPACT OF LANGUAGE AND STRUCTURE OF INSTRUCTIONS ON STUDENTS’ CONFIDENCE TOWARDS COMPLETING ASSIGNMENTS

Abstract

First-year engineering students usually spend more time on courses assignments and projects that they perceived to be more difficult, which increases students’ workload and impacts their persistence in engineering programs. Students possess a higher level of confidence also tend to perform better on the tasks. Therefore, it is important to explore the impact of different aspects of assignment instructions on students’ perceived confidence, and establish a comprehensive set of guidelines for first-year course instructors and curriculum designers in instruction writing. 
 This research builds on existing first-year engineering student workload survey to identify the students’ confidence level on assignments in each first-year courses taught in University of Toronto. We compared assignment instructions in first-year engineering courses that students perceived to be difficult and easy, and conducted a focus group study to analyze students’ confidence level towards the same assignments but two different instructions. Observations suggest that students perceived assignments involving new concepts and complex problem context appear to be more difficult. Qualitative responses from students suggest that short instructions with explanations of course connections using plain language could increase students’ self-confidence towards completing these assignments.