Experimental Design Course Research Articles

Memory studies and design? The mnemotopic approach

At the beginning of the fourth wave of memory studies, the relationship with design appears poorly explored, although the memory project is fundamental for the contemporary and interdisciplinary past reframing. From this perspective, the article proposes an intrinsic but not yet evident link between memory studies and communication design for the territory, a young discipline that has taken up the “stratified place” as its own specific dimension, focusing on its valorization and visual translation. This novel connection is highlighted by the mnemotopic approach in which place and memory coexist in a unique meaning formation, supporting the remembrance of the territorial experience. Through a lexical transfer of the term mnemotope, generally used in other fields of knowledge (e.g. cultural anthropology), to design, it becomes a performative concept integrated into processes and artifacts as an active part of project development. The mnemotope as a plural object of territorial interpretation, sailing from Nora’s lieux de memoire, passing through Assmann’s cultural memory reflections, and landing in communication design, can be adopted as an alternative interpretative criterion that not only proposes a resematization of the memory of places but can be considered as a real medium for exploring the past that can also operate on a didactic level by being included in experimental design courses. In this context, the article will show how the mnemotopic approach has been developed during my personal doctoral journey and pedagogically implemented by the DCxT research group of the Design Department of Politecnico di Milano.

Tennis Anyone? Teaching Experimental Design by Designing and Executing a Tennis Ball Experiment

Understanding the abstract principles of statistical experimental design can challenge undergraduate students, especially when learned in a lecture setting. This article presents a concrete and easily replicated example of experimental design principles in action through a hands-on learning activity for students enrolled in an experimental design course. The activity, conducted during five 50-min classes, requires the students to work as a team to design and execute a simple and safe factorial experiment and collect and analyze the data. During three in-class design meetings, the students design and plan all aspects of the experiment, including choosing the response variable and factors, making a list of needed supplies, creating a randomized run schedule with the MINITAB DOE utility, and writing a statistical analysis plan. A feasibility study is conducted in the fourth class. During the fifth and last class, the students conduct the experiment. Each student writes a lab report including all background research, methods, analyses, and conclusions, as well as a reflection on the learning experience. Students’ reflections indicate the active-learning experience was enjoyable and boosted course engagement and perceived conceptual understanding.

Two seemingly paradoxical results in linear models: the variance inflation factor and the analysis of covariance

Abstract A result from a standard linear model course is that the variance of the ordinary least squares (OLS) coefficient of a variable will never decrease when including additional covariates into the regression. The variance inflation factor (VIF) measures the increase of the variance. Another result from a standard linear model or experimental design course is that including additional covariates in a linear model of the outcome on the treatment indicator will never increase the variance of the OLS coefficient of the treatment at least asymptotically. This technique is called the analysis of covariance (ANCOVA), which is often used to improve the efficiency of treatment effect estimation. So we have two paradoxical results: adding covariates never decreases the variance in the first result but never increases the variance in the second result. In fact, these two results are derived under different assumptions. More precisely, the VIF result conditions on the treatment indicators but the ANCOVA result averages over them. Comparing the estimators with and without adjusting for additional covariates in a completely randomized experiment, I show that the former has smaller variance averaging over the treatment indicators, and the latter has smaller variance at the cost of a larger bias conditioning on the treatment indicators. Therefore, there is no real paradox.

Project based learning to develop student’s creativities and characters in designing experiments

This study aims to analyze creativities and characters of students through project-based learning in designing experiments. Through the quasi-experimental method this research was conducted on 20 students who took experimental design courses. Through worksheets, product assessment sheets and attitude observation sheets the creativities and characters of students can be analyzed. The results showed that students creativities in making experimental designs in the form of flowcharts, to present, to create storyboards, to develop products from designing experiments had an average of 77.3, with good category. Meanwhile the characters developed were discipline with observable behavior that always came to the class punctually, spoke honestly, and remained confident even though the task that was doing was not satisfactory, the characters of responsibility with observable behavior was able to do the task without the help of others and diligently working on the task until it was finished.

EFEKTIFITAS PEMBELAJARAN PROBLEM BASED LEARNING DALAM MENGANALISIS DATA STATISTIKA MELALUI PENGGUNAAN LEMBAR KERJA MAHASISWA

This study aims to improve students' ability to use software in analyzing Statistics data, especially experimental data with the help of Student Worksheets (LKM). This research was conducted at the Mathematics Study Program at the Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences, Udayana University, on students who were taking the Experimental Design course. The design in this study was a one-group pretest-posttest design, by applying Problem Based Learning. The results of the study showed that the majority of students thought that the use of LKM really helped improve students' understanding of the Experimental Design course. This can be seen also from the average posttest score (82.47) which is higher than the average pretest (65.36). The t test also showed that the increase in the mean pretest to posttest was significant with a p value of 0.000 which was smaller than the 5% significance level. This means that the average student posttest score is higher than the average pretest score.

A course on experimental design for different university specialties: experiences and changes over a decade

We analyse the origin and development of an Experimental Design course which has been taught in several faculties of the Universidad de la República and other institutions in Uruguay, over a 10-year period. At the end of the course, students were assessed by carrying out individual work projects on real-life problems, which was innovative for universities in this country. A concrete example of one of these assessment projects is described. Students produced high-quality work, some of which formed the basis of future papers. In a feedback loop, the student projects were used in later courses as examples to illustrate the use of different techniques and to provide teaching material tailored to the needs of different university specialties. The course has gone through processes of transformation and continuous improvement, which are reflected in students’ positive opinions of the course. A detailed analysis of these opinions and students’ suggestions is presented.

