Engineering Education Commons^™

A Teaching Practice Review Of The Use Of Multiple-Choice Questions For Formative And Summative Assessment Of Student Work On Advanced Undergraduate And Postgraduate Modules In Engineering, Aidan O'Dwyer

Articles

This paper reflects on, reports on and evaluates the use of multiple-choice questions, in both formative and summative assessment modes, on control engineering modules taken by advanced undergraduate and postgraduate engineering students, over four academic years. The material covered by the modules is analytical in nature. The rationale for examining the assessment strategy was the poor performance by students in a closed book traditional terminal examination on one of the advanced undergraduate modules over some years. The change in assessment strategy has improved student learning, as measured by assessment data; student feedback on the assessment methods is broadly positive. The …

Rubric For Assessing Epistemological Understanding Of Students Who Are Learning Design., Shannon Chance

Conference papers

There is an extensive base of literature that attempts to describe how college students understand “knowledge” and their role in generating it. Educators draw from this literature to help students develop increasingly sophisticated ways of using knowledge. Although existing research aims for broad generalizability, it is clear that various disciplines have developed their own unique value systems. Scholars of “hard,” physical science are likely to hold very different ideas about the nature of “fact” and “inevitability” than those in the “softer,” social sciences [1]. Various disciplines conceptualize, use, and generate new knowledge in ways that differ dramatically, yet little research …

Exploring The Barriers To Independent Study And Learning In First Year Undergraduate Engineering Students?, Robert Martin Morris

Papers, presentations and other resources

This mixed method case study was carried out in the Technological University Dublin, Ireland and was conducted with the co-operation of four experienced lecturers of engineering and three groups of first year undergraduate engineering students.

The main aim of the research was to identify factors which represent barriers to the independent study and learning of first year engineering students.

Many first year engineering students do not return to college for the second year of their programmes. Many reasons for this are identified in the research, including the failure of students to pass assessments and exams as a result of the …

Formative Assessment Practices In Built Environment Higher Education Programmes And The Enhancement Of The Student Learning Experience, Lloyd Scott, Chrisopher Fortune

Conference papers

It is widely accepted across Higher Education (HE) that assessment has a strong link with learning and a key factor in this link is formative assessment. Formative assessment is generally defined as an activity taking place during a programme or unit of learning with the express purpose of improving and enhancing student learning. However, there is still considerable disagreement over the roles of lecturers and students in this process. It is therefore very important to understand how lecturers in built environment (BE) undergraduate education perceive their own roles and the role of their students in using assessment strategy to deliver …

Connecting Science With Engineering: Using Inquiry And Design In A Teacher Professional Development Course, Louis S. Nadelson, Patricia Pyke, Janet Callahan, Anne Hay, Joshua Pfiester, Mark A. Emmet

Curriculum, Instruction, and Foundational Studies Faculty Publications and Presentations

The engineering design process has evolved over time to be the central and effective framework that engineers use to conduct their work. Logically, K-12 STEM professional development efforts have then attempted to incorporate the design process into their work. There has been little in the STEM literature, though, of the explicit measurement of the growth in design process knowledge. Our study presents findings of significant improvements in knowledge of the design process that resulted over the course of a recent summer STEM institute and professional development program among K-5 teachers.

As more emphasis is placed on integrating STEM into the …

Assessment Of First Year Experiences At Sjsu, Patricia Backer, Emily Allen, Janet Sundrud

Faculty Publications

With nearly 5,000 students, the Charles W. Davidson College of Engineering (CoE) at San José State University (SJSU) is the largest provider of engineers to Silicon Valley companies and is ranked 12th among engineering programs for master’s-level institutions in the 2009 U.S. News &World Report's listing of "America’s Best Colleges. “Our overarching theoretical model for student retention is based on Tinto’s model. We adapted this model, based on additional research, to address the needs of students at SJSU. According to this model, effective and positive interactions in college should increase the student’s commitment and effort in college, and thereby, increase …

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 …

A Comparison Of Instructional Delivery Methods Based On Student Evaluation Data, John Hackworth, Carol Considine, Vernon Lewis

Engineering Technology Faculty Publications

Distance Education is an increasingly common educational delivery method. At Old Dominion University, all junior and senior level engineering technology courses are offered via distance education at least once every two years. A majority of courses in the distance education system at this university have three simultaneous delivery methods: on-campus, televised (receiving the course at an off-campus site via satellite video/audio), and internet-based video-streamed.

