Introductory Engineering Research Articles

Assessing Engineering Design: A Comparison of the Effect of Exams and Design Practica on First-Year Students’ Design Self-Efficacy

Abstract In response to calls for engineering programs to better prepare students for future careers, many institutions offer courses with a design component to first-year engineering students. This work proposes that traditional exam-based assessments of design concepts are inadequate, and alternative forms of assessment are needed to assess student learning in design courses. This paper investigates the self-efficacy differences between a traditional exam and a two-part practicum as a mid-semester assessment for introductory engineering students enrolled in a first-year design course. Increased self-efficacy has been linked to various positive student outcomes and increased retention of underrepresented students. The practicum consisted of an in-class team design task and an out-of-class individual reflection, while the exam was a traditional, individual written exam. All students completed a pre-assessment survey and a post-assessment survey, both of which included measures of design self-efficacy. Analysis showed that the practicum increased the design self-efficacy of students more effectively than the exam. Students who identified as women had greater gains in design self-efficacy during the practicum as compared with men. Identifying as a minority subgroup student was also trending toward being a significant predictor of change in design self-efficacy for the practicum. Findings suggest that a mid-semester practicum is a successful assessment of design competencies that contributes to increased first-year engineering student self-efficacy.

2C07 タイ高専 (KOSEN-KMITL) における工学導入教育の実践 －初年度第1学年生の高専生としてのマインドセットの育成－

2C07 タイ高専 (KOSEN-KMITL) における工学導入教育の実践 －初年度第1学年生の高専生としてのマインドセットの育成－

Mitigation of greenhouse gases and rice yields through the addition of urea coated biochar and biocompost in rainfed field

Rice is a strategic commodity, economic, and even political. Rice, as an economic commodity, can be seen from its ability to move the economy through the growth of fertilizer companies (organic and inorganic), seeds, pesticides, and agricultural tools and machinery. The research was carried out in the form of a demonstration in upland in Sidomukti Village, Jaken Subdistrict, Pati Regency, Central Java Province. The study was conducted in the dry season (DS) in 2018, using Ciherang rice varieties with Walik Jerami season in upland. The research consisted of 3 treatments, which were Introductory Technology 1 (T1) in the form of urea coated biochar (UCB), Introductory Technology 2 (T2) in the form of biocompost with balanced fertilization and farmer’s technique (T0). This results in rice ecosystems by means of farmers’ assistance produced higher fluxes than UCB and biocompost settings. Cumulative CH4 flux in the highest plot of farmer’s technique compared to UCB and biocompost, farmer’s technique produced 1,765.32 mgCH4m−2, biocompost produced 692.04 mgCH4m−2 while the UCB produced 471.67 mgCH4m−2 at the end of observation. Rice ecosystem with UCB produced N2O flux higher than biocompost and farmer’s technique. And treatment UCB emitted CH4 226.13 kg ha-1season-1, GWP 5.42 tCO2e ha-1season-1, and has the lowest emission index value compared to the other treatments is 1.45.

USE OF AN INDIGENOUS LEARNING BUNDLE IN AN ENGINEERING PROJECT COURSE

In response to the Calls to Action of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada a range of Collaborative Indigenous Learning Bundles have been introduced at a Canadian university to provide ways for Indigenous knowledge to be incorporated into courses across the university. One of the first courses in the engineering faculty to use the Indigenous Environment Relations Bundle was a third year project course for the BEng Electrical Engineering program. The use of the bundle, through the learning management system, was part of the lecture series and was used in a class discussion with an optional reflection. The objective was to provide complementary Indigenous knowledge to the discussion of the environmental impact of engineering. A first year introductory engineering course used the First Peoples: A Brief Overview. The response of the students in both courses was respectful and produced thoughtful discussions. Those that undertook the optional reflection produced insightful and often personal thoughts on a particular place. The use of the bundles shows that Indigenous matters and information from knowledge keepers can be integrated into engineering courses.

