Optimizing Worked‐Example Instruction in Electrical Engineering: The Role of Fading and Feedback during Problem‐Solving Practice

How can we help college students develop problem‐solving skills in engineering? To answer this question, we asked a group of engineering freshmen to learn about electrical circuit analysis with an instructional program that presented different problem‐solving practice and feedback methods. Three findings are of interest. First, students who practiced by solving all problem steps and those who practiced by solving a gradually increasing number of steps starting with the first step first (forward‐fading practice) produced higher near‐transfer scores than those who were asked to solve a gradually increasing number of steps but starting with the last step first (backward‐fading practice). Second, students who received feedback immediately after attempting each problem‐solving step outperformed those who received total feedback on near transfer. Finally, students who learned with backward‐fading practice produced higher near‐ and far‐transfer scores when feedback included the solution of a similar worked‐out problem. The theoretical and practical implications for engineering education are discussed.     

The Effect of a First‐Year Integrated Engineering Curriculum on Graduation Rates and Student Satisfaction: A Longitudinal Study

This paper reports on the long‐term results of a two‐year experiment conducted in the 1994–1995 and 1995–1996 academic years in which a group of “average” engineering students was recruited for a first‐year program that integrated curricula and fostered a learning community. Students who participated in the Connections program graduated at a significantly higher rate than their peers and reflected retrospectively that the program had a strong positive effect on their college careers.     

Leaving Engineering: Lessons from Rowan University's College of Engineering

The paper focuses on retention in the Rowan University undergraduate engineering program with many “female‐friendly” features despite its design as best practices for all students. Both male and female “stayers” in the program are compared to “leavers” on a variety of characteristics, including pre‐college and family background, grades, satisfaction with the Rowan program, engineering self‐confidence, and future expectations about their engineering major and career. Data come from a special survey of all Rowan engineering students.     

Advancing Engineering Education in P‐12 Classrooms

Engineering as a profession faces the challenge of making the use of technology ubiquitous and transparent in society while at the same time raising young learners' interest and understanding of how technology works. Educational efforts in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (i.e., STEM disciplines) continue to grow in pre‐kindergarten through 12th grade (P‐12) as part of addressing this challenge. This article explores how engineering education can support acquisition of a wide range of knowledge and skills associated with comprehending and using STEM knowledge to accomplish real world problem solving through design, troubleshooting, and analysis activities. We present several promising instructional models for teaching engineering in P‐12 classrooms as examples of how engineering can be integrated into the curriculum. While the introduction of engineering education into P‐12 classrooms presents a number of opportunities for STEM learning, it also raises issues regarding teacher knowledge and professional development, and institutional challenges such as curricular standards and high‐stakes assessments. These issues are considered briefly with respect to providing direction for future research and development on engineering in P‐12.     

Collaborative Learning vs. Lecture/Discussion: Students' Reported Learning Gains*

This study examined the extent to which undergraduate engineering courses taught using active and collaborative learning methods differ from traditional lecture and discussion courses in their ability to promote the development of students' engineering design, problem‐solving, communication, and group participation skills. Evidence for the study comes from 480 students enrolled in 17 active or collaborative learning courses/sections and six traditional courses/sections at six engineering schools. Results indicate that active or collaborative methods produce both statistically significant and substantially greater gains in student learning than those associated with more traditional instructional methods. These learning advantages remained even when differences in a variety of student pre‐course characteristics were controlled.     

First Steps in Understanding Engineering Students' Growth of Conceptual and Procedural Knowledge in an Interactive Learning Context

The development of procedural knowledge in students, i.e., the ability to effectively solve domain problems, is the goal of many instructional initiatives in engineering education. The present study examined learning in a rich learning environment in which students read text, listened to narrations, interacted with simulations, and solved problems using instructional software for thermodynamics. Twenty‐three engineering and science majors who had not taken a thermodynamics course provided verbal protocol data as they used this software. The data were analyzed for cognitive processes. There were three major findings: (1) students expressed significantly more cognitive activity on computer screens requiring interaction compared to text‐based screens; (2) there were striking individual differences in the extent to which students employed the materials; and (3) verbalizations revealed that students applied predominantly lower‐level cognitive processes when engaging these materials, and they failed to connect the conceptual and procedural knowledge in ways that would lead to deeper understanding. The results provide a baseline for additional studies of more advanced students in order to gain insight into how students develop skill in engineering.     

