"We rode our luck a bit in the early stages, but we had the confidence and belief that we could get ourselves into the game," said Adkins.
"That's one of the secrets of the success of this squad. They have a terrific spirit and work so hard for each other.
"It was a great goal from Paterson that put us in front and Goodwin showed his Premier League pace to race through and score a second.
"We might be the favourites with the bookies to go down but this group of players believe they can succeed at this level.
"For them, it's a terrific platform to go out and show what they can do."
Burnley dominated the opening quarter of an hour, but faded badly and were second-best for the whole od the decond period.
"Hats off to Scunthorpe, it was their day," admitted Clarets manager Steve Cotterill.
"They are a team who are not used to losing games and they did much better at keeping the ball out of their net than we did keeping it out of ours.
"I was disappointed with the way we faded after that bright start, Scunthorpe ended up doing well all the things that we should have been doing."