Conference Session

ERM Potpourri I

Collection

2007 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Danielle Amatore, Oregon State University; Edith Gummer, Northwest Regional Educational Laboratory; Milo Koretsky, Oregon State University

Tagged Divisions

Educational Research and Methods

collection utilized the“think-aloud” technique. Twenty groups were assigned the project and three of those groupsparticipated in the “think-aloud.” The qualitative method entailed a detailed task analysis foreach group from which a task map was developed. Corresponding ratings for the quality of eachmajor task and the group’s tolerance for ambiguity during each session were assigned. Aqualitative analysis of the impact that social interactions had on key decision points wascompleted and the use of reflection tools was evaluated. Of the three groups, the highestperforming group demonstrated high quality ratings in each of the major experimental tasks:design, analysis and conclusions. They also exhibited an increasing tolerance for ambiguity asthe

Conference Session

Student Teams And Project Based Learning / The Critical First Year in Engineering Education / Student Teams and Project-Based Learning

Collection

2007 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Tamara Moore, University Of Minnesota; Heidi Diefes-Dux, Purdue University; P.K. Imbrie, Purdue University

Tagged Divisions

Educational Research and Methods

were collected electronically. The solutions were then graded by theresearcher using a scoring rubric called the Quality Assurance Guide (Table 2). Second, for theteams analyzed in this study, the researcher and the TA rated the team functioning using the TAObservation Tool (Table 3). Immediately following the conclusion of the MEA, the studentsindividually completed an online survey called the Team Effectiveness Tool (Table 4), and latercompleted the MEA Reflection Tool (Table 5).The quality of the student team solution is rated using a rubric called the Quality AssuranceGuide (Table 2) which assesses whether teams fully met the client’s needs. It is based on a fivepoint scale where five corresponds to “Shareable and Reusable: The solution

Conference Session

Innovations in Teaching and Learning

Collection

2007 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Elizabeth Godfrey, University of Auckland; Gerard Rowe, University of Auckland

Tagged Divisions

Educational Research and Methods

. • The result of a departmental initiative requiring staff to write Learning Objectives for each course highlighted the unfamiliarity and reluctance felt by many staff in engaging with the process of reframing their teaching in this way.It is suggested that a major contributing factor to each of these issues, is the lack ofunderstanding and acknowledgement by engineering academic staff of the usefulness ofeducational “tools” and theory linking, for example, Learning Objectives andAssessment.Nature of the problemIt is suggested that the over-arching problem that needs addressing is how to leadacademics in a research-led university to reflect on their teaching practice with the aid

Conference Session

Knowing Our Students, Part 2

Collection

2007 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Ozgur Eris, Franklin W. Olin College of Engineering; Debbie Chachra, Franklin W. Olin College of Engineering; Helen Chen, Stanford University; Camelia Rosca, Boston College; Larry Ludlow, Boston College; Sheri Sheppard, Stanford University; Krista Donaldson, Stanford University

Tagged Divisions

Educational Research and Methods

) .58 Skipped non-engineering related class[5] .41 Turned in non-engineering related assignments late[5] .41 Came late to non-engineering related class[5] .38 Turned in non-engineering related assignments that did not reflect .29 your best work[5]11b. Academic Disengagement (Engineering Related) .70 Skipped engineering related class[5] .54 Turned in engineering related assignments late[5] .51 Turned in engineering related assignments that did not reflect your .48 best work[5] Came late to engineering related class[5

Conference Session

Cognitive and Motivational Issues in Student Performance II

Collection

2007 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Victoria Robson, Virginia Tech; Vinod Lohani, Virginia Tech; Tanner Bateman, Virginia Tech

Tagged Divisions

Educational Research and Methods

race. White studentsperformed better in the course than minorities. As a set the learning style variables weremarginally significant predictors of course grade above and beyond race and gender. This was afunction of the active – reflective dimension. Specifically, reflective learners had a significantly Page 12.761.6higher course grade than active learners. Lastly, the four factors from the New Student Surveywere also marginally significant predictors of course grade. The only New Student Factor toapproach significance was the factor pertaining to computer knowledge. Taken together, gender,race, learning style preferences, and prior