An engineering economy concept inventory

There has been considerable recent emphasis on valid assessment of learning in engineering education. When new teaching pedagogies are introduced, it can be very challenging to demonstrate increases in learning of course concepts. While there are a number of accepted concept inventories available for some engineering topics (statics and dynamics, heat and energy, signals and systems, and statistics), reliable and valid tools for assessing learning are not readily available for many curriculum areas, including engineering economy. This paper discusses the reliability and validity of the Engineering Economy Concept Inventory (EECI) that can be used to assess learning in any introductory engineering economy course. Development of the EECI began in 2009 for use in assessing the effectiveness of model-eliciting activities in the classroom and has since been revised and reformulated a number of times. In the fall of 2018, the EECI was administered at multiple institutions for further evaluation of its validity and results from these groups of students are presented. The paper concludes with remarks regarding the reliability and validity of the instrument and recommendations for its use as a tool to assess knowledge in engineering economy.

The concept-specific effects of cooperative learning in an introductory engineering mechanics dynamics course

ABSTRACT Cooperative learning, using small groups to complete a common goal, has a positive effect on student achievement and potential in foundational engineering mechanics courses. The purpose of this study was to quantitatively examine the effects of cooperative learning on student performance, if these effects are concept-specific, and perceptions of learning within an introductory Dynamics course. Data were collected from one section of n = 55 students. Optional weekly cooperative sessions were offered in addition to in-class traditional lecture. Students who attended cooperative sessions earned 12.8% higher overall grade (p= 0.001) specifically attributable to rigid body kinematics (p= 0.002) and rigid body kinetics (p= 0.001), which is newer and more challenging material for students. Cooperative learning was associated with positive perceptions of learning, with 85–95% of students agreeing that it was helpful towards the understanding of material. Future work aims to incorporate group processing and adaptations for different class sizes.

Increasing success in college: Examining the impact of a project‐based introductory engineering course

AbstractBackgroundProject‐based learning has shown promise in improving learning outcomes for diverse students. However, studies on its impacts have largely focused on the perceptions of students and instructors or students' immediate performance. This study reports the impact of taking a project‐based introductory engineering course on students' subsequent academic success.Purpose/HypothesisThis quantitative study examines characteristics related to enrollment in the project‐based introductory engineering course and subsequent academic performance. We hypothesized that participation in the course would be associated with higher academic performance in subsequent engineering courses. In addition, we examined heterogeneity effects for students traditionally underrepresented in engineering education.Design/MethodThis study utilized data on students' demographics, academic preparation, course enrollment, and course performance from 1,318 engineering students from a large public university in Southern California. Logistic regression analysis with robust standard errors examined enrollment patterns. We applied propensity scores as inverse‐probability weights in multiple linear models to calculate the average treatment effect on the treated for participants from the project‐based introductory engineering course in five subsequent engineering courses. This analysis was conducted for all students and for selected student subgroups.ResultsEnrollment in the project‐based introductory engineering course was positively associated with students' performance in some subsequent engineering courses and did not adversely affect students traditionally underrepresented in engineering.ConclusionsThis study provides an example of a project‐based introductory engineering course that can support students' academic success in engineering. The benefits detected for some student populations (e.g., female) are encouraging for broadening engineering pathways.

Distance Education in the Time of Coronavirus: Quick and Easy Strategies for Professors

A worldwide pandemic is forcing schools to close their doors. Yet the need to teach students remains. How can faculty – especially those who are not trained in technology-mediated teaching – maintain educational continuity? This Essay provides some suggestions and relatively quick and easy strategies for distance education in this time of coronavirus. While it is written from the perspective of teaching law school, it can be applied to teaching other humanities such as philosophy, literature, religion, political theory, and other subjects that do not easily lend themselves to charts, graphs, figures, and diagrams. This Essay includes an introductory technology section for those techno-phobic faculty who are now being required to teach online, and it concludes with five straightforward steps to start teaching online quickly.

