Engineering Commons^™

Climate Justice In Engineering Education, Tyler J. Morgan, Donna Riley, Caroline M. Camfield

Discovery Undergraduate Interdisciplinary Research Internship

The goal of this research is to design a learning module for Purdue first-year engineering (FYE) students to learn climate fundamentals, and the role of engineers in responding to climate justice challenges. There is a lack of climate material within these classes currently, leading to a lack of climate conscious engineers in the future. The project entailed reviewing and synthesizing a wide variety of previous research on climate change education in engineering, including key learning objectives and their assessment. Because one of the key foci of the first-year engineering sequence relates to data analysis and management, we focused our work …

Debugging: The Key To Unlocking The Mind Of A Novice Programmer?, Anthony A. Lowe

School of Engineering Education Graduate Student Series

Novice programmers must master two skills to show lasting success: writing code and, when that fails, the ability to debug it. Instructors spend much time teaching the details of writing code but debugging gets significantly less attention. But what if teaching debugging could implicitly teach other aspects of coding better than teaching a language teaching debugging? This paper explores a new theoretical framework, the Theory of Applied Mind for Programming (TAMP), which merges dual process theory with Jerome Bruner’s theory of representations to model the mind of a programmer. TAMP looks to provide greater explanatory power in why novices struggle …

Transcribing Braille Code: Learning Equations Across Platforms, Deegan Atha, Courtney Balogh

Purdue Journal of Service-Learning and International Engagement

Deegan Atha, a graduating senior in electrical engineering and a future engineer, is interested in human-centered design and developing technology that helps students engage and be successful in STEM.

Courtney Balogh, a junior in mechanical engineering, is interested in human-centered design and the importance it plays in product development. Deegan and Courtney are members of the Purdue EPICS project, Learning Equations Across Platforms (LEAP). They partnered with the Indiana School for the Blind and Visually Impaired (ISBVI) to develop a braille transcription device and web application that converts braille to print in real time.

Impacts Of Professional Development In Integrated Stem Education On Teacher Self-Efficacy, Outcome Expectancy, And Stem Career Awareness, John Geoffrey Knowles

Purdue Polytechnic Doctoral Dissertations

This research analyzed the effects of teacher professional development and lesson implementation in integrated Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM) on: 1.) Teacher self-efficacy and their confidence to teach specific STEM subjects; 2.) Teaching outcome expectancy beliefs concerning the impact of actions by teachers on student learning; and 3.) Teacher awareness of STEM careers. High school science and technology education teachers participating in the Teachers and Researchers Advancing Integrated Lessons in STEM (TRAILS) project experimental group attended a ten-day summer professional development institute designed to educate teachers in using an integrated STEM education model to implement integrated STEM lessons. The …

The Association Between Tolerance For Ambiguity And Fear Of Negative Evaluation: A Study Of Engineering Technology Capstone Courses, Sergey I. Dubikovsky

Open Access Dissertations

For many students in engineering and engineering technology programs in the US, senior capstone design courses require students to form a team, define a problem, and find a feasible technical solution to address this problem. Students must integrate the knowledge and skills acquired during their studies at the college or university level. These truly integrative design activities do not have a single “correct” solution. Instead, there is an array of solutions, many of which could be used to achieve the final result. This ambiguity can cause students to experience anxiety during the projects.

This study examined the main topics: • …

Race, Class And Gender In Engineering Education: A Quantitative Investigation Of First Year Enrollment, Canek Moises Luna Phillips

Open Access Dissertations

Research explanations for the disparity across both race and gender in engineering education has typically relied on a deficit model, whereby women and people of color lack the requisite knowledge or psychological characteristics that Whites and men have to become engineers in sufficient numbers. Instead of using a deficit model approach to explain gender and race disparity, in the three studies conducted for this dissertation, I approach gender and race disparity as the result of processes of segregation linked to the historic and on-going perpetuation of systemic sources of oppression in the United States. In the first study, I investigate …