Looking Beyond Content: Skill Development for Engineers

Current concerns over reforming engineering education have focused attention on helping students develop skills and an adaptive expertise. Phenomenological guidelines for instruction along these lines can be understood as arising out of an emerging theory of thinking and learning built on results in the neural, cognitive, and behavioral sciences. We outline this framework and consider some of its implications, such as developing a more detailed understanding of the specific skill of using mathematics in modeling physical situations. This approach provides theoretical underpinnings for some best‐practice instructional methods designed to help students develop this skill and provides guidance for further research in the area.     

An Intervention to Address Gender Issues in a Course on Design,Engineering, and Technology for Science Educators

A course on design, engineering, and technology based on Bandura's theory of self‐efficacy was taught to nine science education graduate students who were also practicing teachers. The interpretive analysis method was used to code and analyze qualitative data from focus groups, weekly reflections on classes and readings, and pre‐, post‐, and delayed‐post course questions. The improvement in tinkering and technical self‐efficacies for five males was limited because of initially higher self‐efficacies while that for four females was moderate to high, especially when working in same‐sex teams in a non‐competitive environment. All students also increased their understanding of the societal relevance of engineering and their ability to transfer engineering concepts to pre‐college classrooms. Implementing the principles employed in this intervention in pre‐college science and university engineering classrooms could help recruit students into engineering as well as help retain both male and female undergraduate engineering students.     

The Intellectual Development of Science and Engineering Students. Part 2: Teaching to Promote Growth

As college students experience the challenges of their classes and extracurricular activities, they undergo a developmental progression in which they gradually relinquish their belief in the certainty of knowledge and the omniscience of authorities and take increasing responsibility for their own learning. At the highest developmental level normally seen in college students (which few attain before graduation), they display attitudes and thinking patterns resembling those of expert scientists and engineers, including habitually and skillfully gathering and analyzing evidence to support their judgments. This paper proposes an instructional model designed to provide a suitable balance of challenge and support to advance students to that level. The model components are (1) variety and choice of learning tasks; (2) explicit communication and explanation of expectations; (3) modeling, practice, and constructive feedback on high‐level tasks; (4) a student‐centered instructional environment; and (5) respect for students at all levels of development.     

Everyday Problem Solving in Engineering: Lessons for Engineering Educators

Practicing engineers are hired, retained, and rewarded for solving problems, so engineering students should learn how to solve workplace problems. Workplace engineering problems are substantively different from the kinds of problems that engineering students most often solve in the classroom; therefore, learning to solve classroom problems does not necessarily prepare engineering students to solve workplace problems. These qualitative studies of workplace engineering problems identify the attributes of workplace problems. Workplace problems are ill‐structured and complex because they possess conflicting goals, multiple solution methods, non‐engineering success standards, non‐engineering constraints, unanticipated problems, distributed knowledge, collaborative activity systems, the importance of experience, and multiple forms of problem representation. Some implications for designing engineering curricula and experiences that better prepare students for solving workplace problems are considered.     

A Multimodal Exploration of Engineering Students' Emotions and Electrodermal Activity in Design Activities

Background

This exploratory study uses multimodal approaches to explore undergraduate student engagement via topic emotions and electrodermal activity (EDA) in different engineering design method activities and with different instructional delivery formats (e.g., lecture vs. active learning).

Purpose/Hypothesis

The goal of this research is to improve our understanding of how students respond, via engagement, to their engineering design activities during class. This study hypothesizes that students would experience no self‐reported mean changes in topic emotions from their preassessment scores for each engineering design topic and instructional format nor would electrodermal activities (EDA) associate to these topic emotions throughout the design activities.

