Introductory Electrical Engineering Research Articles

Promoting Student Support in an Online Fundamental of Electronics Course

Contribution: This article discusses instructor decisions that support social capital development in an online, asynchronous, team-based introduction to electrical engineering course. Background: Online learning is changing how instructors and students interact with each other and course materials. There is a need to understand how to support students’ social capital development during online engineering courses. Research Questions: What aspects of an online, asynchronous, team-based, introductory electrical engineering course gave students instrumental and expressive social capital? What decisions did the instructor make to support the development of strong and weak social ties? Methodology: A case study approach was used to analyze interview data from the students, instructor, and graduate teaching assistant (TA) from an online course. Findings: The results indicate effective lecture delivery and a team-based format can provide students with instrumental social supports they need to meet learning objectives in an online asynchronous, introduction to electrical engineering course. To facilitate the development of expressive support and stronger ties, instructors should incorporate these goals in their course design decisions.

The Role of Prosocial Goal Congruity on Student Motivation in Electrical Engineering

Contribution: Prior studies on goal congruity show that students are more motivated to pursue careers that allow them to work with and help others and give back to their community (i.e., careers that afford prosocial value). This paper discovers this same pattern in electrical engineering (EE) and discovers that prosocial affordance beliefs are significantly associated with intensions to persist, while agency beliefs are not. Background: Goal congruity theory finds that people are more motivated to pursue a career if it aligns with values they endorse. This theory can shed light on why some students do not persist in EE because of the stereotype that the profession does not allow working with and helping others. Research Questions: This paper seeks to answer whether EE students perceive the profession as affording prosocial value, and to test associations between prosocial perceptions and motivation to persist in the field. Methodology: The first study in this paper was conducted on students in an introductory EE course ( $n\,\,= 79$ ) that measured affordance beliefs about the EE profession and tested associations with intensions to persist. The second study compared affordance beliefs and trait endorsements held by students in the introductory level course with those in an advanced EE courses ( $n\,\,=51$ ). Findings: Mediation analysis revealed that the more novice students believe that EE allows them to fulfill prosocial goals, the greater their persistence intentions (95% CI: 0.01 to 0.34). This analysis also showed that agency beliefs were not strongly associated with persistence intensions.

Exploring Challenges of Assessment in Engineering Problem Solving, A Thematic Analysis

Through a thematic analysis of open-ended survey responses, we explore the challenges assessors face during assessment (summative evaluation and formative feedback) of students’ work. The assessors were primed by asking them to mark solutions to closed-ended engineering problems typical in introductory Electrical and Civil engineering courses. The subsequent survey asked the assessors to reflect on their experience. The analysis of the thematic frequency count is presented and discussed in this paper. The data suggests that from the perspective of assessors, current assessment practices need improvement. In particular, it appears that summative evaluation is seen as the primary goal and feedback is given as time allows. However, the participants also identified insufficient time as a challenge, which may further diminish feedback

Engineers' Responsibilities for Global Electronic Waste: Exploring Engineering Student Writing Through a Care Ethics Lens.

This paper provides an empirically informed perspective on the notion of responsibility using an ethical framework that has received little attention in the engineering-related literature to date: ethics of care. In this work, we ground conceptual explorations of engineering responsibility in empirical findings from engineering student's writing on the human health and environmental impacts of "backyard" electronic waste recycling/disposal. Our findings, from a purposefully diverse sample of engineering students in an introductory electrical engineering course, indicate that most of these engineers of tomorrow associated engineers with responsibility for the electronic waste (e-waste) problem in some way. However, a number of responses suggested attempts to deflect responsibility away from engineers towards, for example, the government or the companies for whom engineers work. Still other students associated both engineers and non-engineers with responsibility, demonstrating the distributed/collective nature of responsibility that will be required to achieve a solution to the global problem of excessive e-waste. Building upon one element of a framework for care ethics adopted from the wider literature, these empirical findings are used to facilitate a preliminary, conceptual exploration of care-ethical responsibility within the context of engineering and e-waste recycling/disposal. The objective of this exploration is to provide a first step toward understanding how care-ethical responsibility applies to engineering. We also hope to seed dialogue within the engineering community about its ethical responsibilities on the issue. We conclude the paper with a discussion of its implications for engineering education and engineering ethics that suggests changes for educational policy and the practice of engineering.

