Multidisciplinary Course Research Articles

A Study of Factors Influencing the Problem-Solving Skills of Engineering Students

Problem-solving skill is one of the essential attributes of an engineering graduate. It refers to the ability of the person to analyse a given problem and offer the best solution within the constraints. Engineering curriculum has the mandate of equipping students with skills and competencies in problemsolving. Several factors influence the problemsolving skills in addition to the technical skills and com peten cies o ffered thro ug h cu rri cular interventions. Psychological factors, which are habitual patterns of behaviour, thought and emotion, also influence problem-solving skills. This study focuses on investigating the influence of psychological factors like motivation, perception, stress, team working skills, learning styles, general self-efficacy on problem-solving skills of engineering students. This study focused on first-year students of undergraduate engineering program registered for a course titled Engineering Exploration. This course is a three-credit multidisciplinary course that effectively uses Activity-Based Learning (ABL), Design-Based Learning (DBL) and Project-Based Learning (PBL) pedagogical practices. The data collected for the study was through interviews and the use of well-structured questionnaires administered to first-year students enrolled for the course offered at the university. Results show that the psychological factors of students like motivation, perception, general selfefficacy and teamwork skills have a positive influence on problem-solving skills, while stress has a negative effect. However, the difference in learning styles does not influence problem-solving skills.

Multidisciplinary education improves school personnel's self-efficacy in managing food allergy and anaphylaxis.

Despite a relatively high risk for allergic reactions, including anaphylaxis, schools are not sufficiently trained and confident in handling children suffering from food allergy. This study aimed to measure the improvement of school personnel's self-efficacy in managing food allergy and anaphylaxis at school after a specific multidisciplinary training course. A total of 592 teachers and school caretakers completed the School Personnel Self-Efficacy-Food Allergy and Anaphylaxis Questionnaire (S.PER.SE-FAAQ) before and after the course. The median difference, along with I quartile and III quartile, in scores between baseline and post-intervention assessment was calculated. A conditional regression tree was fitted for each outcome measured after the educational intervention. At baseline, school personnel reported low self-efficacy in anaphylaxis management (AM), especially in recognizing anaphylaxis symptoms and administering proper drugs. After the specific multidisciplinary training course, all scores improved. AM scores particularly showed a significant increase. School personnel's post-training self-efficacy was found to be related to initial levels. Some indicative threshold values emerged. Remarkably, participants with a low self-efficacy at baseline seemed to particularly benefit from the training. Results highlighted the effectiveness of specific multidisciplinary training courses in improving teachers' and school caretakers' self-efficacy in managing food allergy and anaphylaxis. The S.PER.SE-FAAQ is confirmed to be an easy and helpful tool to assess the level of food allergy and anaphylaxis management in the school staff and training effectiveness.

Approaching 3R teaching in biomedical engineering

Since its adhesion to Centro3R, Politecnico di Torino has approached 3R teaching through a new Master course, entitled “New advances in alternative preclinical trials”. This is a multidisciplinary optional course for Master students in Biomedical Engineering, with the contribution of different teachers, who are experts on different aspects of preclinical testing of biomedical devices: European Standards for preclinical experimentation; preclinical animal models; protection of animal welfare in the European legislation; the role of statistics on the application of the 3R principle; preclinical experimental models in vitro; in silico models. This contribution describes the subjects faced by the course and their importance in the context of the 3R Principle.

The Pediatric Multidisciplinary Difficult Airway Course - an innovation in airway education

The Pediatric Multidisciplinary Difficult Airway Course - an innovation in airway education

Improving Student Readiness for Inquiry-Based Learning: An Engineering Case Study

During the past decade, the authors have sought to advance student research in a predominantly teaching institution. The two primary challenges were: academic - how to introduce and promote inquiry-based learning (IBL) given the constraints, and business - how to obtain and sustain funding in the area of industry-sponsored research. The authors developed a successful multidisciplinary modeling course that integrates four teaching and learning strategies and where key learning outcomes strengthen student readiness to engage in research. The course culminates with research performed as part of an IBL strategy that is relevant and supported by mentoring. The benefits include development of intellectual and practical skills that underlie a central activity of engineering design. The course structure, evidence of student work, and evolution over time to meet challenges are presented and discussed. Most importantly, the potential of this strategy to be implemented across other topical areas is addressed. Student participation in research improves learning of engineering and scientific concepts, increases interaction with faculty and industry sponsors, and provides opportunities for work in emerging technology areas. Benefits accrue both to students who pursue a research career and to those who enter applied fields by strengthening their ability to propose innovative solutions.

