Table 3 The sources of engineering teaching self-efficacy indicated by the participant PSTs

Mastery experiences

Cognitive content mastery (n = 64)

“Another tool that made me more confident in teaching this topic was learning the engineering design process. Learning about the process will help me ensure not all prototypes will be a success. Having the students understand the process may have to be repeated several times to receive positive results will help eliminate discouragement”

Cognitive pedagogical mastery (n = 62)

“Learning about connecting this topic to other subjects (i.e., reading) has helped me become more confident in teaching this topic. This part of the lesson introduced me to ways I can incorporate engineering successfully in many different content areas that I am more comfortable in teaching”.

Unspecified cognitive mastery or pedagogy mastery (n = 10)

“Teaching engineering was not something I was comfortable with. As a student, I did not have opportunities to do it myself, therefore I was unsure of how to approach it. This lecture helped me become more confident and well-rounded in teaching engineering. It gave me a better understanding of how I should be setting forth my expectations and how to provide appropriate support while still ensuring there is rigor”.

Vicarious experiences

Cognitive self-modeling (n = 71)

“I think the most helpful things I learned during this week’s lectures were all the creative activities that you can do with your students, such as the building of the car model activity and soda can crusher. I think that would be great to do with grades 4-5^th. At first, I was not as confident in teaching engineering but then I realized that there are so many creative activities that I can do and introduce to students”.

Simulated modeling (n = 27)

“Being able to engage in the process as a student allowed me to understand that I was eager to jump into the building and testing phases, and I began to think about how I might get my students to slow down enough to do background research and brainstorming solutions before jumping into building”.

Symbolic modeling (n = 4)

“Something else I find good is that students can learn how to collect data, which is the empirical aspect of engineering. I liked the fact that the teacher (in the video) helped the students gather data and had the students analyze the data and chart it to come up with a pattern or any other things they noticed”.

“I feel that this week has gotten me more confident to teach engineering. I initially was nervous and thought that engineering was some complex subject that required years of studying and experience to even fathom, but it turned out that the design process was feasible and easier to understand than I expected. I especially loved the presentation we were able to see. It was fun, easy to relate to, and I found myself learning about all sorts of technologies that I could possibly begin to use in my class in the future”.