Asee peer logo

Measuring Student Perceptions of Engineering Classroom Activities and the Use of Such Measures by STEM Faculty: The Development of the Student Class Activity and Engagement Instrument

Download Paper |

Conference

2015 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Location

Seattle, Washington

Publication Date

June 14, 2015

Start Date

June 14, 2015

End Date

June 17, 2015

ISBN

978-0-692-50180-1

ISSN

2153-5965

Conference Session

Survey and Assessment Development

Tagged Division

Educational Research and Methods

Page Count

17

Page Numbers

26.1139.1 - 26.1139.17

DOI

10.18260/p.24476

Permanent URL

https://peer.asee.org/24476

Download Count

559

Request a correction

Paper Authors

biography

David L. Little II Oregon State University

visit author page

Dr. Little is a post-doc scholar at Oregon State University and a graduate of the STEM Education program at the University of Kentucky. He specializes in education measurement across the STEM disciplines, sustainability education at the post-secondary level, and interdisciplinary research and teaching within the STEM disciplines.

visit author page

biography

Kathleen Quardokus Fisher Oregon State University

visit author page

Dr. Kathleen Quardokus Fisher is a post doctoral scholar at Oregon State University. She is currently participating in a project that supports the use of evidence-based instructional practices in undergraduate STEM courses through developing communities of practice. Her research interests focus on understanding how organizational change occurs in higher education with respect to teaching and learning in STEM courses.

visit author page

biography

Shane A. Brown P.E. Oregon State University Orcid 16x16 orcid.org/0000-0003-3669-8407

visit author page

Shane Brown is an associate professor in the School of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Oregon State University. His research interests include conceptual change and situated cognition. He received the NSF CAREER award in 2010 and is working on a study to characterize practicing engineers’ understandings of core engineering concepts.

visit author page

biography

Milo Koretsky Oregon State University

visit author page

Milo Koretsky is a Professor of Chemical Engineering at Oregon State University. He received his B.S. and M.S. degrees from UC San Diego and his Ph.D. from UC Berkeley, all in Chemical Engineering. He currently has research activity in areas related engineering education and is interested in integrating technology into effective educational practices and in promoting the use of higher-level cognitive skills in engineering problem solving. His research interests particularly focus on what prevents students from being able to integrate and extend the knowledge developed in specific courses in the core curriculum to the more complex, authentic problems and projects they face as professionals. Dr. Koretsky is one of the founding members of the Center for Lifelong STEM Education Research at OSU.

visit author page

biography

Jana Bouwma-Gearhart Oregon State University

visit author page

Jana L. Bouwma-Gearhart is an associate professor of STEM education at Oregon State University. Her research widely concerns improving education at research universities. Her earlier research explored enhancements to faculty motivation to improve undergraduate education. Her more recent research concerns organizational change towards postsecondary STEM education improvement at research universities, including the interactions of levers (people, organizations, policy, initiatives) of change and documenting the good, hard work required across disciplinary boundaries to achieve meaningful change in STEM education.

visit author page

Download Paper |

Abstract

Measuring Student Perceptions of Engineering Classroom Activities and the Use of SuchMeasures by Engineering FacultyAbstractUsing a theory of differentiated learning activities in the classroom, an instrument (theFrequency of Differentiated Learning Activities Scale) was developed to measure the frequencyof various learning activities from the student perspective. The learning activities identified bythe instrument have been shown to promote significant positive differences in student learning.Benefits and possible uses of such an instrument include (1) a research tool for measuringfrequency of differentiated learning activities in the engineering classroom (and other STEMclassrooms), (2) an instrument capable of providing a quantitative measure of the frequency ofdifferentiated learning activities for instructor self-reflection, and (3) a means to assess if studentperception of classroom activities aligns with what actually occurs in the classroom. Theinstrument was piloted through cognitive interviews with 12 post-secondary undergraduatestudents, including 5 engineering majors, and a content expert review of the guiding frameworkfor the instrument, the item development process, as well as a qualitative review of the finalitems themselves. Results from the pilot study suggest initial validity evidence for theinstrument. Examples of the intended uses are provided as well as engineering faculty feedbackon these intended uses.

Little, D. L., & Quardokus Fisher, K., & Brown, S. A., & Koretsky, M., & Bouwma-Gearhart, J. (2015, June), Measuring Student Perceptions of Engineering Classroom Activities and the Use of Such Measures by STEM Faculty: The Development of the Student Class Activity and Engagement Instrument Paper presented at 2015 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition, Seattle, Washington. 10.18260/p.24476

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: © 2015 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