Predicting academic success of engineering students in technical drawing from working memory

Tests on spatial aptitude, in particular Visualization, have been shown to be efficient predictors of the academic performance of Technical Drawing stu-dents. It has recently been found that Spatial Working Memory (a construct defined as the ability to perform tasks with a figurative content that require si-multaneous storage and transformation of information) is strongly associated with Visualization. In the present study we analyze the predictive efficiency of a bat-tery of tests that included tests on Visualization, SpatialWorking Memory, Spatial Short-term Memory and Executive Function on a sample of first year engineering students. The results show that Spatial Working Memory (SWM) is the most important predictor of academic success in Technical Drawing. In our view, SWM tests can be useful for detecting as early as possible those students who will require more attention and support in the teaching-learning process.

PBL and B-Learning for Civil Engineering Students in a Transportation Course

The results of a pedagogical strategy implemented at the University of Sao Paulo at Sao Carlos are presented and discussed. The initiative was conducted in a transportation course offered to Civil Engineering students. The approach is a combination of problem-based learning and project-based learning (PBL) and blended-learning (B-learning). Starting in 2006, a different problem was introduced every year. From 2009 on, however, the problem-based learning concept was expanded to project-based learning. The performance of the students was analyzed using the following elements: (1) grades in course activities; (2) answers from a questionnaire designed for course evaluation; and (3) cognitive maps made to assess the effects of PBL through the comparison of the responses provided by the students involved and those not involved in the experiment. The results showed positive aspects of the method, such as a strong involvement of several students with the subject. A gradual increase in the average scores obtained by the students in the project activities (from 6.77 in 2006 to 8.24 in 2009) was concomitant with a better evaluation of these activities and of the course as a whole (90 and 97% of options "Good" or "Very good" in 2009, respectively). A growing interest in the field of transportation engineering as an alternative for further studies was also noticed. DOI: 10.1061/(ASCE)EI.1943-5541.0000115. (C) 2012 American Society of Civil Engineers.

Development of the Heat and Energy Concept Inventory: Preliminary Results on the Prevalence and Persistence of Engineering Students' Misconceptions

BACKGROUND Students frequently hold a number of misconceptions related to temperature, heat and energy. There is not currently a concept inventory with sufficiently high internal reliability to assess these concept areas for research purposes. Consequently, there is little data on the prevalence of these misconceptions amongst undergraduate engineering students. PURPOSE (HYPOTHESIS) This work presents the Heat and Energy Concept Inventory (HECI) to assess prevalent misconceptions related to: (1) Temperature vs. Energy, (2) Temperature vs. Perceptions of Hot and Cold, (3) Factors that affect the Rate vs. Amount of Heat Transfer and (4) Thermal Radiation. The HECI is also used to document the prevalence of misconceptions amongst undergraduate engineering students. DESIGN/METHOD Item analysis, guided by classical test theory, was used to refine individual questions on the HECI. The HECI was used in a one group, pre-test-post-test design to assess the prevalence and persistence of targeted misconceptions amongst a population of undergraduate engineering students at diverse institutions. RESULTS Internal consistency reliability was assessed using Kuder-Richardson Formula 20; values were 0.85 for the entire instrument and ranged from 0.59 to 0.76 for the four subcategories of the HECI. Student performance on the HECI went from 49.2% to 54.5% after instruction. Gains on each of the individual subscales of the HECI, while generally statistically significant, were similarly modest. CONCLUSIONS The HECI provides sufficiently high estimates of internal consistency reliability to be used as a research tool to assess students' understanding of the targeted concepts. Use of the instrument demonstrates that student misconceptions are both prevalent and resistant to change through standard instruction.

A project-oriented course in probability and statistics for undergraduate electrical engineering students

An introductory course in probability and statistics for third-year and fourth-year electrical engineering students is described. The course is centered around several computer-based projects that are designed to achieve two objectives. First, the projects illustrate the course topics and provide hands-on experience for the students. The second and equally important objective of the projects is to convey the relevance and usefulness of probability and statistics to practical problems that undergraduate students can appreciate. The benefit of this course as to motivate electrical engineering students to excel in the study of probability concepts, instead of viewing the subject as one more course requirement toward graduation. The authors co-teach the course, and MATLAB is used for mast of the computer-based projects

Subverting the subject position : toward a new discourse about students as writers and engineering students as technical communicators

