Self-Efficacy and Belonging in Introductory STEM Majors.

Students' sense of self-efficacy and belonging may be situated in many environments in a college setting. Two surveys that measure student's feelings of self-efficacy and belonging within their STEM and campus communities were administered to over 550 introductory level, calculus-based, physics students at West Virginia University (WVU) during the spring 2015 semester. An exploratory factor analysis was performed to determine the important elements of self-efficacy and belonging that are prevalent among incoming students in STEM fields. We will discuss the breakdown of these elements as they pertain to the physics sequence, classes within the student's major, perceptions of the student's future career, and between these elements will also be presented. This project provides further opportunities to explore the development of student feelings of self-efficacy and belonging and how they relate to STEM retention and performance.