Board 125: Providing Student Feedback from Motivation Assessments in Capstone Courses

Peter Rogers; Denny C. Davis; Bashirah Ibrahim; Lin Ding; Kaycee Ash

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Conference: 2018 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition
Location: Salt Lake City, Utah
Publication Date: June 23, 2018
Start Date: June 23, 2018
End Date: July 27, 2018
Conference Session: NSF Grantees Poster Session
Tagged Topic: NSF Grantees Poster Session
Page Count: 10
DOI: 10.18260/1-2--29908
Permanent URL: https://peer.asee.org/29908
Download Count: 436

Paper Authors

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Peter Rogers Ohio State University

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Dr. Peter Rogers is a Professor of Practice in the Department of Engineering Education at The Ohio State University. He joined the university in October 2008 bringing with him 35 years of industrial experience. His career includes senior leadership roles in engineering, sales, and manufacturing developing products using multidisciplinary teams to convert customer needs to commercially viable products and services.
Rogers co-led the development of an ABET-approved year-long Capstone design experience. With a focus on providing students with a broader experience base, the multidisciplinary program applies teams of engineers, business, design, and other students to work with companies to help them be more competitive. Rogers expanded this one-year program to a four-year Integrated Business and Engineering (IBE) honors program.

Rogers earned his Ph.D. at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, focused on mechanical engineering and manufacturing

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Denny C. Davis Ohio State University

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Dr. Davis is Visiting Professor in the Engineering Education Department at The Ohio State University and Emeritus Professor in Engineering Education at Washington State University. For over three decades, he has led multi-institution teams in the development and testing of curriculum materials and assessments for engineering design courses. He is the owner of Verity Design Learning LLC, a publisher of educational materials for design reviews and teamwork development. He is a Fellow of the American Society for Engineering Education.

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Bashirah Ibrahim Ohio State University

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Bashirah Ibrahim is a postdoctoral researcher in engineering education the Ohio State University.

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Lin Ding Ohio State University

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Lin Ding, Ph.D., is an associate professor in the Department of Teaching and Learning at The Ohio State University. Dr. Ding’s scholarly interests lie in discipline-based STEM education research. His work includes theoretical and empirical investigations of student content learning, problem solving, reasoning skills, and epistemological development. Dr. Ding specializes in research-based assessment development and focuses primarily on the quantitative research paradigm. He has published dozens of high-impact journal articles, book chapters, and research proceedings papers.

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Kaycee Ash Ohio State University

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Kaycee Ash is a Chemical Engineering undergraduate student at The Ohio State University. She started working towards her Bachelor’s of Science degree in August 2014. In the past, she has worked with other students by helping them better themselves academically, and she has worked on chemical manufacturing and transport at Ohio Chemical Services. She joined the research team in December of 2015 and is currently working on assessing motivation in academia.

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Abstract

Student motivation in capstone design courses is assessed in six capstone project courses at six diverse institutions in the 2017-2018 academic year. This assessment follows a similar assessment study at a large public university in six unique capstone courses. Reliability and validity analysis during the first year contributed to upgrades to the assessment tools currently being implemented. Qualitative feedback from student and faculty participants indicated a strong desire by students to receive feedback about their motivation and by faculty to learn more about the motivation levels of their students. This poster paper focuses on the analysis and presentation of meaningful assessment results to students.

The developed assessment surveys measure both students’ motivational attitudes (self-assessed) and behaviors (self- and peer-assessed). Attitude and behavior assessments are administered at early and late stages of the project. Early assessments provide formative feedback that guides student motivational development. The later ones indicate emerging patterns of attitudes and behaviors, providing summative results that help students understand and communicate their motivational growth as they prepare to enter the workforce. This paper describes how motivation assessment results can be viewed in the context of motivation frameworks such as self-development theory.