Multimedia Techniques For Construction Education And Training, Wayne A. Bunnell

Open Access Theses

The current profession of civil engineering often focuses education and training on code compliance rather than constructability and construction techniques. Also, it is well accepted that it takes a decade or more for engineers to develop a high-level project construction understanding and many state departments of transportation rely on in-field training for entry-level inspectors, with little or no education provisions for contractors. This research investigated the use of time-lapse photography to develop training and education material that will improve the understanding of project construction and crucial quality control specifications of an entry-level engineer, contractor, or inspector. Overall, the project team …

Conceptual Understanding Of Threshold Concepts Of Electrical Phenomena: Mental Models Of Senior Undergraduates In Electrical Engineering, Mark T. Carnes

Open Access Dissertations

Every field of study has a set of domain-specific concepts that anyone who desires to work in that field must know and understand. Most students who pursue university degrees in engineering trust that their education is designed to provide them with this knowledge. But does it? In electrical engineering (EE), conceptual understanding of electrical phenomena has rarely been addressed. Even though the presumed goal of instructors and students alike is to learn the concepts of electrical phenomena well enough to be able to use the concepts to design useful things, it is difficult to determine whether this goal is being …

Carbon Nanotube Thermal Interfaces And Related Applications, Stephen L. Hodson

Open Access Dissertations

The development of thermal interface materials (TIMs) is necessitated by the temperature drop across interfacing materials arising from macro and microscopic irregularities of their surfaces that constricts heat through small contact regions as well as mismatches in their thermal properties. Similar to other types of TIMs, CNT TIMs alleviate the thermal resistance across the interface by thermally bridging two materials together with cylindrical, high-aspect ratio, and nominally vertical conducting elements. Within the community of TIM engineers, the vision driving the development of CNT TIMs was born from measurements that revealed impressively high thermal conductivities of individual CNTs. This vision was …

Students' Explanations In Complex Learning Of Disciplinary Programming, Camilo Vieira

Open Access Dissertations

Computational Science and Engineering (CSE) has been denominated as the third pillar of science and as a set of important skills to solve the problems of a global society. Along with the theoretical and the experimental approaches, computation offers a third alternative to solve complex problems that require processing large amounts of data, or representing complex phenomena that are not easy to experiment with. Despite the relevance of CSE, current professionals and scientists are not well prepared to take advantage of this set of tools and methods. Computation is usually taught in an isolated way from engineering disciplines, and therefore, …

Methods To Facilitate Community Participation In Humanitarian Engineering Projects: Laying The Foundation For A Learning Platform, Andrea Mazzurco

Open Access Dissertations

Humanitarian engineering (HE) is a new interdisciplinary field that is rapidly emerging worldwide. Many not-for-profit organizations such as Engineers Without Borders, Practical Action, and International Development Enterprise have been flourishing with the goal of providing technological solutions to those who need them the most. In engineering programs across the U.S., HE, service-learning, community engagement, and similar programs are gaining popularity because they offer an efficient way to meet ABET accreditation criteria, while also teaching valuable technical and professional skills to engineering students. However, the cultural, social, and political differences among communities and engineers often add degrees of difficulty that cannot …

From Mechanic To Designer: Evolving Perceptions Of Elementary Students Over Three Years Of Engineering Instruction, Anastasia M. Rynearson

Open Access Dissertations

Due in part to increasing state standards that require engineering in K-12 curricula and the Next Generation Science Standards’ incorporation of engineering outcomes, inclusion of engineering into elementary classrooms is on the rise. Teacher development and experiences in learning about and implementing engineering have been studied, but elementary students’ experiences when learning about engineering have not been explored.

The purpose of this study is to address the question: How do elementary students’ knowledge of, attitudes toward, and overall conceptions of engineering evolve over three years of engineering instruction?