Design/Method

Eighty‐eight freshmen engineering students completed online pretopic and posttopic emotions surveys for five engineering design activities. A subset of 14–18 participants, the focal point of this study, wore an EDA sensor while completing the surveys and participating in these sessions.

Results

Preliminary findings suggest that EDA increased for individual and collaborative active learning activities compared to lectures. No significant changes in EDA were found between individual and collaborative active learning activities. Moderate negative correlations were found between EDA and negative topic emotions in the first engineering design activity but not across the rest. At the end of the semester, active learning activities showed higher effect sizes indicating a re‐enforcement of students' engagement in the engineering design method activities.

Conclusion

This study provides initial results showing how multimodal approaches can help researchers understand students' closer‐to‐real‐time engagement in engineering design topics and instructional delivery formats.     

The Theme Course: Connecting the Plant Trip to the Text Book

A plant trip provides subjects for team projects and lecture examples in a sophomore chemical engineering course, thus becoming a unifying “theme” for the course. The “theme” structure is intended to improve student mastery of course material by helping students relate different course topics to one another via real equipment and processes. Here, performance in a subsequent junior chemical engineering course by students from the “theme course” is compared with performance by students who took the sophomore course in a traditional lecture‐homework‐exam format. Theme course graduates claim better retention of concepts from the sophomore course, though their scores on exam questions testing their knowledge, comprehension, and application of these concepts did not differ significantly from that of students from the traditional course. Theme course graduates did earn higher grades in the junior course, due to better performance on exam questions requiring higher level skills such as analysis, synthesis, and evaluation. Students were enthusiastic about the course structure, and expressed excitement about learning from “real life.” Thus the “theme” structure results in early student success in the skills necessary for engineering design, and generates student enthusiasm for engineering.     

Designing and Teaching Courses to Satisfy the ABET Engineering Criteria

Since the new ABET accreditation system was first introduced to American engineering education in the middle 1990s as Engineering Criteria 2000, most discussion in the literature has focused on how to assess Outcomes 3a‐3k and relatively little has concerned how to equip students with the skills and attitudes specified in those outcomes. This paper seeks to fill this gap. Its goals are to (1) overview the accreditation process and clarify the confusing array of terms associated with it (objectives, outcomes, outcome indicators, etc.); (2) provide guidance on the formulation of course learning objectives and assessment methods that address Outcomes 3a‐3k; (3) identify and describe instructional techniques that should effectively prepare students to achieve those outcomes by the time they graduate; and (4) propose a strategy for integrating program‐level and course‐level activities when designing an instructional program to meet the requirements of the ABET engineering criteria.     

Renewal of a Flagging Environmental Engineering Program: Start at the Beginning

Abstract Environmental engineering is in popular demand with students and employers. Despite the demand, the environmental engineering program at the University of Missouri-Rolla (UMR) had declined in recent years. A concerted effort is now being made to improve the attractiveness and quality of UMR's program, beginning with the introductory environmental engineering course offered by the Civil Engineering Department. An experimental section of the introductory course offered in the 1994 spring semester used a semester-long design project, team exercises, field trips and imaginative demonstrations, active learning strategies, and extensive discussions of environmental engineering practice to improve student learning and interest. Results were encouraging. Students performed well and gave the course good evaluations; interest in the environmental program appears to be on the upswing.     

Student Learning of Criterion 3 (a)‐(k) Outcomes with Short Instructional Modules and the Relationship to Bloom's Taxonomy

Engineering accreditation criteria require that engineering graduates demonstrate competency with a set of skills identified in Criterion 3 (a)‐(k). Because of a scarcity of instructional material on many of these topics, a team of engineering instructors developed and tested a set of short modules for teaching these skills. Using before and after module surveys, the students indicated their confidence in their ability to do specific tasks derived from the module's learning objectives. Data also were obtained with a control group not receiving the instruction. In comparing pre‐ and post‐module data, 33 percent of the comparisons were significantly different at the 0.05 level. In comparing control and post‐module data, the corresponding value was 44 percent. These results indicate that instruction with these short modules produced a significant effect on student learning.     

