Self-efficacy and belonging in introductory STEM majors

A survey measuring students' feelings of self-efficacy and belonging within multiple environments within Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) and the campus community was administered to introductory, calculus-based physics classes at a large public land-grant university yielding 481 complete responses. The sense of belonging and self-efficacy varied significantly between broader environments such as the institution and major to more narrow environments such as the physics class or lab group. Strong gender effects (p\textless .001) were identified; these were highly class dependent. Exploratory factor analysis identified 2 underlying self-efficacy factors and 3 belonging factors.