Impact of Team Formation Method on Student Performance, Attitudes, and Behaviors

This project examined the effects of two team selection methods (self-selected and instructor-formed based on matched academic performance) on team and individual student performance and on self-reported attitudes and team behaviors in a freshman-level core-required introductory engineering course. The inclusion of both mid and end-of-semester self-reports provided some insights on the development of team dynamics, and because self-report data were not anonymous, correlations could be performed between the self-report and performance data. Matched-performance groups had significantly higher grades on several performance measures, with a larger effect on the team grades than on the individual grades; however, overall the effect sizes were small. There were no group differences for most self-reported items, although a key finding was that self-selected teams were significantly more likely to already have friends on their team, and a significant correlation showed that already having friends on a team was negatively correlated with many of the performance measures. In contrast, members of both types of teams reported equally high likelihood to make new friends, which was positively correlated with performance. For both groups there were small but significant decreases from mid to end of semester in satisfaction with team formation method, general enjoyment, and task-orientation over time. All of these time-related factors also showed significant correlations with the performance measures. Therefore, these factors seem like natural points for instructor attention when using teams. Understanding the impact of different approaches to team formation may guide instructors and lead to more well-functioning teams, higher student learning, and greater student satisfaction.

Improving Undergraduate Engineering Students' Figural Spatial Ability through Digital Brain-Training Game

Undergraduate engineering students often struggle in mastering engineering course contents. Although introductory engineering courses were extensively taught, it was deemed not enough, especially in graphic expression since it requires high levels of spatial ability. Moreover, spatial ability is acquired beyond formal learning through leisure training and not explicitly taught. Thus, a digital brain training game i.e. Cubes Spatial Reasoning FREE (CSR) was used in this study in attempt to improve figural spatial ability. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the impact of the use of CSR on figural spatial ability of undergraduate engineering students in terms of mental rotation and spatial orientation. 30 undergraduate engineering students were selected using purposive sampling method. Mental Rotation Test (MRT) was used to measure mental rotation and Spatial Orientation Test (SOT) was used to measure spatial orientation. Findings indicated that CSR significantly improved figural spatial ability in terms of mental rotation and spatial orientation. In conclusion, as indicated in this preliminary study, CSR may be used as a training tool to potentially improve mental rotation and spatial orientation in undergraduate engineering students.

Interventions for Promoting Student Engagement and Predicting Performance in an Introductory Engineering Class

Interventions for Promoting Student Engagement and Predicting Performance in an Introductory Engineering Class

Keeping in School Shape (KiSS): A Program for Rehearsing Math Skills Over Breaks from School

If you don’t use it, you lose it. School breaks, during which students do not regularly participate in instruction, can therefore have negative consequences on learning. This is especially true for mathematics learning since skills build progressively on earlier materials. How can we bridge these gaps in formal instruction? The Keeping in School Shape (KiSS) program is a mobile, engaging, innovative, and cost-effective way of using technology to help students who have time off between related math courses stay fresh on prerequisite knowledge and skills. Founded on learning theory and designed on a model of behavioral change, the KiSS program embodies retrieval practice and nudges by sending students a daily multiple-choice review problem via text messaging over school break. After rating their confidence in solving the daily problem students receive feedback and a solution. This study explores measures of participation, accuracy, and confidence in an implementation of the KiSS program over winter break between two sequential introductory engineering courses at a large state university in the Southwest United States. Results indicate that careful attention should be paid to the construction of the first few days of the program, and that encouragement, additional resources for review and practice, and an increased breadth of problem difficulty may improve participation.

The Effectiveness of the Flipped Classroom Model Using E-learning Media in Introduction to Information Technology Course

This study aimed to develop learning tools based on E-Learning in introductory information technology course. E-Learning, a web-based learning tool that uses classroom flipped learning models. The method used in this research was Analysis, Design, Development, Implementation, and Evaluation (ADDIE) with processed data sourced from 22 students. The effectiveness of this study was very effective because through the calculation of the Gain score it was found that the overall average value of students there was an improvement. The average increase in learning outcomes was 0.591949 with a moderate gain score acquisition criteria. Then, it was concluded that e-learning using the flipped classroom learning model was very helpful in introducing Infor-mation Technology and as an E-Learning guideline for other subjects.

