Assessing Drawing Self-efficacy: A Validation Study Using Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA) for the Drawing Self-efficacy Instrument (DSEI)

Abstract

Drawing, as a skill, is closely tied to many creative fields and is a unique practice for every individual. Drawing has been shown to improve various skills that are critical in engineering education; cognitive and communicative abilities, such as visual communication, problem-solving skills, students' academic achievement, awareness of and attention to surrounding details, and sharpened analytical skills. While the base concept of drawing is a basic skill, the mastery of this skill requires extensive practice and it can often be significantly impacted by the self-efficacy of an individual. Self-efficacy is one's belief in his or her capacity to accomplish specific tasks. Self-efficacy is important when learning new skills because it aids in mastery, and also enables us to understand skill development. Sketchtivity is an intelligent tutoring system developed by Texas A&M University to facilitate the growth of basic sketching skills and track their performance. Sketching is a form of drawing that's focused on clear communication and generation of ideas. Skill development depends in part on students' self-efficacy associated with their sketching abilities. Rather than focusing only on sketching self-efficacy, we wanted to develop a more general tool for assessing drawing self-efficacy which could be applied in more domains than just our own and be useful for other researchers, educators, and technologists. A detailed validity study of the Drawing Self-Efficacy Instrument(DESI) is outlined in this paper.