Analysis of Student Perspectives on Using Tablet PCs in Junior and Senior Level Chemical Engineering Courses

Abstract

The How People Learn framework was used to redesign one junior-level chemical engineering course entitled Kinetics and Homogeneous Reactor Design (seventh semester) as well as two senior-level courses, Catalysis and Heterogeneous Reactor Design (eighth semester) and Process Dynamics and Control (ninth semester). Our goal was to improve chemical engineering teaching and learning by creating high-quality learning environments that promote an interactive classroom while integrating formative assessments into classroom practices by means of Tablet PCs and associated technologies. In order to examine how students perceived the use of Tablet PCs and associated technologies, we conducted semi-structured interviews with students that had completed the course sequence. The analysis indicated a number of themes that consistently appeared within the interview sessions and were addressed by students from different viewpoints. Five overall themes emerged: student experience in using Tablet PCs, impact on learning, potential of Tablet PCs and associated technologies, formative assessments, as well as advantages and disadvantages of using the Tablet PC in studied classrooms. This paper reports upon the themes identified in the analysis of the results from the semi-structured interviews.