Effects of Faculty Interaction and Feedback on Gains in Student Skills*

Previous research has identified several variables that affect students' course satisfaction and gains in learning outcomes. The purpose of this article is to provide the reader with insights about the relationships between faculty‐student interaction and students' perceptions of selected skills and attitudes. This study specifically examined the relationships between engineering faculty teaching practices, classroom climate, and students' perceptions of their gains in communication skills, problem‐solving skills, occupational awareness, and engineering competence in a curriculum emphasizing engineering design activities. Data were gathered from more than 1,500 students taking the first‐year design course offered at 19 campuses of the Penn State system over a period of two years. The results suggest that faculty interacting with and providing constructive feedback to students were significantly and positively related to students' self‐reported gains in several design and professional skills. These relationships remained after controlling for student demographic characteristics and campus location. Recommendations regarding specific teaching practices are provided.     

Pre‐college Electrical Engineering Instruction: The Impact of Abstract vs. Contextualized Representation and Practice on Learning

Background While engineering instructional materials and practice problems for pre‐college students are often presented in the context of real‐life situations, college‐level texts are typically written in abstract form. Purpose (Hypothesis ) The goal of this study was to jointly examine the impact of contextualizing engineering instruction and varying the number of practice opportunities on pre‐college students' learning and learning perceptions. Design/ Method Using a 3 × 2 factorial design, students were randomly assigned to learn about electrical circuit analysis with an instructional program that represented problems in abstract, contextualized, or both forms, either with two practice problems or four practice problems. The abstract problems were devoid of any real‐life context and represented with standard abstract electrical circuit diagrams. The contextualized problems were anchored around real‐life scenarios and represented with life‐like images. The combined contextualized‐abstract condition added abstract circuit diagrams to the contextualized representation. To measure learning, students were given a problem‐solving near‐transfer post‐test. Learning perceptions were measured using a program‐rating survey where students had to rate the instructional program's diagrams, helpfulness, and difficulty. Results Students in the combined contextualized‐abstract condition scored higher on the post‐test, produced better problem representations, and rated the program's diagrams and helpfulness higher than their counterparts. Students who were given two practice problems gave higher program diagram and helpfulness ratings than those given four practice problems. Conclusions These findings suggest that pre‐college engineering instruction should consider anchoring learning in real‐life contexts and providing students with abstract problem representations that can be transferred to a variety of problems.     

Evaluation of Instructional Design of Computer‐Based Teaching Modules for a Manufacturing Processes Laboratory

Studies concerning student preferences and student learning as a function of the instructional design and delivery of a computer‐based teaching (CBT) module are presented. The studies were conducted in conjunction with the development of twenty‐one CBT modules for an Introduction to Manufacturing Processes laboratory that emphasized metal removal. Study results indicate there is no statistically relevant difference in learning between students using material presented with traditional multimedia (35 mm slides and cassette tapes) and the identical material presented with digital multimedia. Engineering students' preferences for interface design and audio‐visual information presentation are also presented. The most important result is that learning outcomes of a reader‐driven CBT module were found to be statistically lower than those associated with author‐driven CBT module, especially for average and below‐average students. These results suggest that if students must absolutely understand material, e.g., laboratory safety, the CBT should be author‐driven. Based on these results, we speculate that average and below average engineering students are more linear learners. A hybrid scheme, where information presentation transitions from an author‐driven to a reader‐driven environment may help weaker students develop better non‐linear, open‐ended problem solving skills.     