Conference Session

Knowing our Students, Part 1

Collection

2007 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Dale Baker, Arizona State University; Stephen Krause, Arizona State University

Tagged Divisions

Educational Research and Methods

curricula. Third, it serves as a starting point for the development of a technical andtinkering self-efficacy instrument that will reflect both the perceptions of the engineeringcommunity as well as the ABET learning outcomes.Tinkering and technical characteristics of engineers were chosen for study because there is a richliterature that indicates that a person’s perception of their efficacy in these areas has an influenceon their persistence and their success in engineering education. This is especially true forwomen. Thus, it is important to know what engineers in business, industry and academia, as wellas engineering students, deem important and value. That is because it is likely that thesecharacteristics will be emphasized in the preparation

Conference Session

Using Technology to Enhance Teaching and Learning

Collection

2007 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Pilar Pazos, Northwestern University; Robert Linsenmeier, Biomedical Engineering Department and Department of Neurobiology and; Suzanne Olds, Northwestern University

Tagged Divisions

Educational Research and Methods

questions were typically conceptually-based and required some reflection on thematerial presented before. Students read the question and then individually responded to it. Afterresponses were collected the instructor presented the histogram of responses and followed withsome discussion, often getting students to explain their rationale for particular answers. In arelatively small number of cases, students answered individually, then engaged in peerdiscussion, and then answered again before there was any general discussion. In almost allcases, this led to a higher percentage of correct answers. Whatever discussion format was used,the instructor summarized what was right and wrong with each answer in an attempt to leave thecorrect message with the

Conference Session

Curricular Innovations

Collection

2007 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Maura Borrego, Virginia Tech; Lynette Osborne, National Academy of Engineering; Ruth Streveler, Purdue University; Karl Smith, University of Minnesota; Ronald Miller, Colorado School of Mines

Tagged Divisions

Educational Research and Methods

allows for small group spaces to meet in ad hoc pairs or small groups for exercise and reflection (hotel next to a stream further discussion and bike/walking path) • time scheduled in the middle of the day for assimilation/reflection and unstructured discussion • reception to kick off the event on first evening • daily common meals (breakfast, lunch and dinner

Conference Session

Service Learning Courses

Collection

2007 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Cher Cornett, East Tennessee State University

Tagged Divisions

Educational Research and Methods

, and provide the professional community with an awareness ofcurriculum and an opportunity to participate in the development of that curriculum. Students areable to practice professional skills in a real-world situation before they enter the work force, gainconfidence through experience, and receive relevant and practical evaluation and an opportunityto reflect on their performance.When developing a service-learning project, a good model for best practices can be found in“The Maryland Best Practices: An Implementation Guide for School-Based Service-Learning.” 2Though this was developed for a K-12 curriculum, these guidelines seem to work equally wellfor a college-level curriculum. In this guide, 7 best practices for school-based service

Conference Session

Assessment and Evaluation in Engineering Education I

Collection

2007 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Rose Marra, University of Missouri; Barbara Bogue, Pennsylvania State University; Demei Shen, University of Missouri; Kelly Rodgers, University of Missouri

Tagged Divisions

Educational Research and Methods

poor high school preparation andrecognized and articulated a need for better preparation for the rigors of college in general andengineering specifically as factors in their decisions to leave engineering. Example responsesincluded: I think that it [high school] did not teach me in the reality of college and the difficulties accompanied by it. –Latina Did not reflect the type of work or the amount of work that one encounters in their first year of engineering.—Caucasian MaleAlthough these students do not reflect the majority of respondents, it is important for researchersand practitioners alike to give credence to such comments in order to understand the entire set offactors that may be impacting engineering

Conference Session

Curricular Innovations

Collection

2007 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Hillary Hart, University of Texas-Austin; Christy Moore, University of Texas-Austin

