Impact of Optional Supplemental Course to Enhance Spatial Visualization Skills in First-Year Engineering Students
- Conference
- Location
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Indianapolis, Indiana
- Publication Date
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June 15, 2014
- Start Date
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June 15, 2014
- End Date
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June 18, 2014
- ISSN
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2153-5965
- Conference Session
- Tagged Division
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Engineering Design Graphics
- Page Count
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16
- Page Numbers
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24.699.1 - 24.699.16
- DOI
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10.18260/1-2--20591
- Permanent URL
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https://peer.asee.org/20591
- Download Count
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495
Paper Authors
Deborah M. Grzybowski Ohio State University
Dr. Grzybowski is a Professor of Practice in the Engineering Education Innovation Center and the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at The Ohio State University. She received her Ph.D. in Biomedical Engineering and her B.S. and M.S. in Chemical Engineering from The Ohio State University. Prior to becoming focused on engineering education, her research interests included regulation of intracranial pressure and transport across the blood-brain barrier in addition to various ocular-cellular responses to fluid forces and the resulting implications in ocular pathologies.
Olga Stavridis Ohio State University
Ms. Olga Stavridis, Ohio State University
Olga Stavridis is a Lecturer in the College of Engineering at Ohio State University, teaching First-Year Engineering for Scholars (Humanitarian Section) classes in the Engineering Education Innovation Center. She also teaches Spatial Visualization, Engineering Graphic Presentation for non-engineers and Computer Graphics SolidWorks courses. Olga earned her bachelor’s degree in Industrial and Systems Engineering from Ohio State University and her Master’s in Industrial Engineering from Arizona State University.
Lisa A. Barclay M.S. The Ohio State University
Lisa Abrams The Ohio State University
Lisa Abrams is currently serving as the Interim Director of Diversity and Outreach for the College of Engineering at The Ohio State University. She oversees the Women in Engineering and Minority Engineering programs promoting a culture of diversity in the College through recruitment, retention, and advancement of underrepresented groups at all levels. Lisa received her Bachelor's and Master's Degrees in Mechanical Engineering and PhD degree in Industrial Engineering from Ohio State. She has seven years of industry experience in the areas of Design and Consulting. She was previously the Director of Women in Engineering Program at Ohio State and the Assistant Dean of the School of Engineering and Applied Science at Miami University. She mostly recently held the position of Assistant Professor of Practice in the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at Ohio State where she taught a wide variety of engineering courses in First Year Engineering and Mechanical Engineering. In the last several years, she has received four teaching awards including the 2013 Boyer Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching Engineering Innovation and the Charles E. MacQuigg Award for Outstanding Teaching.
Sheryl A. Sorby Ohio State University
Dr. Sheryl Sorby is a Professor Emerita of Mechanical Engineering-Engineering Mechanics from Michigan Technological University. She is currently serving as a Fulbright Scholar at Dublin Institute of Technology. She recently served as a Program Director within the Division of Undergraduate Education at the National Science Foundation. Her research interests include graphics and visualization. She has been the principal investigator or co-principal investigator on more than $9M in external funding and is the author of numerous publications and textbooks. She was the recipient of the Betty Vetter research award through WEPAN for her work in improving the spatial skills and ultimately the success of women engineering students. Dr. Sorby currently serves as an Associate Editor for ASEE’s online journal, Advances in Engineering Education. In 2007, she received the Distinguished Service Award from the Engineering Design Graphics Division of ASEE and in 2009 she was elected to Fellow status in ASEE.
Jessica Thomas Ohio State University
John A. Merrill The Ohio State University
John A. Merrill is the Associate Director of the Engineering Education Innovation Center at The Ohio State University, which includes the First-Year Program. Approximately 2300 students annually take courses in fundamentals designed to ensure student success through rigorous academics in a team-based environment. His responsibilities include operations, faculty recruiting, curriculum management, student retention, and program assessment. Dr. Merrill received his PhD in Instructional Design and Technology from The Ohio State University in 1985, and has an extensive background in public education, corporate training, and contract research. He has made presentations at conferences held by the American Society for Engineering Education (ASEE) and its affiliate conference, Frontiers in Education (FIE). Dr. Merrill currently serves as an advisor for Engineers for Community Service (ECOS), a student-run organization at Ohio State. He teaches a Service-Learning course for Engineering students, which also involves projects on behalf of a rural orphanage and vocational school in Honduras. He is a two-time recipient of the College of Engineering’s Boyer Award for Excellence in Teaching.
Address: The Ohio State University, 2070 Neil Ave., 244E Hitchcock Hall, Columbus, OH 43210-1278; telephone: (+1) 614.292.0650; fax: (+1) 614.247.6255; e-mail: merrill.25@osu.edu.
Abstract
Impact of Optional Supplemental Course to Enhance Spatial Visualization Skills in First-Year Engineering StudentsThe impact of spatial visualization skills on retention and performance in undergraduateengineering schools has been studied extensively. The National Science Foundation funded afive-year program called “Engaging Students in Engineering” or ENGAGE. One strategy inENGAGE to increase retention and GPA in freshman engineering students is to improvestudents’ spatial visualization skills. With this goal in mind, we have developed an optional one-credit hour non-graded spatial visualization skills intervention course which is offered toincoming freshman engineering students based on their performance on the Purdue SpatialVisualization Test: Rotations (PVST:R). We are now assessing the impact of this course onstudent visualization skills and asking the question “Can an optional one-credit hour spatialvisualization intervention class be used as an effective instructional tool that enables students toenhance their spatial visualization skills?”The research design is an experimental design with control and treatment groups where thetreatment group, which scores an 18 or below on the PVST:R which is taken by all enteringengineering students at summer orientation, opts to takes the intervention course. Theintervention course is a 1-credit hour non-graded visualization intervention class that offers anadditional representation of objects to be depicted in assigned engineering graphics drawingproblems. The control group are the students who score an 18 or below on the PVST:R but optout of taking the intervention course and enroll directly in the first-year engineering courses.Assessments include either a follow-up PVST:R or graphics mid-term score depending uponwhich first-year track students enroll. To date the intervention class has been given toapproximately 180 students while being offered to 358 engineering students who qualified. Thisstudy is currently in progress for its second year but will be completed at the end of the Fall 2013academic term. Based on the literature, we hypothesize that students who take the interventionclass will perform better in their first-year engineering classes as well as overall academicallywhen compared to the control group. No major conclusions can be drawn until the completion ofthe study.
Grzybowski, D. M., & Stavridis, O., & Barclay, L. A., & Abrams, L., & Sorby, S. A., & Thomas, J., & Merrill, J. A. (2014, June), Impact of Optional Supplemental Course to Enhance Spatial Visualization Skills in First-Year Engineering Students Paper presented at 2014 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition, Indianapolis, Indiana. 10.18260/1-2--20591
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