Applications of design of experiments in engineering

Applications of design of experiments in engineering

Supporting the development of undergraduates’ experimental design skills and investigating their perceptions of project work

AbstractProject work represents a significant component of most Bioscience degrees. Conscious that students are not necessarily given adequate preparation for their final year project, we have investigated two core elements in the 3rd year of a 4-year Honours programme. One element, an investigative project on aspects of insect biology, has run for several years. The second, an Experimental Design course, was run for the first time in 2003, in order to support the development of key skills for bioscience graduates. The present paper describes a multi-stranded evaluation of these core elements.Significantly increased marks were seen in the Insect Projects in the years after the Experimental Design course was introduced. It is clear from our analysis that the students valued the Experimental Design course, believing that it had made them better able to design experiments and critique the experiments of others. We therefore conclude that the Experimental Design course is, at least in part, responsible for st...

The One-Hour Design of Experiments Course

As teachers, the authors are eager to confirm that what they teach is correct and that their topics are both fun and worth studying further. How they make their propositions attractive is, of course, context dependent. This article describes how a one-hour introductory course in design of experiments (DOE) can be used to attract high school students to study science and engineering in general and quality management in particular. The course is based on a 22 factorial design inspired by the Pepsi Challenge and is evaluated in the light of the “Seven Good Principles to Achieve Good Learning.” Results of the course show that it is possible to teach DOE to students in high school and at the same time provide a fun experience. Many of the statistical concepts appear to have been grasped up to the level of comprehension of effects and statistical significant effects compared to random error effects.

Designing a First Experiment: A Project for Design of Experiment Courses

A project suitable for use as a first and last assignment given in an introductory experimental design course is outlined, and its implementation discussed. Phase 1 of the project is designed to be given at the beginning of a first course in experimental design and involves designing an experiment within instructor-specified parameters based initially on intuition and common sense. Phase 2, at the conclusion of the course, represents the final assignment of the course and encourages the student to critique their first design, suggest a “new and improved” design based on their newly acquired knowledge, and finally conduct an analysis of computer generated data (here using MINITAB, although choice of package is flexible) from an actual run of their experiment.

A Note on the Covariance Structure in a Linear Model

The covariance structure of a random or mixed linear model is sensitive to minor changes in the characterization of random effects, and what appear to be inconsequential differences in the description of random effects may imply nontrivial changes to the underlying linear model. When changes are made in the characterization of effects in a mixed model, the mean and covariance structure of both models must be considered to assure that the changes have resulted in a reparametrization of the original model. We consider this issue and the differences between reparametrizations for fixed effects and the covariance structure. Examples are presented to illustrate these differences. The examples could easily be presented or given as problems in regression courses, experimental design courses, or a first-year linear models course to augment students' understanding of linear models fundamentals.

Undergraduate Psychology Curricula in North Carolina

To provide information on psychology curricula in North Carolina, college catalog descriptions of the 42 undergraduate psychology programs in the state were examined. Although most programs (79%) offered only a general psychology baccalaureate degree, 21% offered specially designated degrees and within-degree concentrations, usually in addition to a general degree. When the 63 degree options of these 42 programs were examined, the modal minimum introductory, methodological, and capstone requirements were found to be a 1–term introductory course, a 1–term statistics course, a 1–term experimental design course, and I integrative experience, which was most often a history and systems course or a senior seminar. These components are very similar to those of the model undergraduate curriculum recommended by Brewer et al. (1993).

Sequential experiments to characterize processing equipment-maximizing information content while restraining costs

As the semiconductor industry converts more of its fabs to relatively expensive 200 mm wafers, concerns for the costs of experimentation must increase. Many semiconductor processes involve 6 or more process inputs, and many of those inputs act together (factor interactions) or with nonlinear relationships to control outputs. Classical experimental design courses explain the need to build information sequentially to characterize a process fully. This paper contrasts alternative experimental scenarios regarding relative cost versus information content and describes an augmentation technique adopted for a number of process characterization investigations at SEMATECH and its member companies. The paper further illustrates the use of a commercial software product that fully supports these methods in a user-friendly environment and is available on a variety of computing platforms. >

CAI-enhanced exam performance in a research design course

The efficacy of computer-assisted instruction (CAI) for increasing test performance in an experimental design course was tested using two commercially available programs to supplement course material. CAI was used to supplement course content for one of three examinations. Comparisons were also made with performance on the exams from 2 previous years. The results indicate a significant enhancement of performance by CAI.

A Radical Poster Session

In the field of psychology, poster sessions have a history of being an easy and efficient way to present data. Recently, the poster session has been introduced in the classroom. For the last 2 years, we have used a poster session as an integral part of an undergraduate experimental design course. Principles of experimental design are demonstrated when undergraduates design and conduct original experiments using radishes as subjects. Results of these experiments are then presented in a poster session. The benefits of using radishes as subjects are described.

Some Ideas about Teaching Design of Experiments, with 25Examples of Experiments Conducted by Students

Abstract Some experiences with the use of student projects in experimental design courses at Wisconsin are described. Each student is given the opportunity of selecting a problem of direct interest to him/her, designing and performing an experiment, collecting and analyzing the data. Some ideas with regard to pedagogy and the use of simulated data are also discussed.