Tagged Divisions

Educational Research and Methods

as opposed to 7th); this result may reflect the increased exposure of undergraduatesto topics of professional responsibility.Many students do not appear to have internalized the importance of research ethics. Along withan article by Whitbeck on “Responsible Authorship,”12 as of March 2006, the Online EthicsCenter for Engineering and Science presents several essays, including one by Eugene Tarnow 13on authorship status, as well as scenarios and resources, such as the Federal Policy on ResearchMisconduct.14,15 But in a survey of students in a graduate class at the UT Austin’s Department ofCivil Engineering, not one had ever heard of the site or of the Federal Policy. Much less arestudents aware of material on research-paper plagiarism

Conference Session

New Models for Teaching and Learning

Collection

2007 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Llewellyn Mann, University of Queensland; Gloria Dall'Alba, University of Queensland; David Radcliffe, University of Queensland

Tagged Divisions

Educational Research and Methods

… If we want to discover whatsomeone knows-in-action, we must put ourselves in a position to observe her in action. If we wantto teach our ‘doing’, then we need to observe ourselves in the doing, reflect on what we observe,describe it, and reflect on our description.Knowledge, skills, attitudes and values are all vital parts of a professional education such asengineering, and combine in an integrated sense to form engineering skills. These engineeringskills are not specific traditional skills, but broader engineering skills such as problem solving ordesign. Skill development in traditional professional education is seen as the progressive,stepwise accumulation of knowledge, skills, attitudes and values. However “practitioners

Conference Session

ERM Potpourri I

Collection

2007 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Sarah Henrickson, Harvard University; Rumi Chunara, Massachusetts Institute of Technology; Iahn Cajigas, HST Division, Harvard and MIT; Heather Gunter, HST Division, Harvard and MIT; Joseph Bonventre, HST Division, Harvard and MIT

Tagged Divisions

Educational Research and Methods

responses to relevant exam questions following completion of the module wascompared with those who completed the first versions of the module in 2003 and 2004 as well as thosecollected following baseline instruction of this material in 2002. Assessment of the student responses wasperformed using a 56-point rubric and also organized into a 14-point rubric sorted by LearningObjectives. The learning objectives chosen represent fundamental aspects of capillary filtration (oncoticpressure, flow/pressure/resistance relations and glomerular filtration rate determinants). In addition, theexam questions were designed to reflect these objectives. The rubric is designed around demonstration ofessential understanding of the material and assigns credit for

Conference Session

New Models for Teaching and Learning

Collection

2007 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Andrew Morozov, University of Washington; Deborah Kilgore, University of Washington; Cynthia Atman, University of Washington

Tagged Divisions

Educational Research and Methods

novices offered a greater proportion of factors from thenatural and social frames of reference, versus technical and logistical frames, which indicated arather broad approach the problem. We argue that this may reflect the novices’ relativeinexperience with engineering concepts. While the four experts’ responses differed in terms oftheir representations through a “breadth of problem scoping” coding scheme, two of theresponses echoed a characteristic top-down, breadth-first approach to design. The difference inprotocols presents challenges in comparing expert and novice behavior, and methodologicalissues of collecting less information from a greater number of subjects versus collecting moreinformation from fewer subjects were addressed. Because

Conference Session

Student Diversity: attracting and retaining a diverse population of students

Collection

2007 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Deborah Kilgore, University of Washington; Debbie Chachra, Franklin W. Olin College of Engineering; Heidi Loshbaugh, Colorado School of Mines; Janice McCain, Howard University; Marcus Jones, Howard University; Ken Yasuhara, University of Washington

Tagged Divisions

Educational Research and Methods

/building at a higher rate than men. As Felder et al. have argued, allengineering students tend to be visual rather than aural learners, so these differences in definitiondo not necessarily reflect any actual gender differences in learning style.10 Rather, they could bea reflection of gender differences in perception. Furthermore, it is quite interesting that a greaterproportion of men than women included improving humankind in their definitions ofengineering. Considering the weight of women’s development literature that documents theirsocialization as caregivers and connected knowers, we wonder if women engineering studentscontinue to set the study and practice of engineering apart from other activities that they wouldconsider to be in service to

Conference Session

Student Diversity: attracting and retaining a diverse population of students

Collection

2007 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Elliot Douglas, University of Florida