Management of skill-oriented subjects and goal attainment in private secondary schools in Ikom Education Zone, Cross River State, Nigeria

This study investigated management of skill-oriented subjects and goal attainment in private secondary schools in Ikom Education Zone, Cross River State, Nigeria. To achieve the purpose of the study, two research questions were raised and converted to two null hypotheses to guide the study. Literature review was done based on the variables of the study. Survey research design was adopted for the study. The population of the study comprised 127 private secondary schools in Ikom Education Zone, Cross River State. All the 127 administrators of the schools were used for the study through census approach. The instrument for the study was the researchers-developed questionnaire titled: Management of Skill Oriented Subject Questionnaire (MSOSQ) and School Goal Attainment Questionnaire (SGAQ) designed on four-point Likert scale format. The MSOSQ measured 6 items, while SGAQ measured 18 items. The instrument was validated by two experts in Test, Measurement and Evaluation Department, University of Calabar. After the trial test, the reliability coefficient range of 0.72 to 0.91 were obtained which were considered reliable. The data collected were analyzed using Descriptive Statistics and Pearson Product Correlation Analysis at 0.05 level of significance with 125 degree of freedom. Findings revealed that management of Agricultural Science and Introductory Technology subjects did not have a significant relationship with secondary school goals attainment in terms of higher education opportunity, knowledge acquisition and learning outcome. It was recommended among others that Principals should ensure adequate management of skills oriented subjects in order to make students employable rather than job seekers.Keywords: Management, Skill-Oriented Subject, Goal Attainment, Computational Content, Introductory Technology

Introductory Engineering Decision-Making: Guiding First-Year Students to Relativism in Software Design

Contribution: A semester-long, open-ended design project was implemented to promote intellectual development of first-year students while reinforcing event-driven/procedural programming principles. This paper describes this approach, and an evaluation strategy using Perry’s model for intellectual development. The results show that students can reach the relativism stage of Perry’s model in their first year of studies. Background: Students must move beyond a dualistic worldview to be engineers. Felder and Brent provided a list of recommendations to promote this type of intellectual development in students; active learning strategies strongly align with these recommendations. While active learning is common in programming courses (sometimes taking the form of project-based learning), they are typically tightly controlled by the instructor, and limited in scope (both in time and complexity), potentially reducing their impact on students. Intended Outcomes: This course and term-long project provided students a supportive environment in which to develop their decision-making skills, and promoted their intellectual development through Perry’s stages related to software design. Application Design: Aligned with Felder and Brent’s recommendations and Kuh’s High Impact Practices, a course was built to: 1) teach students procedural programming, with 2) a focus on software design and open-ended problem solving, while maintaining 3) a supportive environment for skill acquisition. Findings: A mixed methods study showed the majority of students align themselves with the relativism stage of intellectual development at the end of the course. This study also illuminated the decision-making processes of teams of students in a first-year software design course.

Developing real life problem-solving skills through situational design: a pilot study

Current problem-solving research has advanced our understanding of the problem-solving process but has provided little advice on how to teach problem-solving skills. In addition, literature reveals that individual difference is an essential issue in problem-solving skills instruction but has been rarely addressed in current research. Building upon information-processing theory, this article proposes an instructional design model, namely the situational design model, which serves as an approach to accommodate individual difference in problem-solving skills instruction. This design model was further examined with a pilot study in an introductory technology course and results showed a significant difference in students’ academic performance and problem-solving skills, especially the non-recurrent skills. The proposed situational design model contributes to research and practice by providing a novel lens to explore problem-solving skills and assisting in the design of instruction that aims to develop student’s expertise in solving real world problems.

Comparison of Academic Performance of Students in Online Vs Traditional Engineering Course

Abstract Universities in the U.S. typically offer to teach introductory engineering courses in large classes to tackle the increase in undergraduate engineering enrolment and to save on cost of teaching. Previous studies done on traditionally taught large classes have shown the negative effects it has on students and faculty. Many institutions use online courses to teach these large classes due to the flexibility they provide students with in their schedule and pace of learning, as well as being less expensive for the university. This study aimed to investigate the effect of online pedagogy on the academic performance of students enrolled in mechanics of materials course taught at a U.S. Midwestern University. The findings of the study reveal that the online pedagogy had a negative effect on student academic performance when compared with the traditionally taught group. This was true for all demographics (gender, enrolment status, nationality) and categories (high, medium and low academic performance) of students except for high performing students for whom online pedagogy shows promise.