Moving beyond superficial communication to collaborative communication: learning processes and outcomes of interprofessional education in actual medical settings.

The current study sought to understand the learning outcomes experienced by students and to explain their learning process in detail using interpretive data analysis. A qualitative study examined students who participated in a multidisciplinary course in a ward. This study investigated latent meanings rather than factual information, using an interpretive paradigm. Data were collected via focus groups and analyzed using Steps for Coding and Theorization (SCAT). Students in the Assembly IV trial (interprofessional education in actual medical settings) experienced a process of transition from a competing (exclusive) mode to a mutual-understanding mode when communicating with people in other professions, and they acquired the perspective of an interactive (dialectic) link between involved communication (communication that attempts to connect directly with patients) and uninvolved communication (communication with patients indirectly through data and other methods) for patient communication. This enabled students to move beyond superficial communication while deepening their connections with people in other professions, complementing each other's strengths, and learning about the possibilities inherent in the provision of collaborative medical practice. Students participating in interprofessional education within medical settings learned about the potential to achieve a circular realization of collaborative medical practice. A circular realization of collaborative medical practice involves incorporating diverse approaches into one's own professional work via exposure to the viewpoints of other occupations and avoiding decision-making based on assumptions that are only valid within one's own profession. This process enables the discovery of better methods and perspectives and the achievement of effective medical practice by moving beyond superficial communication.

Integrating Ethics in Engineering Education through Multidisciplinary Synthesis, Collaboration, and Reflective Portfolios

This article discusses two multidisciplinary courses created at the Colorado School of Mines that were developed to integrate ethics into the first-year engineering curriculum: “Nature and Human Values” (NHV) and “Innovation and Discovery in Engineering, Arts, and Sciences” (IDEAS). In both NHV and IDEAS, our objectives are to meaningfully integrate personal and professional ethics within […]

Changing Paradigms of Engineering Education - An Indian Perspective

Abstract VUCA (Volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous) characterize the engineering education scenario. Engineers form the backbone of any country’s economy. Around 25% of the world’s engineers are in India but it lags behind in research and innovation. At the global level, engineering education is experiencing a paradigm shift from teacher-centric to student-centric teaching- learning process, content based education to outcome based education, knowledge seeking to knowledge sharing classrooms, teachers to facilitators, traditional engineering disciplines to interdisciplinary courses, chalk and board (lecture based) learning to technology driven learning and the list goes on. But in India, still conventional teaching – learning practices with little practical training is adopted in many institutions. This is shown by the fact the Indian institutions still struggle to make a position in world ranking with few exceptions. A country which pioneered in engineering, medicine, arts and music etc. in ancient era, suffers major setbacks in technical education. Hence this study attempts to analyse the perception of stakeholders, viz. students, parents, academic faculty and industry, on engineering education and the future of engineering education. Focus group consultations with select group of respondents were carried out. The results were analysed which showed that the students perceive positively on engineering education but at the same time are apprehensive about the position of engineers in the society. Parents’ perception towards engineering is solely on the job opportunities but the faculty members opined changes in the mindset of students and the impact of social media on general attitude. Industries expressed lack of employable engineers and lack of skills in new age technologies. Overall the respondents favoured the introduction of new and multidisciplinary courses to meet future demands.

The need for positive pedagogy in multi-disciplinary STEM courses in higher education: an opinion piece

In the context of market demands and expectations from STEM graduates, we are moving from an era of specialisation to super-specialisation to multi-specialisation courses. In future, a significant ...

What do Master’s students’ structured reflections say about the learning processes involved in commencing a research project?

This study aims to unpack the reflective learning processes involved in developing a Masters’ research project proposal as part of a multidisciplinary Research Design course. Using inductive analysis, we explored students’ reflective blogs written over a period of a semester and defined the reflections according to an adaptation of Hatton and Smith’s (1995) framework. Our findings are that the nature of each individual blog topic affected the quality and level of reflection, which in turn is affected by the ‘learning ecology’ (Harvey, Coulson, & McMaugh, 2016 p. 12). More highly scaffolded blogs showed greater evidence of reflective practice. Likewise the nature of the practice (starting research) influenced reflection, since many processes are internal rather than requiring explicit practice to reflect on. In addition, as nascent practitioner researchers, the students are also involved in reflexivity rather than reflection and therefore some topics encouraged this form of reflection more than others did. This study is significant in that it explores reflection in research and practitioner contexts, focuses on early career researchers/practitioners and brings a multidisciplinary perspective.

A case for feedback and monitoring assessment in competency-based medical education.