Tagged Divisions

Educational Research and Methods

------ ------ ------testTable 4: MCI results by sex. Numbers in parentheses are number of students (N) followed bythe standard deviations. The values of N reflect those students for whom data was available.MCI gain may not equal the difference between the pre-test and post-test scores due to round-offerror. MCI pre-test* MCI post-test* MCI gainMale 11.9 (87, 3.6) 15.7 (89, 4.0) 3.8 (82, 3.4)Female 10.3 (25, 2.7) 13.8 (25, 3.7) 3.6 (24, 3.0)* Significant at p

Conference Session

Student Teams and Project-Based Learning

Collection

2007 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Steven Zemke, Gonzaga University; Diane Zemke, Gonzaga University

Tagged Divisions

Educational Research and Methods

world just to get off topic. ¶2: Just to make sure you know where everybody’s at? ¶3: And—I mean that it’s hard to say that’s —that’s the most important thing because these other things are kind of the foundation for what you build a good meeting. But assuming you kind of had rudimentary standing agenda items and these other things, it wouldn’t really matter at all unless you had this good process check. I think that’s king of the key. You can have a meeting without one, but you can’t have a good meeting without it.In this reflective task it appeared that the students were easily drawing well-formed ideas fromtheir previous discussion. One implication of this apparent

Conference Session

ERM Potpourri I

Collection

2007 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Donald Visco, Tennessee Technological University; Saravanan Swaminathan, Tennessee Technological University; Lisa Zagumny, Tennessee Technological Univesity; Holly Anthony, Tennessee Technological University

Tagged Divisions

Educational Research and Methods

the exam, this may not be the case (as evidenced by their exam scores). • Several students moved from a constructivist to constructionist approach to study guide preparation after working in the focus groups. • Student strategies for completion of the study guide vary widely, but overall reflect a lack of confidence.We will touch on these points, and more, in what follows.UsageFor many of the students, learning is equated with memorizing or being able to locate necessaryinformation for the exam. They repeatedly expressed a lack of confidence in their examperformance. They guessed at how they performed on the exams and did so ratherconservatively. No one left the exam confident as further evidenced by superstitious

Conference Session

Innovations in Teaching and Learning

Collection

2007 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Benson Tongue, University of California-Berkeley

Tagged Divisions

Educational Research and Methods

intrigued them.As is by now well understood, however, the modern situation is different. All a student needsto do is demonstrate skills in math and physics in high school and they will immediatelybe told by their counsellors that engineering is a good fit. And the students, by and large,accept this and apply to college as prospective engineering majors. It is only after arrivingat college that they begin to wonder exactly why they said they wished to be engineers -whether it really is the right avenue for them.The intent of our work is to support the education of mechanical engineers in a way thatcomplements traditional engineering education, as reflected in courses such as dynamics,vibrations, and so on. In such courses, the aim is to transmit a

Conference Session

Cognitive and Motivational Issues in Student Performance I

Collection

2007 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Paul Steif, Carnegie Mellon University; Jamie LoBue, Carnegie Mellon University; Anne Fay, Carnegie Mellon University; Burak Kara, Carnegie Mellon University; Steve Spencer, Carnegie Mellon University

Tagged Divisions

Educational Research and Methods

Ecological Perspectives, (Hoffman, R. and Palermo, D. eds.) Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.5. Palinscar, A. S., & Brown, A. L. (1986). Interactive teaching to promote independent learning from text. Reading Teacher, 39, 771-777.6. Scardemalia, M., Bereiter, C. & Steinbach, R. (1984). Teachability of reflective processes in written composition. Cognitive Science, 8, 173-190.7. Campione, J.C., Brown, A.L. and McConnell, M.L. (1988). Metacognition: On the importance of understanding what you are doing. In Research agenda for mathematics education: The teaching and assessing of mathematics problem solving (R.I. Chales and E.A. Silver, eds.) (pp.93-114). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.8. Schoenfeld, A.H. (1991). On