An introductory course in green chemistry: Progress and lessons learned

Abstract This work provides a description of our experience with designing and implementing green chemistry elements in higher education. It addresses the problem of content and methodology in green chemistry education and provides models of innovative approaches in design and teaching practices. An introductory course, Pollution Prevention, Green Chemistry and Green Engineering, supported by a grant from Michigan Department of Environmental Quality, was designed at Grand Valley State University (GVSU), in Michigan, in 2008 and run for the first time in 2009, with 12 students. The positive response from the students who took the class coupled with increasing visibility of green chemistry initiative at the state level (MI Governor’s Green Chemistry directive and Green Chemistry Round Table) led the GVSU administration to recognize the need of such a course and, after revision, to its inclusion into the Chemistry Department curriculum, under the designation “Introduction to green chemistry”, CHM 111. This remains to be a sought-after course for freshmen and upper-level undergraduates interested in the issues of green chemistry who have no chemistry background in their education. Since 2011, the course ran twice a year with a total of 302 students to date (December 2017). From semester to semester, it underwent several modifications, in order to accommodate the most recent, up-to-date developments in green chemistry and green engineering. The repository of teaching materials created is growing continuously. The progress and lessons learned throughout the years in running this course are summarized here.

Large‐scale student programs increase persistence in STEM fields in a public university setting

AbstractBackgroundLouisiana State University's (LSU) STEM Talent Expansion Program (STEP) was established to increase students' persistence in first‐year, declared engineering majors (a project priority), in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) majors (an NSF goal), and in all majors at LSU (an institutional goal). Over 8 years, 3,097 (27%) engineering students participated in one or more STEP activities including a residential college, a student mentoring program, an introductory engineering design course, and a summer bridge camp for first‐year students.PurposeThis paper describes the influence of the STEP activities on persistence, while accounting for demographic and academic preparation variables.Design/MethodData collected over 8 years from first‐year engineering students include demographics, academic preparation, participation in STEP activities, and yearly status regarding major and graduation. Descriptive statistics, correlation analysis, and multiple logistic regression determine which factors significantly impact persistence in engineering majors, in STEM majors, and in all majors at LSU.ResultsSTEP participants have higher persistence levels than nonparticipants by at least 11% in engineering, 9% in STEM, and 5% in all majors at LSU. Gender, ACT math scores, and, in some cases, ethnicity significantly impact persistence. Participation in the residential college, introductory course, and mentoring programs significantly increased persistence in engineering majors, in STEM majors, and at the university, while the summer bridge camp did not show as much influence on persistence overall.ConclusionSTEP was successful at increasing persistence in engineering and STEM majors. Specific STEP activities continue to evolve in the College of Engineering and should continue to reap positive results in the persistence of engineering students.

Student Video-Usage in Introductory Engineering Courses

As videos are gaining popularity in flipped and blended Engineering classrooms, there is an increasing need to track and understand students’ use of the videos, in order to identify evidence-based practices matched to the emerging trends in video and video annotation tools. We explore students’ surveyresponses, follow-up interviews, and log data from their interaction with common video platforms as well as, ViDeX, a new experimental video annotation tool, to evaluate how, when and why students watch, rewatch, and annotate videos in two large introductory Engineering courses, with flipped, and blended formats. Our findings show that students watch thevideos with the instructors’ intended use in mind, and plan their review process accordingly. In the flipped classroom, most students summarized the short preclass screencasts in their personal notes to minimize the need to re-watch the videos before the exam. In contrast, students in the blended classroom reexamined the long tutorial videos mostly to redo the problems before the midterm and final exams. Bookmarking seemed to be useful for locating those problems of interest. Since the problems required drawings and computations, paper annotation was more beneficial than a dedicated video annotation platform.