Within competency-based medical education, self-regulated learning (SRL) requires residents to leverage self-assessment and faculty feedback. We sought to investigate the potential for competency-based assessments to foster SRL by quantifying the relationship between faculty feedback and entrustment ratings as well as the congruence between faculty assessment and resident self-assessment. We collected comments in (a) an emergency medicine objective structured clinical examination group (objective structured clinical examinations [OSCE] and emergency medicine OSCE group [EMOG]) and (b) a first-year resident multidisciplinary resuscitation "Nightmares" course assessment group (NCAG) and OSCE group (NOG). We assessed comments across five domains including Initial Assessment (IA), Diagnostic Action (DA), Therapeutic Action (TA), Communication (COM), and entrustment. Analyses included structured qualitative coding and (non)parametric and descriptive analyses. In the EMOG, faculty's positive comments in the entrustment domain corresponded to lower entrustment score Mean Ranks (MRs) for IA (<11.1), DA (<11.2), and entrustment (<11.6). In NOG, faculty's negative comments resulted in lower entrustment score MRs for TA (<11.8 and <10) and DA (<12.4), and positive comments resulted in higher entrustment score MRs for IA (>15.4) and COM (>17.6). In the NCAG, faculty's positive IA comments were negatively correlated with entrustment scores (ρ = -.27, P = .04). Across programs, faculty and residents made similar domain-specific comments 13% of the time. Minimal and inconsistent associations were found between narrative and numerical feedback. Performance monitoring accuracy and feedback should be included in assessment validation.

Using the Knowledge to Action Framework to Describe a Nationwide Implementation of the WHO Surgical Safety Checklist in Cameroon

BACKGROUND:Surgical safety has advanced rapidly with evidence of improved patient outcomes through structural and process interventions. However, knowledge of how to apply these interventions successfully and sustainably at scale is often lacking. The 2019 Global Ministerial Patient Safety Summit called for a focus on implementation strategies to maintain momentum in patient safety improvements, especially in low- and middle-income settings. This study uses an implementation framework, knowledge to action, to examine a model of nationwide World Health Organization (WHO) Surgical Safety Checklist implementation in Cameroon. Cameroon is a lower-middle-income country, and based on data from high- and low-income countries, we hypothesized that more than 50% of participants would be using the checklist (penetration) in the correct manner (fidelity) 4 months postintervention.METHODS:A collaboration of 3 stakeholders (Ministry of Health, academic institution, and nongovernmental organization) used a prospective observational design. Based on knowledge to action, there were 3 phases to the study implementation: problem identification (lack of routine checklist use in Cameroonian hospitals), multifaceted implementation strategy (3-day multidisciplinary training course, coaching, facilitated leadership engagement, and support networks), and outcome evaluation 4 months postintervention. Validated implementation outcomes were assessed. Primary outcomes were checklist use (penetration) and fidelity; secondary outcomes were perioperative teams’ reactions, learning and behavior change; and tertiary outcomes were perioperative teams’ acceptability of the checklist.RESULTS:Three hundred and fifty-one operating room staff members from 25 hospitals received training. Median time to evaluation was 4.5 months (interquartile range [IQR]: 4.5–5.5, range 3–7); checklist use (penetration) increased from 20% (95% confidence interval [CI], 16–25) to 56% (95% CI, 49–63); fidelity for adherence to 6 basic safety processes was high: verification of patient identification was 91% (95% CI, 87–95); risk assessment for difficult intubation was 79% (95% CI, 73–85): risk assessment for blood loss was 88% (95% CI, 83–93) use of pulse oximetry was 93% (95% CI, 90–97); antibiotic administration was 95% (95% CI, 91–98); surgical counting was 89% (95% CI, 84–93); and fidelity for nontechnical skills measured by the WHO Behaviorally Anchored Rating Scale was 4.5 of 7 (95% CI, 3.5–5.4). Median scores for all secondary outcomes were 10/10, and 7 acceptability measures were consistently more than 70%.CONCLUSIONS:This study shows that a multifaceted implementation strategy is associated with successful checklist implementation in a lower-middle-income country such as Cameroon, and suggests that a theoretical framework can be used to practically drive nationwide scale-up of checklist use.

Outcomes of Introducing a Mobile Interactive Learning Resource in a Large Medical School Course.

Mobile devices are an integral part of modern medical education, as convenient platforms for access to online interactive learning resources; students' use of textbooks has correspondingly declined. We designed an interactive iBook© for pre-clinical students encompassing the content of the pulmonary segment in an organ-based multidisciplinary course. We found, via a survey-based study, that students preferred the iBook to other faculty-supplied materials (PowerPoints and PDFs), mainly due to its interactive images, animations, and study questions. Students' test performance did not change significantly after introducing the iBook. This study suggests that expanded use of interactive learning resources may enhance students' engagement with pre-clinical courses.