There is ample evidence of a longstanding and pervasive discourse positioning students, and engineering students in particular, as “bad writers.” This is a discourse perpetuated within the academy, the workplace, and society at large. But what are the effects of this discourse? Are students aware faculty harbor the belief students can’t write? Is student writing or confidence in their writing influenced by the negative tone of the discourse? This dissertation attempts to demonstrate that a discourse disparaging student writing exists among faculty, across disciplines, but particularly within the engineering disciplines, as well as to identify the reach of that discourse through the deployment of two attitudinal surveys—one for students, across disciplines, at Michigan Technological University and one for faculty, across disciplines at universities and colleges both within the United States and internationally. This project seeks to contribute to a more accurate and productive discourse about engineering students, and more broadly, all students, as writers—one that focuses on competencies rather than incompetence, one that encourages faculty to find new ways to characterize students as writers, and encourages faculty to recognize the limits of the utility of practitioner lore.

Undergraduate Engineering Students' Understanding of Heat, Temperature, and Radiation

Difficulty understanding heat and temperature concepts has been recognized in engineering education. Confusion has been shown to persist after instruction. The purpose of this study was to determine whether undergraduate engineering students’ knowledge of four heat transfer concept areas significantly changed with instruction and whether this varied by major and GPA. Two hundred twenty-eight undergraduate engineering students from six institutions were assessed prior to and after instruction. Results showed significant improvement in most concept areas but mean scores were below mastery. Previously documented misconceptions persisted after instruction. Significant differences were found by major and GPA. Suggestions for future research provided.

Development of Interactive Materials by Engineering Students Using the Descartes Applets.

In a degree course such as Forestry Engineering, the general teaching objectives consist of explaining and helping students to understand the principles of Mechanics. For some time now we have encountered significant difficulties in teaching this subject due to the students' lack of motivation and to their insufficient prior preparation for the topic. If we add to this the discipline's inherent complexity and the students' preconceptions about the subject, these teaching difficulties become considerable. For this reason a series of didactic activities have been introduced sequentially in the teaching of this subject. This work describes the methodology, procedure and results for the action of developing a work project in groups using Descartes software. The results of this experiment can be considered very positive. Some of the critical preconceptions for learning the subject can be corrected, and the tutoring process in the classroom contributes to an improvement in teacherstudent communication. Since this scheme was established, the number of students taking part each academic year has increased, and this is the group with the greatest percentage of passing scores.

First steps in the discovery of patterns in the academic results of telecommunication engineering students in the subjects Analysis of Circuits and Mathematics

In this paper, the results of six years of research in engineering education, in the application of the European Higher Education Area (EHEA) to improve the performance of the students in the subject Analysis of Circuits of Telecommunication Engineering, are analysed taking into consideration the fact that there would be hidden variables that both separate students into subgroups and show the connection among several basic subjects such as Analysis of Circuits (AC) and Mathematics (Math). The discovery of these variables would help us to explain the characteristics of the students through the teaching and learning methodology, and would show that there are some characteristics that instructors do not take into account but that are of paramount importance

Final year project: students and instructors perceptions as a competence-strengthening tool for engineering students

This work indicates the importance of the Final Year Project (FYP) in the strengthening of competences of engineering students. The study also shows which personal competences of students are reinforced most during the FYP process,including the preparation, elaboration, presentation and defence stages. In order to gather information on this subject, a survey was conducted at two different Spanish technical universities—one public and one private—and a comparative analysis was performed of the questionnaires collected. The competence model considered is that used by the Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology (ABET), since the official title of the public university has been accredited by this model. The results indicate which personal and professional competences of students are reinforced well by undertaking the FYP. Any significant differences in response by university are explained in the study. For validation purposes, the results were contrasted with the instructor’s perspective using the triangulation methodology. Finally, the conclusions drawn will permit the design of new study plans to cope more effectively with the challenges of the FYP in the new Bologna framework.

Stoichiometry in Context: Inquiry-Guided Problems of Chemistry for Encouraging Critical Thinking in Engineering Students

This paper focuses on examples of educational tools concerning the learning of chemistry for engineering students through different daily life cases. These tools were developed during the past few years for enhancing the active role of students. They refer to cases about mineral water, medicaments, dentifrices and informative panels about solar power, where an adequate quantitative treatment through stoichiometry calculations allows the interpretation of data and values announced by manufacturers. These cases were developed in the context of an inquiry-guided instruction model. By bringing tangible chemistry examples into the classroom we provide an opportunity for engineering students to apply this science to familiar products in hopes that they will appreciate chemistry more, will be motivated to study concepts in greater detail, and will connect the relevance of chemistry to everyday life.

