3.3.6. Interview Analysis
This study was designed to gain a better understanding of how influential
experiences were processed by first- and second-year engineering students in
the formation of their efficacy beliefs. The analysis process was therefore
based on Bandura’s (1997) four sources of efficacy beliefs: mastery
experiences, vicarious experiences, verbal/social persuasions, and
physiological states. First-level coding, a method used to summarize
segments of data under broad categories of description (Miles & Huberman,
1987), was achieved by assigning one of the four efficacy sources to each
experience relayed in an interview transcript. The process therefore began by
establishing clear definitions of each source. Table 3-7 presents the definitions
that dictated the first-level coding of interview transcripts.