CAD / ARDUINO INTRODUCTORY WORKSHOPS IN FIRST YEAR ENGINEERING PROJECT-BASED COURSE A WAY TO GET STUDENTS TO DESIGN AND BUILD HIGH QUALITY PROTOTYPES

As educators, there are several challenges that we need to overcome during the first-year of our engineering programs. We need to integrate students into the world of engineering and introduce them on practical aspects. We have to connect them with basic notions in various engineering fields and complementary disciplines. We have to start developing their design skills and make them able to conduct design projects despite an undeveloped level of knowledge. We want to make them able to design and build high-quality prototypes. &#x0D; At UQAR, the solution goes through a multi-disciplinary project-based course offered at the first term. This course brings together students from mechanical, electrical and electromechanical engineering programs which makes possible to form teams of students with varied skills from different backgrounds (technical and natural sciences).&#x0D; In 2018, the proposed project was the production of a stand-alone and collaborative mobile platform. This platform or robot receives an order for an item, picks up and transports a shelf to the deposit station, delivers the item, returns the shelf to its place and returns to the starting position, all while avoiding obstacles on the way.&#x0D; To fulfill such an ambitious mandate, basic notions of CAD, electronics and programming are needed. Our innovation is the introduction of workshops at the beginning of the term. Workshops are an important part of our recipe to enable students to overcome the design challenge.&#x0D; The mechanical workshops include four sessions related to mechanical CAD (modelling, sheet metal, assembly and drawing) and 3D printing.&#x0D; Arduino workshops include three sessions on how to use the Arduino IDE programming environment and incorporate some programming notions. Specialized material was produced concerning the introduction to microcontrollers and the Arduino platform. A set of specialized parts was provided to the students. Several demonstration examples and activities have been produced on digital inputs and outputs, analog inputs, pulse width modulation outputs, ultrasonic distance sensing, DC motors and H-bridges, servomotors, tracking sensors lines, wireless communication modules, mini-keyboards and LCDs.&#x0D; The workshops support the projects directly and allow students to carry out relatively complex projects in the first year despite their limited engineering knowledge.&#x0D;

PEER TUTORING IN A PROJECT-BASED COURSE PART 2: THE SECOND YEAR OF IMPLEMENTATION - IMPROVEMENTS AND BENEFITS

In Fall 2017, a peer-tutoring program (PTP) was implemented in a first-year multidisciplinary design course of the mechanical, electrical and electromechanical engineering programs at Université du Québec à Rimouski. Fourth-year students with relevant design experience acted as tutors for teams of first-year students. The intent was to reduce the pressure on our professional staff, while maintaining the quality of supervision. &#x0D; PTP assessment revealed that all stakeholders appreciated the experience. At low cost, it allowed more weekly hours of supervision and freed up time for professional staff to perform tasks requiring their expertise. Although the impact of the PTP on the quality of learning was not directly measured, the student level of satisfaction was very high. However, the teaching team concluded from PTP assessment results that tutors could have more impact on teamwork and team spirit if they were better prepared. Four main areas for improvement of the PTP have been identified. Modifications for improvement of the PTP were developed as follows. Tutor training was modified to include content on teamwork, group dynamics and conflict resolution. To enhance communication between tutors and teaching team, tutors were provided with a new week-by-week guide outlining project planning and giving tutors instructions for structuring team discussions. Tutors participated in a professional co-development session in the fifth week of the project, an activity that allowed tutors to learn from each other and improve their practice. Lastly, the assessment questionnaire was improved to collect more significant data on student learning and teamwork.&#x0D; The new assessment results reveal that the changes made to the PTP have had a very positive influence on teamwork and group dynamics. Results also indicate that the improved PTP has a positive impact on achievement of course objectives. In conclusion, peer tutoring is evidently a very good strategy for supporting first-year students in the development of their design skills.&#x0D;

Industry-Informed Workshops to Develop Graduate Skill Sets in the Circular Economy Using Systems Thinking.

