Asee peer logo

Full Paper: Exploring the Impact of ChatGPT on a First-Year Engineering Design Course

Download Paper |

Conference

14th Annual First-Year Engineering Experience (FYEE) Conference

Location

University of Tennessee in Knoxville, Tennessee

Publication Date

July 30, 2023

Start Date

July 30, 2023

End Date

August 1, 2023

Conference Session

S6A: Full Papers - Out with the Old, In with the New

Tagged Topic

Full Papers

Page Count

7

DOI

10.18260/1-2--44826

Permanent URL

https://peer.asee.org/44826

Download Count

164

Paper Authors

biography

Kevin Calabro University of Maryland, College Park

visit author page

Kevin Calabro is Keystone Instructor, Principal Lecturer, and Director in the Clark School of Engineering at the University of Maryland.

visit author page

biography

Catherine Marie Hamel University of Maryland, College Park

visit author page

Catherine "Cara" Hamel is a senior lecturer and the Assistant Director of the Keystone Program at the University of Maryland. Within this role, Catherine focuses on effectively teaching fundamental engineering courses for first and second year students, teaching courses like Thermodynamics, Statics, Introduction to Engineering Design, and Women in Engineering 1st-Year Seminar. Previously, Catherine received a bachelor's and master's degree in Fire Protection Engineering and worked as a process safety consultant before returning to UMD to teach for Keystone.

visit author page

biography

Joshua Cocker University of Maryland - Keystone Program

visit author page

Joshua Cocker is a lecturer with the Keystone Program at the University of Maryland. He teaches students in courses centered around engineering design, design thinking, total quality management, making, and thermodynamics.

visit author page

Download Paper |

Abstract

In this full paper we present findings from an exploratory study conducted to better understand the impact of ChatGPT on the teaching, assessment, learning, and development of design solutions within a first-year engineering design course (COURSE TITLE) at INSTITUTION. ChatGPT was developed and launched by OpenAI in November 2022 and is one of many generative artificial intelligence software tools available today. We chose to limit our analyses to ChatGPT because it is among the most popular open-source conversational, text-based chatbot tools available today. We recognize that many generative AI tools exist and believe that future research is needed to better understand these other tools. That said, within this paper we answer three research questions: - In what ways might ChatGPT impact the teaching and assessment of COURSE TITLE? - In what ways might ChatGPT impact learning within COURSE TITLE? - In what ways might ChatGPT be used to produce solutions to open-ended design challenges in COURSE TITLE?

Our findings from this qualitative study are intended to invite dialogue among first-year educators around this topic. With this aim in mind, our paper seeks to provide balanced and non-judgmental analyses of the potential impacts of this emerging technology by exploring potential use-cases, and describing benefits, hindrances, and potential risks of the existence of these technologies on the teaching, assessment, learning, and development of design solutions within COURSE TITLE.

Calabro, K., & Hamel, C. M., & Cocker, J. (2023, July), Full Paper: Exploring the Impact of ChatGPT on a First-Year Engineering Design Course Paper presented at 14th Annual First-Year Engineering Experience (FYEE) Conference, University of Tennessee in Knoxville, Tennessee. 10.18260/1-2--44826

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: © 2023 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