Lin2k: A Novel Web‐Based Collaborative Tool‐Application to Engineering Education

In this paper we present the educational process of Lin2k, a Web‐based tool, which supports distant asynchronous, written, peer‐collaboration in a case study. The tool constitutes an open learning environment that endows engineering students with collaborative competencies, necessary for their successful shift to professional practice. Students are engaged in a process of experiential learning of collaboration while, in parallel, we follow up their interactions and collect communication data of interest. Lin2k collaboration evaluating and adaptive feedback mechanisms are aimed at equipping students with the necessary conceptual knowledge that underlies collaborative activity. Lin2k experimental uses in the Civil Engineering Department of Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece, proved the efficacy of its pedagogy. The Lin2k educational process serves as a prototype that may contribute to the revision of engineering curricula so as to face the challenges that the new technologies impose, along with the necessity of relating academic to professional life.     

Development of an Air Quality Program at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Interdisciplinary curricula, such as environmental engineering, are faced with the challenge of developing unified sets of courses for students from a variety of academic backgrounds. In addition to providing a rigorous technical education, engineering education should foster development of the professional skills that students need in the future, such as laboratory, computer, communication and teamwork abilities, and independence and creativity. This program improvement project integrated traditional lectures with carefully designed assignments, experiments, and demonstrations to teach principles of air quality in environmental engineering. Computer simulations helped students develop a better intuitive understanding of fundamental air quality phenomena. Field trips served to illustrate applications of classroom concepts, and an instructional laboratory was developed to teach students the essential techniques of air quality monitoring. The classroom and laboratory were also used as a supportive environment in which students learned professional skills applicable to graduate studies or professional employment. Students wrote “journal articles,” complete with peer review and revisions as part of a term project. Laboratory projects were used to introduce students to the techniques of writing proposals, and a professional style “class conference” gave students practice in making scientific presentations.     

E‐Mentoring: A Longitudinal Approach to Mentoring Relationships for Women Pursuing Technical Careers

In recent years, the number of formal mentoring programs has increased dramatically. Mentoring programs that target individuals in underrepresented groups or groups of individuals who, statistically, are not likely to succeed are especially effective. These programs are effective because the mentors provide the protégés with a common community and help them anticipate future decisions. The purpose of this paper is to present an electronic mentoring (E‐Mentoring) program designed and established at Northeastern University to provide long‐term mentoring experiences for pre‐college and college female engineering students. Participants from four different age groups join E‐Mentor clubs and develop relationships through regular e‐mail communication. Networking socials, scheduled 3–4 times a year, provide the participants an opportunity to interact “face‐to‐face.” The E‐Mentoring program began as a pilot program in the Fall of 1996 within the Civil and Environmental Engineering Department and has grown to a college‐wide program with approximately 250 participants in the Spring of 1999.     

Assessing K‐12 Pre‐Engineering Outreach Programs*

Motivated by a desire to excite K‐12 students about the joys of engineering and spark their interest in pre‐engineering subjects, the Integrated Teaching and Learning (ITL) Program at the University of Colorado at Boulder has developed a pre‐engineering outreach program targeted at K‐12 teachers and students. To supplement anecdotal success indicators, ITL developed several assessment tools to measure the impact of these programs. Assessment strategies consist of three key components: 1) assessment of workshop participant feedback (teachers and students), 2) assessment of long‐term outcomes (teachers), and 3) assessment tools developed for the teachers' classroom use (i.e., embedded assessment). This paper reviews the process used to develop the assessment plans and tools. Examples of the tools used to assess participant feedback and preliminary outcomes are provided. Additionally, the process used to develop embedded assessment tools is described, including development of performance criteria and assessment tools that are linked to the learning goals, objectives, and K‐12 State educational standards.