This paper explores the results of student course evaluation surveys for trends, in particular those trends which can be a result of the mode of delivery. Results of these surveys for 23 courses over a 4-year …

The Party’S Over: Sustaining Support Programs When The Funding Is Done, John Gardner, Pat Pyke, Cheryl Schrader, Janet M. Callahan, Amy Moll

Mechanical and Biomedical Engineering Faculty Publications and Presentations

In the lifecycle of an engineering education grant, the phase where best practices are sustained and disseminated is perhaps the most crucial stage for maximizing impact. Yet this transition phase often receives the least attention as project team enthusiasm can wane, while funding tapers off, and faculty priorities are pulled in other directions. There are numerous obstacles associated with sustaining program changes, even those perceived as very valuable. Typical challenges are: What happens when the funding runs out? What grant-developed programs should be sustained by the university? Does the institution need to internally allocate resources in an annual budget large …

Exceed Teaching Workshop: Tenth Year Anniversary, Allen Estes, Ronald Welch, Stephen Ressler, Norman Dennis, Debra Larson, Carol Considine, Tonya Nilsson, Jim O'Brien, Thomas Lenox

Engineering Technology Faculty Publications

In response to the need for faculty training, the American Society of Civil Engineers developed and funded the ExCEEd (Excellence in Civil Engineering Education) Teaching Workshop that is today - the summer of 2008 - celebrating its tenth year of existence. For the past decade, nineteen ExCEEd Teaching Workshops (ETW) have been held at the United States Military Academy, the University of Arkansas, and Northern Arizona University, with two more workshops scheduled for this summer for a total of 21 offerings. ETW has realized 449 graduates from 203 different U.S. and international colleges and universities. This paper summarizes the content …

An Instrument For Assessing Knowledge Gain In A First Course In Circuit Theory, Vishnu K. Lakdawala, Stephen A. Zahorian, Oscar R. González, Amit Kumar H., James Leathrum

Electrical & Computer Engineering Faculty Publications

Although there has been considerable research on the development and use of assessment instruments to measure the effectiveness of various pedagogical approaches to teaching introductory physics classes (Hestenes et al. 1, Hestenes et al 2, Hake 3, Saul et al. 4) and other science courses (for example, see Vosniadou 5), there is relatively little similar work that has been done to develop assessment instruments for the first circuit theory course that is taught in electrical and computer engineering. Given the large numbers of students nationwide who take such a course, the challenge this course presents to beginning engineering students, and …

A Qfd Decision Model For Selecting Service, Teaching, And Research Opportunities, Paul Kauffmann, Abel Fernandez, Charles Keating

Engineering Management & Systems Engineering Faculty Publications

New faculty are confronted with a barrage of information reiterating the importance of performance in the "big three" areas: teaching, service, and research / publications. From the provost to the department head, an untenured faculty member faces strong and sometimes conflicting pressures to become involved in activities ranging from committee assignments to participation in department or university research programs. Often these opportunities come with little guidance, advice, or obvious linkage to long term success in the three pillar areas and ultimately tenure. New faculty are confronted with a complex decision problem for which there is unstructured information available to develop …

Preparing An Assessment Plan At San Jose State University, Michael Jennings, Thalia Anagnos

Faculty Publications

The College of Engineering at San Jose State University is scheduled for an accreditation visit in Fall 1999 and has decided to seek reaccreditation under the ABET 2000 criteria. An assessment implementation project has been active for the past two years within the College; with primary objectives of refining missions for programs, defining program outcome objectives, determining which components to assess, and developing appropriate metrics and methods. Longer term objectives of this project are to establish a continuous quality improvement philosophy in the College and to provide information for the ABET accreditation review.This paper is an evaluation of the status …

An Assessment Of The Appropriateness To The Royal Australian Air Force Of A Masters Level Professional Program In Information Systems, Ralph G. L. Kettle, Joseph R. Taylor

Theses and Dissertations

This study assessed the appropriateness, to the Royal Australian Air Force RAAF, of a graduate professional program in Information Systems (IS) based on the Association for Computing Machinery’s ACM curriculum model. The ACM curriculum model is an archetype of graduate education in IS. Programs based on this model produce graduates with knowledge, skills, and abilities (KSAs) that are required by IS practitioners. The usefulness of twenty KSAs that underlie the ACM curriculum model were evaluated by 33 incumbents of RAAF information Systems Agencies and Directorate of Communications and Information Systems - Air Force. Although uncertain about the educational background suited …