Engineering Graphics Education: Webcomics as a Tool to Improve Weaker Students' Motivation

Riccardo Metraglia,Valerio Villa

doi:10.19026/rjaset.7.774

Abstract

In engineering colleges, first-year students come from different kinds of high school and have different technical backgrounds. In engineering graphics courses, the weaker students are the ones entering with a lower technical background. Such students are less motivated and have generally difficulties in keeping high their attention level during the lessons. In this study, the use of a webcomics structured in graphic novels was experimented as a motivational support in an engineering graphics course. Sixty nine students of a class taught by using webcomics as support and 47 students of a class taught traditionally were classified according to the kind of their high school of provenience: technical; scientific; non-technical and non-scientific. The findings showed that in the class where webcomics were used, students from non-technical and non-scientific high school scored a higher level of attention compared to others. The teacher who used the webcomics commented it an effective tool to encourage and stimulate weaker learners to actively participate to the lessons and the majority of students agreed such tool was stimulating. At the same time, some students considered the webcomics representation of engineering graphics topics as too far from the reality. It is concluded that the use of webcomics structured in graphic novels is a proficient way to better motivate weaker students to arouse and keep their attention at a high level during engineering graphics lessons.

Highlights

Webcomics are acknowledged to be an important educational instrument to motivate students (Yang, 2003b)
In engineering graphics courses at engineering colleges, freshers generally come from different high schools and have different technical backgrounds when beginning the program (Metraglia et al, 2011, 2013; Salas-Morera et al, 2013)
The four measures of motivation and the overall score for each student were computed and Cronbach (1951) coefficient alpha was used for each factor to estimate the reliability

Summary

Introduction

Webcomics are acknowledged to be an important educational instrument to motivate students (Yang, 2003b). Motivation is important for students who are weaker or have fear of failure (Koenke, 1981, as cited in Yang, 2003b; Keller, 2006b). Students from non-tecnical schools tend to have less attention during the lessons the more they feel the treated topics are too complicated. To try to motivate such weaker students to keep high their attention level, the authors designed a webcomics to be used during the course as a support in engineering graphics lectures topics and to test the webcomics’ effects on students’ motivation

Methods

Results

Conclusion