Investigating the Effect of 3D Simulation Based Learning on the Motivation and Performance of Engineering Students

Background Simulation‐based Learning (SBL) was used in Machining Technology, a sixty‐hour module for second year engineering students, at the School of Engineering at Temasek Polytechnic. The aim of this study was to investigate the effect of SBL on learners' motivation and performance. In assessing students' motivation, we adopted a framework based on the Self‐determination Theory (SDT), chosen on account of its comprehensive treatment of the relationship between students' perceived needs satisfaction and their motivation. Purpose (Hypothesis ) It is hypothesized that SBL, which provides learners with interactive learning experiences, will enhance students' motivation and performance. We explored the effect of SBL on students' perceived psychological needs satisfaction, motivation, and learning, and how SBL affected students' understanding and application of content knowledge. Design /Method The intervention procedure involved the incorporation of SBL in Machining Technology, a 60 hour module in the mechanical engineering program. Survey findings and post‐intervention assessment outcomes were used to assess the students' perceptions of their basic psychological needs satisfaction, motivation, and performance. Results Our findings suggest that the students perceived their psychological needs to be satisfied and had high levels of self‐determined motivation. Students who undertook SBL had higher mean performance test scores, although SBL may have differential effects on learners depending on factors such as gender, educational backgrounds, and IT knowledge. Conclusions Our findings suggest that the students perceived their basic psychological needs to be met and that SBL can potentially enhance self‐determined motivation as well as improve learning in general.     

Lessons Learned: Implementing the Case Teaching Method in a Mechanical Engineering Course

Background Case studies have been found to increase students' critical thinking and problem‐solving skills, higher‐order thinking skills, conceptual change, and their motivation to learn. Despite the popularity of the case study approach within engineering, the empirical research on the effectiveness of case studies is limited and the research that does exist has primarily focused on student perceptions of their learning rather than actual learning outcomes. Purpose (Hypothesis ) This paper describes an investigation of the impact of case‐based instruction on undergraduate mechanical engineering students' conceptual understanding and their attitudes towards the use of case studies. Design /Method Seventy‐three students from two sections of the same mechanical engineering course participated in this study. The two sections were both taught using traditional lecture and case teaching methods. Participants completed pre‐tests, post‐tests, and a survey to assess their conceptual understanding and engagement. Results Results suggested that the majority of participants felt the use of case studies was engaging and added a lot of realism to the class. There were no significant differences between traditional lecture and case teaching method on students' conceptual understanding. However, the use of case studies did no harm to students' understanding while making the content more relevant to students. Conclusions Case‐based instruction can be beneficial for students in terms of actively engaging them and allowing them to see the application and/or relevance of engineering to the real world.     

Students' Conceptions of Tutor and Automated Feedback in Professional Writing

Background Professional writing is an essential outcome for engineering graduates and hence a vital part of engineering education. To provide a successful learning experience for students engaged in writing activities, timely feedback is necessary. Providing this feedback to increasing numbers of students poses a major challenge for instructors. New automated systems work towards providing both timely and appropriate writing feedback, but students' views on automated feedback, and feedback in general, are not well understood. Purpose (Hypothesis ) To contribute to a deeper understanding of students' conceptions of feedback from tutors and an automated system called Glosser, and how these conceptions are related to achievement. Design /Method Students in an engineering course worked in pairs to write an engineering report on e‐business. The design of the study involves in‐depth interviews and the analysis employs an approach in which student conceptions of automated feedback are investigated in relation to related feedback from their tutor, perceptions of automated feedback in general, and their academic achievement. Results Students' conceptions of feedback vary and can be grouped into cohesive and fragmented, which is consistent with other theoretical models. Close associations were found between more cohesive conceptions of feedback and better academic performance. Conclusions A student's conception of traditional and automated feedback is similar, being either cohesive or fragmented. Changing one may change the other. Deep learners see feedback as a way of learning about the topic whereas shallow learners see them as a way to improve the communication aspects of writing. Design considerations based on these results are discussed.     

Kirkpatrick's Level 1 Evaluation of the Implementation of a Computer‐Aided Process Design Tool in a Senior‐Level Engineering Course

Computer simulation tools are frequently used in engineering design work, and undergraduates are often trained to use these tools as they learn to design systems. The use of new tools in the learning environment should be evaluated to assure that the students are able to use the tools effectively. This study details and demonstrates the use of a Kirkpatrick's Level 1 Evaluation to assess the effectiveness of an instructional environment in which students learn to use a computer simulation tool to perform engineering design work. Specifically, an evaluation was conducted to look at student perceptions of FOODS‐LIB—a steady‐state food process design tool, its user's manual learning modules, and the implementation of FOODS‐LIB in a senior level design course. This evaluation was triangulated with an instructor's assessment of student products generated as the students used the learning modules and designed an ice cream manufacturing process using FOODS‐LIB.     