This study follows seven elementary school students through three years of engineering …

Development Of First-Year Engineering Teams' Mathematical Models Through Linked Modeling And Simulation Projects, Kelsey Joy Rodgers

Open Access Dissertations

The development and use of mathematical models and simulations underlies much of the work of engineers. Mathematical models describe a situation or system through mathematics, quantification, and pattern identification. Simulations enable users to interact with models through manipulation of input variables and visualization of model outputs. Although modeling skills are fundamental, they are rarely explicitly taught in engineering. Model-eliciting activities (MEAs) represent a pedagogical approach used in engineering to teach students mathematical modeling skills through the development of a model to solve an authentic problem.

This study is an investigation into the impact of linking a MEA and a simulation-building …

Exploratory Study Of Students' Representational Fluency And Competence Of Electric Circuits, William Fernando Sandchez Cossio

Open Access Theses

Electric circuits are extensively used in today’s devices as computers, phones, cameras and others. This makes them a crucial topic in engineering because almost every engineering branch could be related of used them at different levels. Even though their importance, students often struggle during the learning process of circuit analysis topics. Additionally, other very important abilities for engineering students are the capacities to create, use, express and think about models and representations of technical concepts; and the capacities to translate and map from one representation to another. These abilities are known as representational competence and representational fluency respectively.

The purpose …

A Study Of Applications Of 3d Animation For Emergency Medicine Pedagogy, Huilong Zheng

Open Access Theses

There is ample precedent for the use of 3D animation in education, though little research on specific applications in the field of medicine. An experiment was carried out to assess the suitability of 3D animation for educational purposes in emergency medicine courses. Two groups of experimental participants were assessed on their ability to respond to three emergency medical situations in simulated test scenarios. Both groups received equivalent information on how to treat the three different medical emergencies. The control group received the information in traditional lecture format. The experimental group instead received the information from a set of 3D animations. …

Mining Big Data To Create A Tool For Empirical Observation Of Continuous Safety Improvement In A Construction Company - A Progressive Case Study In The Lean Environment, Nicolas J. Michuda

Open Access Theses

In any iterative process, without a system of measurement, controlled improvement cannot be recorded. This is especially true in the construction industry, where error occurs, often with fatal repercussions. As part of a process to facilitate the establishment of this metric, an entirely new application was created. The goal of this application is to measure the causal factors that lead to incidents, which will allow the user and administration to track the circumstances and types of incidents. This enables the company to focus on these problem areas and improve through training. By analyzing these incident trends over time, the company …

Learning The Language Of Academic Engineering: Sociocognitive Writing In Graduate Students, Catherine G. P. Berdanier

Open Access Dissertations

Although engineering graduate programs rarely require academic writing courses, the indicators of merit in academic engineering, such as journal publications, successful grants, and doctoral milestones (e.g. theses, dissertations) are based in effective written argumentation and disciplinary discourse. Further, graduate student attrition averages 57% across all disciplines, with some studies classifying up to 50% of these students as “ABD” (All But Dissertation.) In engineering disciplines specifically, graduate attrition rates across the U.S. average 36% (both Master’s and PhD students), according to the Council of Graduate Schools. The lack of socialization is generally noted as a main reason for graduate attrition, one …

Modernizing The Current Afghan Engineering Education System: Challenges And Opportunities, Khalilullah Mayar

Open Access Theses

Having an effective engineering education system in place can play a crucial role in the development and reconstruction process of a war-ravaged country, such as Afghanistan, where tens of billions of dollars of international aid has been spent in the past 14 years for that process, including higher education. Unfortunately, at this point, the Afghan engineering education system is not yet financially self-sufficient nor can it address the education requirements of today’s job market. This thesis aimed to identify the major challenges still faced by Afghanistan and to provide a comprehensive list of recommendations and priorities that can make the …

A Standards-Based Grading Model To Predict Students' Success In A First-Year Engineering Course, Farshid Marbouti

