Engineering Education Commons^™

Engineering Design Challenges In A Science Curriculum, Arthur Eisenkraft

Publications

Create a light and sound show to entertain your friends. Design an improved safety device for a car. Develop a 2-3 minute voice-over for a sports clip explaining the physics involved in the sport. Modify the design of a roller coaster to meet the needs of a specific group of riders. Design an appliance package for a family limited by the power and energy of wind generator. Develop a museum exhibit to acquaint visitors with the atom and nucleus and create a product that can be sold at the museum store after visitors leave your exhibit. All of these challenges …

Afit Graduate School Of Engineering And Management Catalog 2011–2012, Graduate School Of Engineering And Management, Air Force Institute Of Technology

AFIT Documents

The Graduate Catalog represents the offerings, programs, and requirements in effect at the time of publication.

Integrating Engineering Design Challenges Into Secondary Stem Education, Ronald L. Carr

Publications

Engineering is being currently taught in the full spectrum of the P-12 system, with an emphasis on design-oriented teaching (Brophy, Klein, Portsmore, & Rogers, 2008). Due to only a small amount of research on the learning of engineering design in elementary and middle school settings, the community of practice lacks the necessary knowledge of the trajectory of students' learning progressions towards design mastery and expertise and the appropriateness of otherwise established design pedagogies. The issue is even more pressing since many states are embedding engineering into their standards without a clear notion of how engineering (often conceptualized as design) works …

Engineering Design Challenges In High School Stem Courses A Compilation Of Invited Position Papers, Daniel L. Householder

Publications

Since its initial funding by the National Science Foundation in 2004, the National Center for Engineering and Technology Education (NCETE) has worked to understand the infusion of engineering design experiences into the high school setting. Over the years, an increasing number of educators and professional groups have participated in the expanding initiative seeking to acquaint all students with engineering design. While there is strong support for providing students with engineering design experiences in their high school STEM courses, the lack of consensus on purposes and strategies has become increasingly apparent as the work continues. Among the unsettled issues are the …

A Catholic And Marianist Engineering Education, Kevin P. Hallinan, Margaret Pinnell

Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Faculty Publications

The School of Engineering at the University of Dayton (UD), a Catholic and Marianist University, boasts large enrollments of 1,300 undergraduate and 350 graduate students out of a total of 7,000 undergraduates and 3,000 graduate students. It also boasts a faculty very active in research, which, under the umbrella of the University of Dayton Research Institute, is funded at a level of $100 million per year.

In the past decade, the University of Dayton has sought to better articulate the impact of its Catholic and Marianist traditions, and faculty have been challenged to embody these traditions. University mission statements and …

Reactivation Of A Six-Degree-Of-Freedom Repeated Impact Machine Using Programmable Logical Controller (Plc), Cheng Lin

Engineering Technology Faculty Publications

Reactivation of a six-degree-of-freedom impact machine using Programmable Logical Control (PLC) is presented. The output from the machine is the history of accelerations collected from accelerometers attached at the testing article and a load cell mounted at the rubber pad where the impact occurs. Readings of the acceleration and impact force are sent to a PC for analysis through a data acquisition device (USB 6251) and Labview software provided by National Instrument (NI). Result shows that the machine can repeatedly generate an impact force up to eleven Gs. Demonstration of the project can be used as one of labs in …

Simulation And Visualization Enhanced Engineering Education- Development And Implementation Of Virtual Experiments In A Laboratory Course, Sushil K. Chaturvedi, Kaustubh A. Dharwadkar

Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering Faculty Publications

This paper presents results from a National Science Foundation grant titled "Simulation and Visualization Enhanced Engineering Education", funded by the EEC division. Although the scope of the project is quite broad, embracing a wide range of courses in three engineering disciplines, the present work describes the results obtained from application of simulation and visualization for development and implementation of web-based virtual engineering laboratories. The present work leverages the advancement in hardware and software technologies to map physical experiments into web-based virtual experiments that can be used to enrich student's laboratory experience. Four physical experiments in the thermo-fluids laboratory course have …

Three Deadly Venoms: Phenomenology, Existentialism, And Philosophical Constructs To Expand Engineering Education Research Methodologies And Philosophy, George Dante Ricco

