Mejia, J. A., & Goodridge, W. H., & Call, B. J., & Wood, S. D. (2016, June), Manipulatives in Engineering Statics: Supplementing Analytical Techniques with Physical Models  Paper presented at 2016 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition, New Orleans, Louisiana. 10.18260/p.25673

\bibitem{asee_peer_25673}
  Mejia, J. A., \& Goodridge, W. H., \& Call, B. J., \& Wood, S. D. (2016, June), \emph{Manipulatives in Engineering Statics: Supplementing Analytical Techniques with Physical Models}
  Paper presented at 2016 ASEE Annual Conference \& Exposition, New Orleans, Louisiana.
  10.18260/p.25673

Joel Alejandro Mejia, Wade H Goodridge, Benjamin James Call, and Steven David Wood.  "Manipulatives in Engineering Statics: Supplementing Analytical Techniques with Physical Models".  2016 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition, New Orleans, Louisiana, 2016, June.  ASEE Conferences, 2016.  https://peer.asee.org/25673 Internet.  11 Dec, 2024

\bibitem{asee_peer_25673}
  Joel Alejandro Mejia, Wade H Goodridge, Benjamin James Call, and Steven David Wood.
  "Manipulatives in Engineering Statics: Supplementing Analytical Techniques with Physical Models".
  \emph{2016 ASEE Annual Conference \& Exposition, New Orleans, Louisiana, 2016, June}.
  ASEE Conferences, 2016.
  https://peer.asee.org/25673 Internet.  11 Dec, 2024

@INPROCEEDINGS{asee_peer_25673
author = "Joel Alejandro Mejia, Wade H Goodridge, Benjamin James Call, and Steven David Wood"
title = "Manipulatives in Engineering Statics: Supplementing Analytical Techniques with Physical Models"
booktitle = "2016 ASEE Annual Conference \& Exposition"
year = "2016"
month = "June"
address = "New Orleans, Louisiana"
publisher = "ASEE Conferences"
note = {https://peer.asee.org/25673}
number = {10.18260/p.25673}
}

TY  - CPAPER
AB  - Engineering statics is a fundamental course, and a core building block, that prepares students for subsequent courses such as dynamics and mechanics of materials. This course helps engineering students develop a fundamental understanding of basic mechanics areas of statics critical for the analysis of other core engineering courses throughout the engineering program. However, engineering statics has been characterized as one of the challenging courses for students. Statics remains one of the courses where achievement levels are sometimes not satisfactory. One particular challenging area for instructors is to show “intangible” mechanics principles that may seem too abstract for students. For instance, analysis of internal forces of members in a truss system may be easily procedurally calculated leading to a solution that may not have a true intuitive meaning for the student. Thus, visualization is necessary to help the student move from procedural fluency to conceptual understanding of statics concepts. It is through conceptual understanding that the student will demonstrate her/his ability to reason in settings that involve not only mathematical manipulation but also application of concepts, relations, and representations. Conceptual understanding is the bridge that could enable students to solve new kinds of problems and achieve success in statics. 

In order to assist students gain conceptual understanding of internal forces, a physical manipulative of a truss was developed in order to help students visualize, feel, and analyze the behavior of the material being manipulated. The purpose of this qualitative study was to understand how a physical manipulative of a truss contributed to the conceptual understanding of truss analysis in statics. In this study, twelve students were presented with a simple problem of a truss, where no measurements or numerical quantities were provided, and asked to determine which members where in tension or compression. Then, the participants were given a model of a physical manipulative resembling the same problem they were given before and asked the same questions. Finally, an exit interview was conducted with each participant in order to obtain more information about their experience with the physical manipulative. Preliminary results indicated that physical manipulatives helped participants visualize intangible concepts learned in the classroom and provided a venue to gain conceptual understanding of internal forces.

Concurrent protocols, in which each participant was asked to think aloud during the process of completing a task, were collected and observations were made as another form of data collection. 
These verbal thought processes, as well as follow-up interviews and observations, were audio recorded and transcribed. Constant comparative analysis was used to critically draw important information about the participants and their reactions about the physical manipulative. The implications of the research findings will be discussed, including the lessons learned from this study. The results obtained from this study will be used to modify and expand further research using manipulative models in engineering mechanics courses.   



AU  - Joel Alejandro Mejia
AU  - Wade H Goodridge
AU  - Benjamin James Call
AU  - Steven David Wood
CY  - New Orleans, Louisiana
DA  - 2016/06/26
PB  - ASEE Conferences
TI  - Manipulatives in Engineering Statics: Supplementing Analytical Techniques with Physical Models
UR  - https://peer.asee.org/25673
DO  - 10.18260/p.25673
ER  -