Open Access Dissertations

Using predictive modeling methods, it is possible to identify at-risk students early in the semester and inform both the instructors and the students. While some universities have started to use standards-based grading, which has educational advantages over common score-based grading, at–risk prediction models have not been adapted to reap the benefits of standards-based grading. In this study, seven prediction models were compared to identify at-risk students in a course that used standards-based grading. When identifying at-risk students, it is important to minimize false negative (i.e., type II) errors while not increasing false positive (i.e., type I) errors significantly. To increase …

Nanohub.Org: A Gateway To Undergraduate Simulation-Based Research In Materials Science And Related Fields, Tanya A. Faltens, Peter A. Bermel, Amanda Buckles, K Anna Douglas, Alejandro H. Strachan, Lynn K. Zentner, Gerhard Klimeck

Birck and NCN Publications

Our future engineers and scientists will likely be required to use advanced simulations to solve many of tomorrow's challenges in nanotechnology. To prepare students to meet this need, the Network for Computational Nanotechnology (NCN) provides simulation-focused research experiences for undergraduates at an early point in their educational path, to increase the likelihood that they will ultimately complete a doctoral program. The NCN summer research program currently serves over 20 undergraduate students per year who are recruited nationwide, and selected by NCN and the faculty for aptitude in their chosen field within STEM, as well as complementary skills such as coding …

Towards Digital Art In Information Society, Montse Arbelo, Joseba Franco

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In their article "Towards Digital Art in Information Society" Montse Arbelo and Joseba Franco propose the development of the platform of a Network of Experimental Centers be formed by small groups of people who are qualified and who seek optimal operational effectiveness and who dedicate their resources to the production of digital content and we offer artechmedia <http://www.artechmedia.org> as a base point of departure. Such an international network in a collaborative structure based on national networks would make possible to coordinate existing resources to develop social networks, generate and promote content, engage in forums of discussion and creativity workshops, and …

Designing Sustainable Mentoring Programs: Examining The Role Of Social Community In The Stem College Student Experience, Joi-Lynn Mondisa

Open Access Theses

In order to begin to understand how to design programs that promote community development and produce beneficial outcomes for community members, we must first define the elements and functions of such a community. In this thesis, I define social community as an environment where like-minded individuals engage indynamic, multidirectional interactions that facilitate social support . Using a human-integrated systems approach, I propose a social community model for STEM minority mentoring programs to understand how a community's design plays a role in the learning and enrichment of its members. The social community model is comprised of three main components: program …

Augmented Reality Application Utility For Aviation Maintenance Work Instruction, John Bryan Pourcho

Open Access Theses

Current aviation maintenance work instructions do not display information effectively enough to prevent costly errors and safety concerns. Aircraft are complex assemblies of highly interrelated components that confound troubleshooting and can make the maintenance procedure difficult (Drury & Gramopadhye, 2001). The sophisticated nature of aircraft maintenance necessitates a revolutionized training intervention for aviation maintenance technicians (United States General Accounting Office, 2003). Quite simply, the paper based job task cards fall short of offering rapid access to technical data and the system or component visualization necessary for working on complex integrated aircraft systems. Possible solutions to this problem include upgraded standards …

Evaluating Optimum Levels Of Detail For 3d Interactive Aviation Maintenance Instructions, Nicholas Rohe

Open Access Theses

With the aviation industry shifting from paper based maintenance instructions to digital maintenance instructions, there needs to be a standard for what goes into creating the digital instructions. This study was done to determine what the optimum level of detail for 3D interactive aviation maintenance instructions. The definition of optimum for this study was: lowest amount of geometrical data with lowest rendering needed for comprehension and ease of use.