School of Engineering Education Graduate Student Series

The Engineer through a Multidisciplinary Lens Our work invokes multiple theoretical approaches to the question of the engineer’s perception of his/her place in the field of engineering through lenses within social psychology and modern philosophy. We aim to help augment current conversations on and further dialogue as to what engineering is from ethnomethodological (or existential phenomenological) and symbolic interactionism points of view. The foundation of our work is the current state of engineering and how to address the engineer’s negotiation of his/her state of affairs. We believe this work has strong implications amidst recent publications invoking epistemologies based upon modern …

Person-Thing Orientation As A Predictor Of Engineering Persistence And Success, Ida Ngambeki, Demetra Evangelou Dr, William Graziano, Diana N Bairaktarova, Sara E Branch, Anna Woodcock

School of Engineering Education Graduate Student Series

Interest, especially in the United States, is an important motivation for students in choosing a major and the strength of their commitment to remaining in that major. In the examination of engineering students’ reasons for persistence and success, interest has not received an in-depth treatment. Interest as a motivational factor can be characterized and operationalized in several ways. Engineering is often typified as a discipline that primarily deals with the creation and manipulation of man-made artefacts as opposed to a discipline centered on interpersonal interaction. For this study interest has been characterized along the Person-Thing dimension.This has been operationalized as …

Motivations And Benefits For College Students Serving As Mentors In A High School Robotics Competition, Noah Salzman, Johannes Strobel

School of Engineering Education Graduate Student Series

Many universities provide space for student organizations in which undergraduate students are learning leadership skills, mentor other students and bring their engineering skills to practice.Purdue FIRST Programs (PFP) is a service-learning program where university students mentor predominantly high school student teams participating in the FIRST Robotics Competition (FRC). Whereas most FRC teams are mentored by professional engineers, PFP is unique in both the extent which it relies on student mentors and the overall scope of the organization. Existing models of mentorship do not adequately describe the specific relationship between the college and high schools students: (1) Due to the proximity …

Returning Students In Engineering Education: Making A Case For “Experience Capital”, Michele L. Strutz, James E. Cawthorne Jr, Daniel M. Ferguson, Mark T. Carnes, Matthew Ohland

School of Engineering Education Graduate Student Series

Students returning to college are not generally studied, where most of the research on non-traditional students is focused on individuals returning to earn their undergraduate degree. There are, however, many students returning to receive graduate degrees as they pursue new directions in life by interest or economic necessity. Undergraduate students with experience have clear educational related goals, practical approaches to problem-solving, and high learning motivation.Returning graduate students are expected to model similar behaviors. These individuals bring a lifetime of personal and professional expertise, which we identify as “experience capital.”A review of the literature reveals that capital has been pondered since …

Exploring Curriculum Flexibility And Compliance Through The Use Of A Metric For Curricular Progression, George Dante Ricco, Matthew Ohland

School of Engineering Education Graduate Student Series

No abstract provided.

Integrating Children’S Literature Into Occupational Learning About Engineers, Brianna L. Dorie, Monica Cardella

School of Engineering Education Graduate Student Series

At a very young age, a child has the ability to formulate ideas regarding the occupation of a lawyer, a nurse or even a doctor. However, studies have shown that most children have limited information regarding engineers, and the lack of knowledge can often perpetuate into adulthood(Cunningham et al., 2005; NAE, 2002). Augur et al. (2005) found that “occupational aspirations and expectations of children undergo dramatic development changes during the elementary years, as well as resisting change in other respects.” This means prior to school education,children have already formed their perception of occupations and that stereotypical attributes have already been …

Engineering Children's Literature: Development Of An Engineering Storybook For Young Children, Brianna L. Dorie, Monica Cardella

School of Engineering Education Graduate Student Series

While the notions of doctor, teacher and firefighter are ubiquitous in young literature,there is a lack of engagement about engineering (Holbrook et al., 2008). Picture books are a compelling medium for introducing concepts to children at a young age. Story books have the ability to present new information, increase stimulation of the imagination, and deliver messages both moral and social. In a school setting, story books have been shown to impact kindergartener’s mathematical achievement when produced in tandem with a mathematics unit (Keat & Wilburne, 2009). However, there have been little to no studies regarding the impact of engineering literature …