Attitudes assessment identifies students’ self-identification with twenty attitudes related to their capstone experience. Responses identify and rate the level that students’ motivations are influenced by achievements, experiences, project, and tangible rewards. Feedback to students includes a summary of their indicated attitudes, their tendency toward intrinsic and extrinsic motivation, and their level of autonomy, competence, and relatedness – the key components of self-determination theory. Students can use early assessments to focus on and address motivational attitudes during the project, and use the second report to understand their possible attitudinal changes and possible relationship to behaviors. The second assessment measures students’ motivation behaviors along with peer evaluation of these same behaviors. The peer evaluation also includes a suggestion for behavior improvement in one of the five behavioral areas: work quality and quantity, level of supervision, team effectiveness, initiative, and self-development. Each student receives a report with their scores, average peer scores, and a compilation of peers’ suggestions for improvement. The second behavior assessment is similar to the earlier one, except that peers describe a strong behavior for each student—one that has positively impacted team or project performance.

The paper describes data analysis and feedback to students at both the early and late stages of the capstone project. It also provides sample feedback reports that illustrate the potential value to be gained by students. This poster presentation summarizes the work under NSF Grant DUE 1504728 and facilitates discussions about motivation assessment and reporting in capstone project courses.

Citation
Format

Rogers, P., & Davis, D. C., & Ibrahim, B., & Ding, L., & Ash, K. (2018, June), Board 125: Providing Student Feedback from Motivation Assessments in Capstone Courses Paper presented at 2018 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition , Salt Lake City, Utah. 10.18260/1-2--29908

TY - CPAPER
AB - Student motivation in capstone design courses is assessed in six capstone project courses at six diverse institutions in the 2017-2018 academic year. This assessment follows a similar assessment study at a large public university in six unique capstone courses. Reliability and validity analysis during the first year contributed to upgrades to the assessment tools currently being implemented. Qualitative feedback from student and faculty participants indicated a strong desire by students to receive feedback about their motivation and by faculty to learn more about the motivation levels of their students. This poster paper focuses on the analysis and presentation of meaningful assessment results to students.

The developed assessment surveys measure both students’ motivational attitudes (self-assessed) and behaviors (self- and peer-assessed). Attitude and behavior assessments are administered at early and late stages of the project. Early assessments provide formative feedback that guides student motivational development. The later ones indicate emerging patterns of attitudes and behaviors, providing summative results that help students understand and communicate their motivational growth as they prepare to enter the workforce. This paper describes how motivation assessment results can be viewed in the context of motivation frameworks such as self-development theory.

Attitudes assessment identifies students’ self-identification with twenty attitudes related to their capstone experience. Responses identify and rate the level that students’ motivations are influenced by achievements, experiences, project, and tangible rewards. Feedback to students includes a summary of their indicated attitudes, their tendency toward intrinsic and extrinsic motivation, and their level of autonomy, competence, and relatedness – the key components of self-determination theory. Students can use early assessments to focus on and address motivational attitudes during the project, and use the second report to understand their possible attitudinal changes and possible relationship to behaviors.

The second assessment measures students’ motivation behaviors along with peer evaluation of these same behaviors. The peer evaluation also includes a suggestion for behavior improvement in one of the five behavioral areas: work quality and quantity, level of supervision, team effectiveness, initiative, and self-development. Each student receives a report with their scores, average peer scores, and a compilation of peers’ suggestions for improvement. The second behavior assessment is similar to the earlier one, except that peers describe a strong behavior for each student—one that has positively impacted team or project performance.

The paper describes data analysis and feedback to students at both the early and late stages of the capstone project. It also provides sample feedback reports that illustrate the potential value to be gained by students. This poster presentation summarizes the work under NSF Grant DUE 1504728 and facilitates discussions about motivation assessment and reporting in capstone project courses.

AU - Peter Rogers
AU - Denny C. Davis
AU - Bashirah Ibrahim
AU - Lin Ding
AU - Kaycee Ash
CY - Salt Lake City, Utah
DA - 2018/06/23
PB - ASEE Conferences
TI - Board 125: Providing Student Feedback from Motivation Assessments in Capstone Courses
UR - https://peer.asee.org/29908
DO - 10.18260/1-2--29908
ER -