Perceived Task Value of Engineering Undergraduates During COVID- 19 Pandemic.

The Corona Virus-19 globally disrupted education severely in March 2020 and has continued through 2023. It has had far reaching impacts on engineering education and yet it provides an opportunity for researchers to understand this type of event's impact so that we can be well equipped for potential future disruptive events. This paper describes a novel study that used an online learning value and self-efficacy scale survey to collect data on perceived task value and student selfefficacy during a forced transition to online learning in a western university's sophomore level engineering mechanics course and a junior level hydraulic engineering course. This was an initial study that was investigating these constructs using the Online Learning Value and Self-Efficacy Scale. Data was additionally collected a year later with new participants in the same classes now taught in a traditional face-to-face fushion. Comparative results indicate that students who started in face-to-face classes preferred and felt they could do better in the face-to-face components more so than the online components, and that students who were earlier in their academic career were more likely to have higher ratings of selfefficacy in a forced online learning environment than students enduring the transition later in their academic career. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]