Visualizing Mechanics: Educational Videos Demonstrating Core Mechanics Concepts, Camilo Schrader, Jeffrey Rhoads, Charles M. Krousgrill, Stephen Alex Stamm, Elizabeth Bushman

The Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship (SURF) Symposium

There has been an increased interest in using technology to relay information over the past 20 years. This interest has been reflected in the way the internet has expanded to incorporate nearly-uncountable numbers of blogs, streaming videos, and discussion forums. Recent research has shown that younger generations of students prefer internet-based platforms such as these to communicate and learn, as they are congruent with a visual style of learning. The present study seeks to fuse the predominantly reflective and intuitive methods found in a traditional lecture with the more visual and active modes of learning to provide a larger range …

Epics: Broadening The Pathway Into Stem, Mindy Hart, Patrice M. Buzzanell, William Charles Oakes, Carla B Zoltowski

ADVANCE-Purdue Gender and STEM Research Symposium

The Engineering Projects in Community Service (EPICS) program was co-founded at Purdue University in 1995 and has since spread throughout the United States and globally with inroads into K-12 education through EPICS High. This presentation offers a synthesis of research findings and interventions gleaned from several datasets about students’ and alumni’s reported experiences with EPICS and the consequences of their participation. In particular, this presentation discusses the ways in which EPICS provides a different vantage point on the underrepresentation of women in STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math). Specifically, researchers have been tackling this issue of underrepresentation for decades with …

Visualizing Mechanics: Improving Student Learning Through Video Demonstrations, Blake A. Wetherton, Olumide A. Awofeso, Carolyn E. Creighton, Adam F. Potrzebowski, Charles M. Krousgrill, Jeffrey F. Rhoads

The Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship (SURF) Symposium

The Purdue Mechanics Freeform Classroom (PMFC) is a project that seeks to reform engineering mechanics education by integrating content and technology; enhancing communication between students, their peers, and instructors; accommodating a broader range of learning styles; and facilitating greater depths of understanding. In an attempt to increase the PMFC’s efficacy, a series of demonstration videos has been produced. As demonstrated by the popularity and pervasiveness of websites such as YouTube, short videos have the potential to captivate audiences. As such, these videos have incredible promise in educational contexts. In the PMFC series of videos, entitled Visualizing Mechanics, each imitates the …

Development Of Pneumatic Robot For Outreach, Eshamogbo E. Ojuba, John Lumkes

The Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship (SURF) Symposium

To encourage the current generation of high school and middle school students to pursue careers in engineering, it is important to have challenging hands-on engineering activities for them. Such activities should be interesting, compelling, and, most importantly, educative. A mini-excavator was built for fluid power outreach, but this tool only demonstrates fluid power, without showing other important aspects of engineering. The tool being developed is able to demonstrate fluid power, as well as other important aspects of engineering, such as controls, electronics, and programming. This tool is an electronically-controlled device that allows the user control a pneumatic circuit, coupled with …

Scholarly Collaboration In Engineering Education: From Big-Data Scientometrics To User-Centered Software Design, Hanjun Xian

Open Access Dissertations

Engineering education research has grown into a flourishing community with an-ever increasing number of publications and scholars. However, recent studies show that a significant amount of engineering education knowledge retains a clear disciplinary orientation. If the gaps in scholarly collaboration continue to be prevalent within the entire community, it will become increasingly difficult to sustain community memory. This will eventually inhibit the propagation of innovations and slow the movement of research findings into practice.

This dissertation studies scholarly collaboration in the engineering education research community. It provides a clear characterization of collaboration problems and proposes potential solutions. The dissertation is …

Why Do Indiana Pre-Service Technology Education Majors Choose The Profession, Traves L. Freeland

Purdue Polytechnic Masters Theses

The purpose of this descriptive study was to look at the factors that influence pre-service technology education majors to choose to become teachers. The pre-service teachers of three Indiana technology education teacher preparatory programs were given an internet survey to collect demographic data and determine what factors influence current pre-service teachers. The results of this study were compared to the results from a study done by Harris (2007). The findings resulted in similar factors that were the most common identified as being influential. Those factors included personal interest or hobbies, high school or middle school teacher, and past experiences in …