Table 5 Exemplary student quotes demonstrating self-efficacy trends

Student A (female/lower-level class)

This is a scale-down model - out of cardboard - of the final presentation hopefully. I sound crazy - but I just have to tape this piece here and it will work. I feel like coming up with the idea wasn't hard but we are the maker thinker mindset. Making stuff is not hard, our way of doing things isn't making a thousand prototypes, but to focus on one thing and make it really good. Me and my partner are both good at problem solving, and whenever one of us gets stuck, we help each other out.

This is our final stage - we have to assemble the wood and set up the electronics. The wood was cut to exactly what we needed, and hopefully the assembly will go well. When we problem solve we play around and talk amongst ourselves. Even though we do most of the work with our partners, I feel pretty confident working by myself.

Student B (female/higher-level class)

It took us like 3 weeks to make a model. With all the measurements. We're just making it out of cardboard because I don't think there is a kit…So we will make it just for them, instead of just making it plain.

This is a trial, kind of. We were planning to make it, but we didn't have enough time. We kind of want to build it, but our teachers said we couldn't make it in time. This (the first prototype) took us, like five weeks. [If we had more time we would] make the real model.

[Our project] turned out different. When we first started, I thought we would make the real thing at the end, but in the end, we [will just] make the model. I thought you didn't have to do this much research. I thought we would work on this project for two or three weeks then move on to a different project. But, we have to research on this one thing and it took us a really long time.