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The Broader Impacts of an Additive Manufacturing Course at Three Large Universities

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Conference

2020 ASEE Virtual Annual Conference Content Access

Location

Virtual On line

Publication Date

June 22, 2020

Start Date

June 22, 2020

End Date

June 26, 2021

Conference Session

NSF Grantees: Student Learning 1

Tagged Topic

NSF Grantees Poster Session

Page Count

14

DOI

10.18260/1-2--33958

Permanent URL

https://peer.asee.org/33958

Download Count

626

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Paper Authors

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Patricia Ann Maloney Texas Tech University Orcid 16x16 orcid.org/0000-0003-1238-7161

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Dr. Patricia Maloney is an associate professor in the Department of Sociology, Anthropology, and Social Work at Texas Tech University. Dr. Maloney has 10 years of experience as a sociologist of education and holds a master’s in education from the University of Pennsylvania, focusing on individual- and program-level assessment. She also holds a master’s in sociology, a master’s in philosophy, and a doctorate in sociology from Yale University. Previous to academia, she was a middle school science teacher in a predominantly minority, low-income school, thus giving her special insight on how to adopt these topics for K-12 students. Dr. Maloney’s current research focuses on immigrant students, their teachers, and standardized tests in K-12 schools.

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Weilong Cong Texas Tech University Orcid 16x16 orcid.org/0000-0001-6308-7383

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Dr. Weilong (Ben) Cong is an Assistant Professor in Department of Industrial Engineering at Texas Tech University (TTU). Dr. Cong received a Ph.D. in Industrial and Manufacturing Systems Engineering at Kansas State University in 2013. After graduation, Dr. Cong worked as a Post-Doctoral Fellow and a Research Assistant Professor at Kansas State University for one year. Dr. Cong’s current research activities mainly include ultrasonic vibration-assisted additive manufacturing process of high performance metallic materials and laser additive manufacturing of ceramic and composite materials. Dr. Cong has taught two undergraduate manufacturing classes and two graduate advanced manufacturing classes at TTU.

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Meng Zhang Kansas State University

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Dr. Meng Zhang is specifically interested in preprocessing (pelleting and size reduction) for advanced biofuel manufacturing, additive manufacturing, and engineering education innovation. He teaches manufacturing processes and renewable energy. Dr. Zhang is actively involving undergraduate engineering students in his research projects with a tradition in providing research opportunities for undergraduates, especially for those who from the underrepresented group.

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Bingbing Li California State University, Northridge Orcid 16x16 orcid.org/0000-0001-6140-4189

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Dr. Bingbing Li is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Manufacturing Systems Engineering and Management at California State University Northridge. He teaches undergraduate and graduate courses in Manufacturing Systems Engineering. His research includes additive manufacturing (metal additive manufacturing and 3D bioprinting), smart manufacturing, and sustainability analysis of nanotechnologies.

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Abstract

This paper documents the effects of an additive manufacturing course on two sets of students: (1) the undergraduates who took the course and (2) the middle and high school students who visited our labs. At the time of the conference, nine semesters of data (three years at three schools) will have been collected, as well as data from the middle and high school students who visited our labs. Overall, our research questions were: (1) what is the effect of this course on the content knowledge of (a) enrolled undergraduates and (b) middle and high school students? And (2) what is the effect of this course on the attitudes towards engineering and self-efficacy in engineering for (a) enrolled undergraduates and (b) middle and high school students? To determine the answers, our longitudinal matched-pairs data collection was conducted. In short, as measured by t-test, all students improved on content knowledge (p less than .01), but female students improved slightly more than male students (+9.89 versus +9.01, respectively). Undergraduates did not change their minds about the factors that are important in engineering, although they did significantly change their self-efficacy ratings in some skills because of the course. In particular, undergraduates rated themselves higher in teamwork, creativity, and technical skills, which reflect the content and focus of the course. Additionally, we brought multiple field trips of middle and high school students into our labs for outreach. Using a simplified version of the metric described above, we can see that all students improved on content knowledge.

Maloney, P. A., & Cong, W., & Zhang, M., & Li, B. (2020, June), The Broader Impacts of an Additive Manufacturing Course at Three Large Universities Paper presented at 2020 ASEE Virtual Annual Conference Content Access, Virtual On line . 10.18260/1-2--33958

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