The Relationships between Students' Conceptions of Learning Engineering and their Preferences for Classroom and Laboratory Learning Environments

This study developed a survey entitled Conceptions of Learning Engineering (CLE), to elicit undergraduate engineering students' conceptions of learning engineering. The reliability and validity of the CLE survey were confirmed through a factor analysis of 321 responses of undergraduate students majoring in electrical engineering. A series of ANOVA analyses revealed that students who preferred a classroom setting tended to conceptualize learning engineering as “testing” and “calculating and practicing,” whereas students who preferred a laboratory setting expressed conceptions of learning engineering as “increasing one's knowledge,” “applying,” “understanding,” and “seeing in a new way.” A further analysis of student essays suggested that learning environments which are student‐centered, peer‐interactive, and teacher‐facilitated help engineering students develop more fruitful conceptions of learning engineering.     

Applying James Stice's Strategy to Teach Design to Sophomore Mechanical Engineering Undergraduates

The James Stice strategies for teaching problem‐solving and improving student learning have been adopted in the development of a sophomore‐level “Materials, Manufacturing & Design” course. The curriculum, the assessment method, and the results of student evaluation over a three‐year period are described. Correlation between assessments by two faculty members (in the form of design project written‐report and oral‐presentation grades) and students self‐assessment (in the form of a retrospective survey employing a Likert‐type scale and student written comments) show that the Stice strategies are successful in teaching engineering design to sophomores.     

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.     

Student Perceptions of Engineering Entrepreneurship: An Exploratory Study

This study examines students' overall perceptions of the engineering profession in a first‐year course in engineering, and the effect of a pedagogical approach aimed at exposing students to engineering entrepreneurship and their perceptions of engineering entrepreneurship. The approach featured a market game that engaged a pilot group of 20 students in forming IT companies and competing for the best design of a travel agent system. The rest of the students in the course completed the traditional class project, which involved designing and building a land sailer. A pre‐post Likert‐type survey designed to measure students' perceptions of the engineering profession was administered to all students enrolled in this course. In addition, a short answer questionnaire seeking students' pedagogical perceptions of the market game and the land sailer project was administered at the end of the course. Results indicated that students' overall perceptions of the engineering profession significantly improved by the end of the course. More importantly, the results indicated that students who participated in the market game had significantly better perceptions of engineering entrepreneurship, specifically professional skills, than students who participated in the land sailer project. These findings are of considerable interest to engineering schools that want to increase student retention and are looking for novel approaches to assist freshmen in choosing their majors.     

Developing an Observation System to Capture Instructional Differences in Engineering Classrooms

In 1999, bioengineering and learning science faculties at four research universities began collaboration on a National Science Foundation‐supported Engineering Research Center. The Vanderbilt‐Northwestern‐Texas‐Harvard/MIT Engineering Research Center for Bioengineering Education and Technology is the first such Center to have a specific focus on postsecondary education. Within this project, educators, learning scientists, and bioengineers collaborated to develop the VaNTH Observation System, an assessment tool to capture quantitatively teaching and learning experiences of the bioengineering classroom. The four components of the instrument address the professor's interaction with students, students' lesson engagement, narrative notes, and research‐based measures of effective teaching. As professors redesigned lessons to incorporate current learning theory as a guide, observers measured differences in bioengineering classroom experiences resulting from these innovations. Results indicate that the observation instrument captures differences in classroom experiences, and these differences relate to a lesson's incorporation of current learning theory.     

Integrating Professional Experience in Geotechnical Class Designs

A significant proportion of younger engineering educators engaged in teaching design oriented courses have little or no industrial experience. Thus, directions for merging professional experience with engineering science in class designs have become a chief concern in engineering educational forums. As one way to address this issue, students in a geotechnical course having both engineering science and design content presented their design projects to an audience of practicing geotechnical engineers. The results of this trial clearly revealed specific areas of a student design where professional judgment based on firsthand experience or other exposure is essential. The experiment also furnished an opportunity for industrial representatives to view the university's geotechnical curriculum and its preparation of students as future engineers. Above all, a dramatic improvement was noticed in the students' motivation to accomplish the class design projects in a successful and timely manner.     

