Abstract:
Engineering education plays a significant role in enhancing the quality of
engineers. Certain factors such as personality traits, campus environment and
engineering self-efficacy could potentially impact the academic performance and
psychological well-being of engineering undergraduates. Therefore, it was analyzed
how personality traits, campus environment, engineering self-efficacy and their
interactions predict performance-related outcomes and well-being of engineering
undergraduate students. It was hypothesized that significant relationship exists
between personality traits, campus environment, and self-efficacy in predicting
academic performance and psychological well-being. Data was collected from 1005
engineering undergraduates from 16 universities in Pakistan. Structural equation
modelling (SEM) was used to investigate latent interactions between the variables.
Personality traits and engineering self-efficacy had a significant impact on academic
performance. Campus environment, personality traits and engineering self-efficacy
had a significant impact on psychological well-being. Campus environment and
personality traits had a significant impact on engineering self-efficacy. Engineering
self-efficacy mediated the relationships between variables. However, there was no
impact of campus environment on academic performance. The comparison of results
on the basis of gender also suggests that males generally score higher in academic
performance than females. The findings provide empirical evidence for linking
campus environment, personality traits, and engineering self-efficacy with the
academic performance and psychological well-being of students, and suggest how
these relationships could guide educationists and policy makers to take steps to
enhance the engineering self-efficacy, academic performance and psychological
well-being of engineering undergraduates.