Increasing demand for chemicals worldwide, depleting resources, consumer pressure, stricter legislation, and the rising cost of waste disposal are placing increasing pressure on chemical and related industries. For any organization to survive in the current arena of growing climate change laws and regulations, and increasing public influence, the issue of sustainability must be fundamental to the way it operates. A sustainable manufacturing approach will enable economic growth to be combined with environmental and social sustainability and will be realized via collaboration between a multidisciplinary community including chemists, biologists, engineers, environmental scientists, economists, experts in management, and policy makers. Hence, employees with new skills, knowledge, and experience are essential. To realize this approach, the design and development of a series of workshops encompassing systems thinking are presented here. After close consultation with industry, an annual program of interactive workshops has been designed for graduate students to go beyond examining the “greening” of chemical reactions, processes, and products, and instead embed a systems thinking approach to learning. The workshops provide a valuable insight into the issues surrounding sustainable manufacturing covering change management, commercialization, environmental impact, circular economy, legislation, and bioresources incorporating the conversion of waste into valuable products. The multidisciplinary course content incorporates industrial case studies, providing access to real business issues, and is delivered by experts from academic departments across campus and industry.

A multidisciplinary engineering capstone design course: A case study for design-based approach

The presented work describes the development of an engineering capstone course with multidisciplinary design projects and students’ teams. The course is offered for senior-level engineering students of four majors: those are bio-, environmental, materials, and mechanical engineering. In addition, engineering students can have minors in computer science. Most of the offered projects are sponsored by industrial partners and all are mentored by clients’ representatives and faculty members. The presented paper discusses the implementation of design-based learning approach to integrate the technical engineering design knowledge and the learning skills of interpersonal nature, such as communication skills, adaptability, teamwork, etc. In addition to the discussion of the design-based learning frame application, the paper deliberates over the importance of aligning the learning outcomes and the grading policy with the engineering design phases in engineering capstone design courses. The research objective of this study was to answer the following question: is there a difference in the peer evaluation of capstone design teams between multidisciplinary and single-disciplinary teams in terms of (1) contribution and skills and 2) team satisfaction. The presented work offers preliminary results of team’s satisfaction and performance based on the multi- and single-disciplinary teams. Preliminary findings for those two specific aspects indicate no significant differences in the overall design teams’ satisfaction. However, in terms of the team’s contribution and skills, the multidisciplinary teams scored higher mean values than the single-disciplinary teams.

Proposed classification for eLearning data analytics with MOA

&lt;span&gt;Elearning education has developed a crucial factor in the educational organization. With the situation of declining student size, elearning has to offer more cross-departmental and multi-disciplinary courses for individual needs to go over “one-size-fits-all” traditional model. Elearning data analytics which has not been professionally classified cannot produce reliable results. Classifications for elearning data help comfort the accuracy of outcomes and reducible pre-processing time. This research proposes a practical model for individual learning and personality. The proposed model based on data from the LMS classifies both the student preferences and personalities. The model helps design future curricula to suit student personalities, which intangibly assists them to be efficient in the study practice. Performance of the proposed classification is evaluated by using MOA software. It outperforms and improves the accuracy of complex elearning datasets. Besides, the results indicate an achievement in the students' study time after applying the association rule model on the elearning.&lt;/span&gt;

Team and Research Based Learning Methods Applied in Multidisciplinary Marine Engineering Education

This paper presents an integrated team-based, and research-based learning approach utilized in lecturing multidisciplinary marine engineering courses. The approach is exemplified during one month Ocean Engineering Summer School program at the Marine Technology Department, Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Trondheim, Norway, for a group of students from different universities across Japan. Students with engineering background, but not necessarily marine, joined to learn fundamentals of marine technology, including structure, hydrodynamic and dynamic response analysis presented through offshore structures, subsea equipment, pipelines, offshore wind energy, marine machinery and marine operations. The marine industry has moved toward digitalization and this aspect was an important part of the curriculum, both in terms of tools and methods lectured and employed for each discipline and industrial examples for instance simulation-based design and operation demonstration. An integrated team-based (TBL) and research-based (RBL) learning approach was employed. The outcomes and positive feedback from students and the Nippon Foundation Ocean Innovation Consortium demonstrated that RBL integrated with TBL shifts the students from being “audiences” in the classroom to “active participants”. The program was enriched with a rich cultural program which was found very helpful in learning process by the students. Moreover, the industrial insights added value for implementing the TBL and RBL. The marine engineering development and needs to adopt engineering education for modern marine industry, call for innovative and adaptive educational methods and this article presents some of the innovative methods which can be employed.

Turning Theory into Practice: A Case Study in the Arts

Students who take art and music courses learn not only content, but also develop new ways of thinking, communicating, and evaluating. Ultimately, such classes teach students to hear and to see, to be comfortable with ambiguity, to examine issues from multiple perspectives, and to develop sound strategies for working through confusing and sometimes controversial issues. We argue that the ways of thinking presented in these courses can transfer to any discipline. This article presents a targeted case study of our experience tailoring a multi-disciplinary arts course specifically to nursing students. We outline the course construction, document our findings, assess our results, and argue for the benefits of visual and aural training.