Assessing General Creativity and Creative Engineering Design in First Year Engineering Students

Creativity is a vital tool for innovation in engineering. Psychology and engineering faculty developed the Creative Engineering Design Assessment (CEDA) because existing tools are limited. This measure was administered with general creativity measures in 63 engineering (57 males, six females) and 21 non‐engineering (six males, 15 females) students in five week intervals. Inter‐rater reliability showed high consistency overall and between the test and retest administrations. Only engineering males and females significantly differed on the retest. Engineering students with low, medium, and high creative engineering design did not statistically differ in their general creativity, not domain specific to engineering; however, only high scorers were significantly higher on the retest from the other groups. Future research is needed with larger samples.     

The Effects of a First‐Year Engineering Design Course on Student Intellectual Development as Measured by the Perry Scheme

In response to the demand for enhanced design, problem‐solving, and team skills in engineering graduates, Penn State has instituted a number ofteam‐based, project‐learning courses, including one taken by nearly every first‐year engineering student. To determine the impact of these experiences on our students we have begun a cross‐sectional and longitudinal study of their intellectual development based upon the Perry model. In this paper, we describe the research methodology and results for the initial group of first‐year students interviewed. The results of the study include the effects on intellectual development of the first‐year design course, gender, honors status, and the students' academic ability as indicated by SAT scores and grade point average. Design experience was positively related to enhanced intellectual development. Honors status, gender, and academic ability were not significantly related to Perry rating. We discuss the implications of these findings for instruction and curricular reform.     

Two Way Integration of Engineering Education through a Design Project

Horizontal and vertical integration of engineering education is achieved through an early‐design project where students get acquainted with Total Quality Management (TQM) principles and design processes from year‐one of their University education. The project is embedded in the undergraduate chemical engineering curriculum as an activity that involves horizontally several first‐year subjects and vertically a fourth‐year Project Management Practice course and a related Project Management subject. An assessment of the integrated design project indicates that effective teaching and learning spreads through the curriculum, with fourth‐year students acting as project managers and experiencing engineering practice. These management and leadership training processes include a shared responsibility in the organization and in the development of the project, which are key factors for the success of the integrated activity. They are also a first step towards the ETSEQ goal of becoming a sustainable student‐centered educational system.     

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.     

A Report on Mudd Design Workshop II: “Designing Design Education for the 21st Century”

This paper reports on a workshop on design education held at Harvey Mudd College (HMC) in May 1999. Mudd Design Workshop II was intended to provide a forum that would bring together design educators, design researchers, and designers from industry, in order to focus exclusively on the teaching of design in engineering education for the next century. Sessions were devoted to (1) design projects in both cornerstone and capstone courses, and metrics for selecting projects; (2) discipline‐based and cross‐disciplinary design courses; and (3) pedagogy, technology, and assessment in design education. Major emergent themes included the desirability of design throughout the curriculum, focuses on coaching and on learning, roles of projects and interactive learning, and the need to better address the interactions of grading and learning. Participants' specific commitments to future actions are also given.     

The Sunrayce '95 Idea: Adding Hands-on Design to an Engineering Curriculum

During the 1994-95 academic year, Catalano taught a first-time senior capstone design class with the goal of entering a student-designed and built, solar-powered race car in the Department of Energy's Sunrayce '95 competition. This course came from an effort to move toward a more fully integrated mechanical engineering curriculum designed to supplement the learning experiences of students in their more traditional engineering courses. In this paper, we summarize the planning for the course, the design and construction phases of the class—especially how students and faculty perceived their design work, the cadets' perceptions of their learning during the class, and experiences of the students and faculty during the race. Teaching this new course provided insights into some of the dilemmas raised when changes to an existing curriculum are made.