Conference Session

Curricular Innovations

Collection

2007 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Manuel Jimenez, University of Puerto Rico-Mayaguez; Ana Nieves, University of Puerto Rico-Mayaguez; Cristina Pomales-Garcia, University of Puerto Rico-Mayagüez; Nayda Santiago Santiago, University of Puerto Rico-Mayaguez; José Vega, University of Puerto Rico-Mayaguez; Vilma Lopez, University of Puerto Rico-Mayaguez

Tagged Divisions

Educational Research and Methods

point to students with a more dominant sequential style. Table 1: Summary of student and professor preferred learning styles. Students Professors Balanced Moderate Strong Total Total No. % No. % No. % No. No. Active 22 29.7 12 16.2 7 9.5 41 2 Reflective 22 29.7 8 10.8 2 2.7 32 3 Sensing 27 36.5 21 28.4 2 2.7 50 4 Intuitive 17 23.0 5 6.8 1 1.4 23

Conference Session

Assessment and Evaluation in Engineering Education II

Collection

2007 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Stephanie Rivale, University of Texas-Austin; Taylor Martin, University of Texas-Austin; K. Diller, University of Texas-Austin

Tagged Divisions

Educational Research and Methods

equations or other solution methods.3 To capture thischaracteristic, we examined two facets of student performance on the innovation test. The first werefer to as innovation. The innovation score reflects how effectively students are able apply theirknowledge base and analysis tools to devise a wise strategy for solving a difficult open endedproblem they have now encountered previously. The second facet we refer to as efficiency. Thisscore examines whether students applied appropriate governing principles and constitutive equationsto model the process. A high score on these two categories indicates that a student is approaching theproblem similarly to an expert in the area who was considering how to solve the problem for the firsttime. These coding

Conference Session

Assessment and Evaluation in Engineering Education I

Collection

2007 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Kelley Racicot, Washington State University; Charles Pezeshki, Washington State University

Tagged Divisions

Educational Research and Methods

in the Journal of Engineering Education, engineering education researchcan and should contribute to learning theory, not only be informed by it [7,12]. Reflecting onepistemology helps researchers to situate research questions in the big picture. For example, inthis study, we want to know why and how traditional academic structures persist in light of newlearning theories that reflect increasingly dynamic and active views of knowledge and learning.It is our hope that studying methods of group assessment will contribute to solving thisepistemological problem.Contemporary theories of learning reflect a shift from a teaching-centered approach, focused onknowledge transfer from teacher to student, to a learning-centered approach, focused

Conference Session

Cognitive and Motivational Issues in Student Performance II

Collection

2007 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Tuba Pinar Yildirim, University of Pittsburgh; Joel Townsend, University of Pittsburgh; Mary Besterfield-Sacre, University of Pittsburgh; Larry Shuman, University of Pittsburgh; Harvey Wolfe, University of Pittsburgh

Tagged Divisions

Educational Research and Methods

adopted from P-MEAR rubric 13-14, asshown in Table 4. As with design, the authors of the rubric helped to modify the attributes to usein behavioral observation.Table 4. Ethical Decision Making Attributes Attribute Basic Definition Recognition of Subject recognizes one of the key ethical dilemmas. This task is a single subject attribute (i.e. Dilemma only reflective on the original speaker of the statement and not upon the rest of the group) Information Subject is reading or speaking of material that is already present in the documentation given. This does not include any analysis into the case study. This can be a single subject or multiple subject task. (i.e. it is reflective on other

Conference Session

Cognitive and Motivational Issues in Student Performance I

Collection

2007 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Kelli Higley, Pennsylvania State University; Thomas Litzinger, Pennsylvania State University; Peggy Van Meter, Pennsylvania State University; Christine B. Masters, Pennsylvania State University; Jonna Kulikowich, Pennsylvania State University

Tagged Divisions

Educational Research and Methods

Figure 1) may reflect something significant, but more analysis, and a larger sampleof female students, are required before any statistically significant conclusions can be drawn. 14 Female Male 12 10 8 6 4 2 0 SAT/100 Math Folding/10 Rotation SCI FBD1 Equil Eqn FBD2Figure 1: Comparison of inventory and external criterion scores for female and male participants Page 12.586.6The cluster analysis was run using three of the four measures, and the students’ total SAT score.Because of the low variability associated with

