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Full text release has been delayed at the author's request until December 18, 2025

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Contextualizing and Validating Five-Factor Model Scales to Measure Personality Behaviors of Teaching Assistants in First-Year Engineering Classroom Contexts

Phillips, Andrew Havre
http://orcid.org/0009-0008-8499-2874
http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1692031561231177

Abstract Details

2023, Doctor of Philosophy, Ohio State University, Engineering Education.
Teaching Assistants (TAs) play significant roles in many first-year engineering programs, including interacting with students in the classroom as the students learn engineering fundamentals and navigate their first year of college. An important element of any social interaction is the personality of the people, and the way personality manifests as behaviors may change in different social contexts. Although there have been studies about personality of teachers and students, a Systematic Literature Review provides motivation for investigating the personality behaviors of TAs in first-year engineering classroom contexts specifically. The Five-Factor Model (FFM) of personality is selected as the theoretical framework because of its rigorous structural validity, the availability of FFM scales online, and previous successful contextualization of FFM scales. The dimensions of personality in the FFM are: Extraversion, Agreeableness, Conscientiousness, Neuroticism, and Openness. Two sets of FFM scales (a 50-item version and a 100-item version) are contextualized for TAs teaching in first-year engineering through assessing face validity and content validity to result in one 90-item version (18 items per scale). TAs from four different first-year engineering programs respond to these 90 items to collect data for further validation. Item reduction analysis is conducted to remove 8 items from each scale so that each scale retains a final 10 items. Construct validity and reliability are assessed, and Classical Test Theory (CTT) item iii analysis and Item Response Theory (IRT) Rasch analysis are performed to identify items for removal. The final 10-item reduced scales are evaluated again for construct validity, reliability, and criterion validity, and CTT item analysis and IRT Rasch analysis are performed again to evaluate the validity of the final instrument. Overall, the properties of the final 50-item (10 items per personality factor scale) First-Year Engineering Teaching Assistant Personality (FYETAP) instrument meet acceptable validity thresholds and improved after the item reduction analysis. The FYETAP instrument has high enough validity based on thresholds from the literature to be used for future work such as evaluating predictive validity with student outcomes, allowing TAs to reflect on their personality behaviors in the first-year engineering classroom context and how they may or may not differ from a general context, and informing first-year engineering program coordinators and faculty in TA training. The final FYETAP instrument is presented along with instructions for administration and scoring.
Krista Kecskemety (Advisor)
Rachel Kajfez (Committee Member)
Ann Christy (Advisor)
259 p.
Education; Engineering; Personality Psychology; Teaching
Five-Factor Model; personality; validation; contextualization; Teaching Assistants; first-year engineering; FYETAP

Recommended Citations

Citations

  • Phillips, A. H. (2023). Contextualizing and Validating Five-Factor Model Scales to Measure Personality Behaviors of Teaching Assistants in First-Year Engineering Classroom Contexts [Doctoral dissertation, Ohio State University]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1692031561231177

    APA Style (7th edition)

  • Phillips, Andrew. Contextualizing and Validating Five-Factor Model Scales to Measure Personality Behaviors of Teaching Assistants in First-Year Engineering Classroom Contexts. 2023. Ohio State University, Doctoral dissertation. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1692031561231177.

    MLA Style (8th edition)

  • Phillips, Andrew. "Contextualizing and Validating Five-Factor Model Scales to Measure Personality Behaviors of Teaching Assistants in First-Year Engineering Classroom Contexts." Doctoral dissertation, Ohio State University, 2023. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1692031561231177

    Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)

osu1692031561231177
© 2023, all rights reserved.
This open access ETD is published by The Ohio State University and OhioLINK.
Release 3.2.12