Development of a comprehensive assessment technique to invigorate students' problem-solving skills and deter cheating

Abstract

It is a long-standing belief of most instructors that the assignment of graded homework to students is very useful in the process of teaching fundamental engineering courses. Results of several studies have also revealed that working on homework assignments with a significant independent effort enables students to develop higher cognitive level creative problem solving skills that they need in school (for example, to perform better in exams) and as practicing engineers. However, the availability and use of textbook solution manuals and other unapproved outside sources have hindered students from achieving the skills. Previous studies indicated that almost 90% of students used text book solution manuals at least once without permission and students with no access to solution manuals performed better than those who have. These two findings indicate that there is a need for developing alternative techniques that can possibly enhance homework assignments in order to stimulate the independent creative problem-solving skills of students. In this project, readily available and new alternate techniques to enhance traditional homework assignments have been identified, and a novel comprehensive assessment technique has been developed and implemented. The impact and effectiveness of the technique has been studied via conducting a survey and the comparison of exam averages of three semesters with and without the implementation of the technique. The results indicate that the technique helps deter cheating enhances critical thinking and problem solving skills of students and improve their performance in exams. Furthermore, the implementation of the technique is believed to have boosted students learning of the material of an undergraduate Engineering Mechanics: Dynamics course given at a large public university.