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Direct and Indirect Assessment of Student Perspectives and Performance in an Online / Distance Education Chemical Engineering Bridging Course

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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

Teaching and Assessment in Chemical Engineering

Tagged Division

Chemical Engineering

Page Count

15

DOI

10.18260/1-2--32665

Permanent URL

https://peer.asee.org/32665

Download Count

374

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Paper Authors

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Matthew Cooper North Carolina State University Orcid 16x16 orcid.org/0000-0003-1060-4628

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Dr. Matthew Cooper is a Teaching Associate Professor in the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at NC State University where he teaches courses in Material and Energy Balances, Unit Operations, Transport Phenomena and Mathematical/Computational Methods. He is the recipient of numerous teaching and pedagogical research awards, including the NCSU Outstanding Teacher Award, NCSU Alumni Distinguished Undergraduate Professor Award, ASEE Chemical Engineering Division Raymond W. Fahien Award, and the 2013 and 2017 ASEE Joseph J. Martin Awards for Best Conference Paper. Dr. Cooper’s research interests include effective teaching, conceptual and inductive learning, and integrating writing and speaking into the curriculum and professional ethics.

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Lisa G. Bullard North Carolina State University

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Dr. Lisa Bullard is an Alumni Distinguished Undergraduate Professor and Director of Undergraduate Studies in the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at North Carolina State University. She received her BS in Chemical Engineering from NC State and her Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering from Carnegie Mellon University. She served in engineering and management positions within Eastman Chemical Company from 1991-2000. A faculty member at NC State since 2000, Dr. Bullard has won numerous awards for both teaching and advising, including the ASEE Raymond W. Fahien Award, the John Wiley Premier Award for Engineering Education Courseware, NC State Faculty Advising Award, National Effective Teaching Institute Fellow, NC State Alumni Outstanding Teacher Award, George H. Blessis Outstanding Undergraduate Advisor Award, and the ASEE Southeastern Section Mid-Career Teacher Award. She is a member of the editorial board for Chemical Engineering Education and serves a Director of the Chemical Engineering Division of ASEE. She will be a co-author, along with Dr. Richard Felder and Dr. Ronald Rousseau, of the 4th edition of Chemical Process Principles. Dr. Bullard’s research interests lie in the area of educational scholarship, including teaching and advising effectiveness, academic integrity, process design instruction, and the integration of writing, speaking, and computing within the curriculum.

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Christopher C. Willis North Carolina State University - DELTA

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Chris Willis, DELTA’s Assistant Director, Planning and Assessment, manages the evaluation and assessment of course redesign and educational technology projects, focusing on technology integration, pedagogy, and teaching best practices to support student success and engagement. He manages data collection, analysis, and reporting, and provides training, guidance, and support for the effective integration and use of quantitative and qualitative data collection methods for evaluating and assessing DE and blended course redesigns. Chris holds Master’s degrees in Survey Research, Education, and Public Administration, and is currently a PhD student in NC State’s Educational Leadership, Policy and Human Development program.

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Dan Spencer North Carolina State University

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Dan Spencer is a Postdoctoral Research Scholar in the department of Distance Education and Learning Technology Applications (DELTA) at North Carolina State University. As part of the DELTA Planning & Assessment team, Dan provides support of empirical research efforts that contribute to maintaining and evaluating DELTA’s strategic plan. Specifically, he provides assistance in the designing of qualitative and quantitative methods for collecting and analyzing assessment data, as well as disseminating the findings to those at NC State and the wider academic community.

Dan received his Ph.D. in Educational Psychology from NC State University. Originally from the United Kingdom, he received his BSc and MSc degrees in Psychology and Psychological Research from Bangor University, Wales. His research interests center around designing, developing, and evaluating the effectiveness of pedagogical interventions for online, face-to-face, and blended courses. In particular, his focus has been on improving self-regulation and motivation in both individual and collaborative environments, as well as the use of assessment data and processes to improve student learning outcomes and perceptions.

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Abstract

An online ChE “bridging” course which implements different instructional methods to prepare students who have BS degrees in non-ChE fields such as chemistry or biology for ChE graduate school was initially offered in the Fall 2018 semester. A concerted effort was made to evaluate students’ experiences in the course using both direct assessment (i.e. student academic performance) through problem-by-problem scoring metrics and indirect assessment (e.g. task value, connectedness, self-efficacy) through validated pedagogical inventories emerging from relevant theoretical frameworks. Indirect assessments were collected at the beginning, middle and end of the course, while direct assessments were made continuously.

This work presents results of these direct and indirect assessments as well as post-hoc analyses with respect to variables such as demographics, learning perceptions and student motivation. This work is unique in that it provides insight into relationships between concepts such as course design/structure, motivation and perception with student academic performance in a distance education ChE course, and as such helps to reveal best practices in the growing area.

Cooper, M., & Bullard, L. G., & Willis, C. C., & Spencer, D. (2019, June), Direct and Indirect Assessment of Student Perspectives and Performance in an Online / Distance Education Chemical Engineering Bridging Course Paper presented at 2019 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition , Tampa, Florida. 10.18260/1-2--32665

ASEE holds the copyright on this document. It may be read by the public free of charge. Authors may archive their work on personal websites or in institutional repositories with the following citation: © 2019 American Society for Engineering Education. Other scholars may excerpt or quote from these materials with the same citation. When excerpting or quoting from Conference Proceedings, authors should, in addition to noting the ASEE copyright, list all the original authors and their institutions and name the host city of the conference. - Last updated April 1, 2015