Assessing Engineering Students' Information Literacy Skills: An Alpha Version Of A Multiple-Choice Instrument, Ruth Eh Wertz, Meagan Ross, Senay Purzer, Michael Fosmire, Monica Cardella

Libraries Faculty and Staff Scholarship and Research

Information literacy is crucial component of developing life-long learning skills. However, few standard and easily gradable assessment tools exist to assess the information literacy competencies of learners. In this paper, we discuss the development of a multiple choice instrument designed to measure these competencies in an efficient and expedient manner, and we present results of data collected from 366 first-year engineering students. The instrument requires students to first read a technical memo and, based on the memo‟s arguments, answer eight multiple choice and two open-ended response questions. The mean score on the multiple choice portion was only 3.46 out of …

Do Students Gather Information To Inform Design Decisions? Assessment With An Authentic Design Task In First-Year Engineering, Ruth Eh Wertz, Meagan Ross, Michael Fosmire, Monica Cardella, Senay Purzer

Libraries Faculty and Staff Scholarship and Research

Information gathering is a very important aspect of the design process, one that is used continuously throughout the project to make informed design decisions. This study reports the development of an authentic instrument used to assess skills related to information gathering in first-year engineering students. Existing assessment tools, such as the scenario-based Self- Knowledge Inventory of Lifelong Learning (SKILLS), developed by Conti & Fellenz, or the Self- Directed Learning Readiness Scale (SDLRS), developed by Guglielmino, were evaluated. While these have the advantage of being very easy to administer and analyze, one significant disadvantage is that they are self-reported and thus …

Lifelong Learning And Information Literacy Skills And The First Year Engineering Undergraduate: Report Of A Self-Assessment, Meagan Ross, Michael Fosmire, Ruth Eh Wertz, Monica Cardella, Senay Purzer

Libraries Faculty and Staff Scholarship and Research

ABET accreditation requires engineering students to attain ‘a recognition of the need for and an ability to engage in lifelong learning.” (Outcome 3.i) However, there are few standard tools that attempt to assess the skills and techniques students need in order to achieve those outcomes. Focusing on the problem articulation and information literacy skills embedded in lifelong learning competencies, the authors constructed a standardized assessment to measure student self-perceptions of how often they employ those skills. The criteria for these competencies were based on the Information Search Process of Carol Kuhlthau, engineering design process characteristics, and the authors’ own analysis …

Doctoral Students As Course Instructors: Three Engineering Teaching Assistants' Socialization Experiences, Irene Mena, Heidi Diefes-Dux, Brenda Capobianco

School of Engineering Education Graduate Student Series

The purpose of this study was to explore and understand the types of socialization experiences that result from engineering graduate teaching assistants‟ (TAs) roles as course instructors. Socialization refers to an individual‟s process of becoming a part of a group. In the context of doctoral education, socialization can be a complex area to study, largely because there are many roles and groups for which graduate students can be socialized.

Using situated learning, more specifically the communities of practice literature, as the theoretical framework, this study looked at how three doctoral engineering TAs, with experience as course instructors, become members of …

Exploring The Motivations For Migration Among Engineering Students, Ida Ngambeki, Demetra Evangelou Dr, Matthew Ohland, George Dante Ricco

School of Engineering Education Graduate Student Series

Students often graduate from a major other than that in which they first enrolled. A large proportion of this migration happens within engineering with students moving from one discipline of engineering to another. This movement between disciplines sometimes happens several times. While there has been extensive examination of why students leave engineering,very little research has looked into why students leave one engineering discipline for another.Longitudinal data collected from several engineering colleges has shown that there are definite trends within the movement of engineering students.This study examines the reasons for some of these trends using a unique approach which combines both …

A Comparison Of Two Engineering Outreach Programs For Adolescents, Louis S. Nadelson, Janet M. Callahan

Materials Science and Engineering Faculty Publications and Presentations

There is continued growth and development of outreach programs designed to increase pre-college students’ awareness and understanding of engineering as a profession and as a career. These outreach programs vary in format and in the groups targeted for participation but maintain the same fundamental goal of increasing participant knowledge of engineering. Many of these outreach programs also maintain the implicit goal of increasing the participants' knowledge and attitudes toward college. The additional resources and funding that are commonly allocated to support outreach programs frequently involve documenting accountability which motivates evaluation of program impact. Therefore, many outreach events include program evaluation …