Assessing Creativity In Engineering Students: A Comparative Between Degrees and Sudents In First And Last Year

An online open access test (CREAX self-assessment) has been used in this work so that students from degrees in engineering in the Universidad Polite¿cnica of Madrid (UPM) could self-assess their creative competence after several classroom activities. Different groups from the first year course have been statistically compared using data from their assessment. These first year students had different professors in the subject ?Technical Drawing? and belonged to several degrees in the UPM. They were as well compared regarding sex and a group of first year students was also compared to another last year group of the degree so as to observe possible differences in the achievement of this competence. Only one difference was detected concerning sex in one of the degrees. Among degrees, the higher marks obtained by students who had done specific exercises for the development of creativity in class is highlighted. Finally, a significantly high mark was observed in students during their last year of degree with respect to first year students. The tool CREAX has become very useful in the assessment of this competence in the UPM degrees in which it has been implemented.

Improving engineering students' communication competence: designing innovative learning strategies

This research presents an innovative and formal educational initiative that is aimed at enhancing the development of engineering students’ specific competencies when studying Engineering Project Management subject. The framework of the experience combines theoretical concepts, the development of a real-case project carried out by multidisciplinary groups of three different universities, the use of software web 2.0 tools, and group and individual assignments of students that play different roles (project managers and team members). Under this scenario, this paper focuses on monitoring the communication competence in the ever growing Project Management virtual environment. Factors such as corporal language, technical means, stage, and management specific vocabulary among others have been considered in order to assess the students’ performance on this issue. As a main contribution, the paper introduces an ad-hoc rubric that, based on previous investigations, has been adapted and tested to this specific context. Additionally, the research conducted has provided some interesting findings that suggest further actions to improve and better define future rubrics, oriented to communication or even other competencies. As specific Project Management subject concerns, it has been detected that students playing the role of Project Managers strengthen their competencies more than those ones that play the role of Team Members. It has also been detected that students have more difficulty assimilating concepts related to risk and quality management. However those concepts related with areas of knowledge like scope, time or cost have been better assimilated by the students.

Do Classes in Cooperative Classrooms Have a Positive Influence on Creativity and Teamwork Skills for Engineering Students?

Contributing to the acquisition of professional creativity and teamwork skills has been a special challenge for some of the subjects taught at the Technical University of Madrid (UPM), and this has been a starting point for the work described in this paper. Some professors have intuited that the use of cooperative classrooms could facilitate the acquisition of these skills. We describe the new methodologies applied within cooperative classrooms by some professors, and present the procedure for measuring students’ perception of their own learning outcomes, skill improvements, and overall satisfaction with the use of this kind of classroom. For this project, 250 students enrolled in several subjects answered a questionnaire. The featuresof thesubjectsinvolved intheproject arewidely disparate. We present the results of the statistical analysis with special emphasis on creativity and teamwork skills, and we conclude that the use of cooperative classroom has a positive influence on the acquisition of these skills. This work has the added value of being the first analysis of student perception of the use of cooperative classroom in the acquisition of creativity and teamwork skills.

Performance and Professional Skills in an Online Java Programming Course for Engineering Students

The main purpose of this work is to describe the case of an online Java Programming course for engineering students to learn computer programming and to practice other non-technicalabilities: online training, self-assessment, teamwork and use of foreign languages. It is important that students develop confidence and competence in these skills, which will be required later in their professional tasks and/or in other engineering courses (life-long learning). Furthermore, this paper presents the pedagogical methodology, the results drawn from this experience and an objective performance comparison with another conventional (face-to-face) Java course.

Strengthening and measuring project management competences of engineering students

Since 2010 the Industrial Engineering School at Universidad Politécnica de Madrid (ETSII UPM) has its Plan Study accredited by ABET. Since then a big motivation has been promoted from the management team encouraging teachers to work on the measurement and strengthening of student¿s competences. Generic skills or behavior acquired significant importance in the workplace, particularly in relation to project management. Because of this, and framed within the requirements of the European Higher Education Area (EHEA), the curriculum of the new degrees are being developed under the competence-based learning. This situation leads to the need to have a clear measurement tool skills as a basis for developing them within the curriculum. A group of multidisciplinary teachers have been working together during two years to design measuring instruments valid for engineering students.