Conference Session

Assessment and Evaluation in Engineering Education I

Collection

2007 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Mysore Narayanan, Miami University

Tagged Divisions

Educational Research and Methods

. Where questions about educational missionand values are skipped over, assessment threatens to be an exercise in measuring what'seasy, rather than a process of improving what we really care about.2. Assessment is most effective when it reflects an understanding of learning asmultidimensional, integrated, and revealed in performance over time. Learning is acomplex process. It entails not only what students know but what they can do with whatthey know; it involves not only knowledge and abilities but values, attitudes, and habits Page 12.289.5of mind that affect both academic success and performance beyond the classroom.Assessment should reflect these

Conference Session

ERM Potpourri I

Collection

2007 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Reem Nasr, Boston University; Steven Hall, Massachusetts Institute of Technology; Peter Garik, Boston University

Tagged Divisions

Educational Research and Methods

version of yt (t) as defined over 0 ≤ t ≤ 1, hence obtaining the answer(2 − 2e−2t )σ(t). The following excerpts clearly reflect how participants S61 and S67 invoked theinterval matching readout when justifying that the step response of the system is Page 12.1317.8gs (t) = (2 − 2e−2t )σ(t): S61: Well, I’m thinking you only use only the yt (t) on the range from 0 to 1? Yeah, I ... I: Yeah, but you have to tell me what happens for t > 1 then. S61: Oh, for t greater . . . [ . . . ] this y(t) is for t > 0 like all time. For t > 1 this is true. For t is 1000 this is true. Umm . . . I: Okay, so in the problem

Conference Session

New Models for Teaching and Learning

Collection

2007 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Malgorzata Zywno, Ryerson University; Mary Frances Stewart

Tagged Divisions

Educational Research and Methods

learners may result in poor achievement, increased dropout ratesand a loss of diversity among future engineers that would greatly benefit the profession. Hesuggests a balanced teaching style addressing a wide range of learner preferences as mosteffective1, 2. In 1988 Felder developed, with help of psychologist Linda Silverman, a learningmodel that focuses on aspects of learning styles particularly significant in engineering education2,3 . The model classifies characteristics of the learners along four bipolar dimensions: Perception(Sensing-Intuitive), Input (Visual-Verbal), Processing (Active-Reflective) and Understanding(Sequential-Global). The Felder-Soloman Index of Learning Styles (ILS), a psychometricinstrument associated with the model, is

Conference Session

The Critical First Year in Engineering Education

Collection

2007 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Linda Lindsley, Arizona State University; Veronica Burrows, Arizona State University

Tagged Divisions

Educational Research and Methods

encourage design process thinking, not to find a “right” answer, that goal wasaccomplished in the alpha test. Most students spent time explaining their design process for eachsection and “rethinking” that process in the later sections after reading the “expert” solutions.Though this study captured design process thinking from only a single problem, it showed thatthe students learned new skills from the online interactive text, even though they had both beeninstructed in these skills in class and produced an assignment covering the same basic material.When asked to reflect on their learning, each participating student stated at least one aspect ofthe process that they had not been explicitly aware of prior to the completion of this chapter ofthe

Conference Session

Cognitive and Motivational Issues in Student Performance I

Collection

2007 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Joachim Walther, University of Queensland; David Radcliffe, University of Queensland

Tagged Divisions

Educational Research and Methods

work. Secondly, as students they aresufficiently close to their educational experience so that they can give detailed accounts of theirexperiences at university. Additionally the reflexive component of the professional developmentcourse prepared these students for a deeper reflection of how the industry experience puts theirlearning at university into context.The protocol used for the focus groups is based on critical incident techniques35-38 to elicitinstances of accidental learning. Critical incidents are detailed accounts of real-worldexperiences of the participants. In the area of competency research critical incident techniqueswere shown to be more reliable than for example expert’s panel methods or respondents’opinions both of which are