Board 50: Work in Progress: Evidence-based Analysis of the Design of Collaborative Problem-solving Engineering Tasks

Taylor Tucker; Saadeddine Shehab; Emma Mercier; Mariana Silva

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Conference: 2019 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition
Location: Tampa, Florida
Publication Date: June 15, 2019
Start Date: June 15, 2019
End Date: June 19, 2019
Conference Session: Educational Research and Methods Division Poster Session
Tagged Division: Educational Research and Methods
Page Count: 6
DOI: 10.18260/1-2--32366
Permanent URL: https://peer.asee.org/32366
Download Count: 483

Paper Authors

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Taylor Tucker University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

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Taylor Tucker graduated from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign with a Bachelor’s degree in engineering mechanics. She is now pursuing a master’s degree at UIUC and will begin in the Digital Environments for Learning, Teaching, and Agency program in the department of Curriculum and Instruction in the fall of 2019. She is interested in design thinking as it applies to engineering settings and lends her technical background to her research with the Collaborative Learning Lab, exploring how to assess and improve ill-structured tasks for students in order to promote collaborative problem solving and provide experience relevant to authentic work in industry.

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Saadeddine Shehab University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

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Saadeddine Shehab is a Ph.D. candidate in the department of Curriculum and Instruction at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He has a Bachelor in Chemistry and a Masters Degree in Science Education. His research focuses on the design and implementation of collaborative problem solving in actual STEM classrooms. His major focus is on the role of the teacher in orchestrating these classrooms.

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Emma Mercier University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

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Emma Mercier is an associate professor in Curriculum and Instruction at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. Her work focuses on collaborative learning in classrooms, and in particular, the use of technology for teachers and students during collaborative learning. Most recently Mercier's projects have focused on collaborative learning in required undergraduate engineering courses.

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Mariana Silva University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

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Mariana Silva is a Teaching Assistant Professor at the Computer Science Department at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. She received her BSME and MSME from the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil and earned her Ph.D. in Theoretical and Applied Mechanics from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 2009.

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Abstract

WIP: Evidence-based analysis of the design of collaborative problem-solving engineering tasks This work-in-progress paper will analyze the effectiveness of the design of an ill-structured task implemented in a college-level engineering classroom, and make suggestions for future task design. Ill-structured tasks are important to college-level engineering courses because they are similar to authentic problems that students will encounter in their future workplaces. These tasks are usually motivating for students, and require collaboration to be solved. However, the design and implementation of these tasks in actual face-to-face engineering classrooms are challenging. Research has reported on the learning processes and outcomes associated with implementing these tasks in the classroom, but it is not clear which aspects of their design promote or hinder effective problem-solving processes. The purpose of this paper is to identify the problem-solving processes that were implemented by groups of undergraduate engineering students as they solved an ill-structured task, and then determine which aspects of the task design promoted or hindered those processes. Our ongoing collaboration study, [blinded for review], is a design-based implementation research project that involves the design and implementation of ill-structured tasks using a research-based framework we developed previously. These tasks were implemented in an actual undergraduate engineering classroom, where small groups of students worked collaboratively. As the groups worked to solve each ill-structured task, video and audio data was collected. In this paper, we will analyze the data from seven groups solving one task. Our video analysis will be guided by two coding schemes, both of which are informed by a research-based framework that was developed using literature that defines the four problem-solving processes necessary for solving ill-structured tasks. These processes are: problem representation, generating solutions, making justifications, and monitoring and evaluation. The first coding scheme analyzes student verbal interactions at the turn level to identify thematic episodes within the video that fit into each of these processes. The second coding scheme evaluates the quality of interaction in each of these episodes based on our framework. Through the use of these schemes, we will be able to identify instances when groups are effectively and ineffectively implementing each of the four necessary processes, and link these instances to aspects of the task design. Our analysis of how students solved our ill-structured task will determine which aspects of the task design were successful and which aspects need to be improved. Based on our results, we will also make suggestions for modification of the design of this task to further promote effective problem-solving processes. Our anticipated results will contribute to improving our task design framework for the design and implementation of future tasks. On a larger scale, our study promotes the evolution of collaborative problem solving by expanding on ill-structured task design theory. This research is especially relevant for engineering educators because it provides feedback on designing ill-structured tasks for engineering students.

Citation
Format

Tucker, T., & Shehab, S., & Mercier, E., & Silva, M. (2019, June), Board 50: Work in Progress: Evidence-based Analysis of the Design of Collaborative Problem-solving Engineering Tasks Paper presented at 2019 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition , Tampa, Florida. 10.18260/1-2--32366

TY - CPAPER
AB - WIP: Evidence-based analysis of the design of collaborative problem-solving engineering tasks

This work-in-progress paper will analyze the effectiveness of the design of an ill-structured task implemented in a college-level engineering classroom, and make suggestions for future task design. Ill-structured tasks are important to college-level engineering courses because they are similar to authentic problems that students will encounter in their future workplaces. These tasks are usually motivating for students, and require collaboration to be solved. However, the design and implementation of these tasks in actual face-to-face engineering classrooms are challenging. Research has reported on the learning processes and outcomes associated with implementing these tasks in the classroom, but it is not clear which aspects of their design promote or hinder effective problem-solving processes. The purpose of this paper is to identify the problem-solving processes that were implemented by groups of undergraduate engineering students as they solved an ill-structured task, and then determine which aspects of the task design promoted or hindered those processes.

Our ongoing collaboration study, [blinded for review], is a design-based implementation research project that involves the design and implementation of ill-structured tasks using a research-based framework we developed previously. These tasks were implemented in an actual undergraduate engineering classroom, where small groups of students worked collaboratively. As the groups worked to solve each ill-structured task, video and audio data was collected. In this paper, we will analyze the data from seven groups solving one task. Our video analysis will be guided by two coding schemes, both of which are informed by a research-based framework that was developed using literature that defines the four problem-solving processes necessary for solving ill-structured tasks. These processes are: problem representation, generating solutions, making justifications, and monitoring and evaluation. The first coding scheme analyzes student verbal interactions at the turn level to identify thematic episodes within the video that fit into each of these processes. The second coding scheme evaluates the quality of interaction in each of these episodes based on our framework. Through the use of these schemes, we will be able to identify instances when groups are effectively and ineffectively implementing each of the four necessary processes, and link these instances to aspects of the task design.

Our analysis of how students solved our ill-structured task will determine which aspects of the task design were successful and which aspects need to be improved. Based on our results, we will also make suggestions for modification of the design of this task to further promote effective problem-solving processes. Our anticipated results will contribute to improving our task design framework for the design and implementation of future tasks. On a larger scale, our study promotes the evolution of collaborative problem solving by expanding on ill-structured task design theory. This research is especially relevant for engineering educators because it provides feedback on designing ill-structured tasks for engineering students.

AU - Taylor Tucker
AU - Saadeddine Shehab
AU - Emma Mercier
AU - Mariana Silva
CY - Tampa, Florida
DA - 2019/06/15
PB - ASEE Conferences
TI - Board 50: Work in Progress: Evidence-based Analysis of the Design of Collaborative Problem-solving Engineering Tasks
UR - https://peer.asee.org/32366
DO - 10.18260/1-2--32366
ER -