Active and Collaborative Learning in an Introductory Electrical and Computer Engineering Course

Abstract Active and collaborative learning instruments were introduced into an introductory electrical and computer engineering course. These instruments were designed to assess specific learning objectives and program outcomes. Results show that students developed an understanding comparable to that of more advanced students assessed later in the curriculum.

Active and Collaborative Learning in an Introductory Electrical and Computer Engineering Course

Active and collaborative learning instruments were introduced into an introductory electrical and computer engineering course. These instruments were designed to assess specific learning objectives and program outcomes. Results show that students developed an understanding comparable to that of more advanced students assessed later in the curriculum.

Maximum Power Transfer Theorem: A Simplified Approach

This brief note illustrates a simplified approach for deriving the maximum power transfer condition through simple algebraic manipulation. The approach allows students in introductory electrical and electronic engineering courses to be introduced to this important concept before they have acquired the background calculus necessary for traditional treatment of the topic.

A new introductory electrical engineering curriculum for the first-year student

This paper reports on the author's experience with respect to a major revision of the introductory Electrical Engineering curriculum at Worcester Polytechnic Institute. The new curriculum incorporates classroom and laboratory experience in electrical engineering for first-year students. The new courses are based on the spiral approach to education in which concepts are introduced at an applications-oriented level, and then repeatedly revisited with successively greater levels of detail and theoretical sophistication. The plan that has been adopted was the result of extensive study within the department in which current students and alumni participated through surveys. An assessment plan and preliminary assessment results are discussed. >

Using spreadsheets in introductory EE courses

Ways in which spreadsheet programs can be used to introduce practical considerations in introductory electrical engineering courses are discussed. Examples are presented which show that spreadsheets can be used to predict and/or minimize the errors due to loading, the availability of only standard resistor values, and resistor tolerances. The circuits considered in these examples were selected to be as simple as possible. These examples could be used in the first semester of sophomore credits. They illustrate trade-offs, performance criteria, and nonunique solutions, and are intended to illustrate the power of spreadsheet programs. In the first example, a macro is used to implement a simple iterative optimization procedure. In the second example, minimization is done by exhaustive search using the table lookup capabilities of the spreadsheet. In the final example, the spreadsheet's random number generator is used to perform a Monte Carlo analysis. >

Circuit Master: turnkey software for the introductory electrical engineering curriculum

A turnkey software system for the introductory electrical engineering curriculum is described in detail from a user's perspective. The system, Circuit Master, provides a structured, interactive, menu-driven environment that allows students to explore basic concepts in circuit and signal theory without requiring a background in computer programming. The system's interactive user interface and visual presentation format simultaneously display relationships between circuit components, pole-zero patterns. Bode plots, initial conditions, input/output signal waveforms, and input/output signal spectra for periodic and aperiodic signals. Simultaneous display of information for two sets of circuit components allows physical relationships, parametric changes, and sensitivity issues to be examined easily.< <ETX xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">&gt;</ETX>

COALA-A Minicomputer CAI System

This paper describes a computer-based learning project developed under the auspices of the Educational Technology Unit of the Victoria Institute of Colleges (Australia). Specifically, the project has developed a computer-based learning system for an introductory electrical engineering network theory course, making use of a standard, commercially available disk-based minicomputer system with graphics display terminals. The software developed for the system consists of 1) a course comprising frames of learning material with which the student interacts; 2) general student response evaluation facilities; 3) a semiautomatic means of authoring specific learning frames incorporating textual and graphical display; and 4) a supervisory system which interfaces the student with the learning material and student-aid facilities, monitors his progress, and guides him through the course.

A Modified Form of PSI Employed in an Introductory Electrical Engineering Course

An experimental teaching strategy was employed in a three-quarter introductory Electrical Engineering course. The system was designed to combine the best features of PSI (Proctoral System of Instruction, also known as the Keller Method) and the conventional system, in the context of engineering education. The most important feature is that it allows students to master every assigned problem and rewards them for that mastery. It was found that a very high percentage of students will take advantage of this opportunity. The percentage of students successfully completing the course was high-73%. The experiment was an exploratory one; no control group was employed. Therefore, the net pedagogical impact is not known. But it is known that the system is highly liked by students and is very good for morale.