Inquiry-Based Activities to Address Critical Concepts in Chemical Engineering
- Conference
- Location
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Vancouver, BC
- Publication Date
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June 26, 2011
- Start Date
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June 26, 2011
- End Date
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June 29, 2011
- ISSN
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2153-5965
- Conference Session
- Tagged Topic
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NSF Grantees
- Page Count
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6
- Page Numbers
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22.885.1 - 22.885.6
- DOI
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10.18260/1-2--18186
- Permanent URL
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https://peer.asee.org/18186
- Download Count
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374
Paper Authors
Margot A. Vigeant Bucknell University
Margot is an associate professor of chemical engineering and associate dean in the college of engineering. She is interested in improving students' conceptual understanding in thermodynamics, as well as in creative ways of engaging first-year students and broadening participation in engineering as a whole.
Michael J. Prince Bucknell University
Katharyn E. K. Nottis Bucknell University
Katharyn E. K. Nottis is an associate professor in the Education department at Bucknell University. An Educational Psychologist, her research has focused on meaningful learning in science and engineering education, approached from the perspective of Human Constructivism. She has been involved in collaborative research projects focused on conceptual learning in chemistry, seismology, and chemical engineering.
Ronald L. Miller Colorado School of Mines
Dr. Ronald L. Miller is professor of chemical engineering and Director of the Center for Engineering Education at the Colorado School of Mines where he has taught chemical engineering and interdisciplinary courses and conducted engineering education research for the past 25 years. Dr. Miller has received three university-wide teaching awards and has held a Jenni teaching fellowship at CSM. He has received grant awards for education research from the National Science Foundation, the U.S. Department of Education FIPSE program, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and the Colorado Commission on Higher Education and has published widely in the engineering education literature. His research interests include measuring and repairing engineering student misconceptions in thermal and transport science.
Abstract
It is widely agreed that a conceptual understanding of engineering concepts is a required compliment to a technical understanding of the equations and how to solve them. However, students often enter our classrooms with misconceptions about fundamental phenomena, presenting a significant obstacle to conceptual learning. The first part of our work consisted of establishing reliability of instruments to assess conceptual understanding. In the present study, we share results from multi-‐institution concept inventory assessments in heat transfer and thermodynamics. Our results indicate that instruction typically improves students’ conceptual understanding in these areas, but not typically to “proficient” levels (concept inventory scores over 70%). However, after implementation of inquiry-‐based activities, scores improve significantly, both with respect to the pre-‐course concept inventory scores and with respect to post-‐course scores for students who do not perform these activities.
Vigeant, M. A., & Prince, M. J., & Nottis, K. E. K., & Miller, R. L. (2011, June), Inquiry-Based Activities to Address Critical Concepts in Chemical Engineering Paper presented at 2011 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition, Vancouver, BC. 10.18260/1-2--18186
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