A Comparison Of Engineering Graphics Courses Delivered Face To Face, On Line, Via Synchronous Distance Education, And In Hybrid Formats

Abstract

With the increase of online instruction in higher education, questions arise as to whether students acquire the necessary knowledge from a given course. This paper investigates the efficacy of four modes of delivery for an engineering graphics course. The four delivery modes are traditional face-to-face instruction, synchronous distance education using audiographics technology, asynchronous online instruction, and hybrid of face-to-face with asynchronous and synchronous online instruction. In general, each section of the course was delivered by the same instructor to undergraduate engineering students in their first or second year. In order to assess the effectiveness of each delivery mode, this research considers the observations of the instructor and the commentary from the students. Also, a posttest was given to students to assess their knowledge in basic areas of engineering graphics, including projections, visualization, and dimensioning. The results of this work will compare the effectiveness of the different modes of teaching. It should also offer some insight as to the different ways students learn engineering graphics and to what extent online instruction is appropriate for an engineering graphics course.

The Effectiveness of Webinars in Professional Skills and Engineering Ethics Education in Large Online Classes

“…The large class sizes in this study provided a sufficiently high sample size to make statistically significant findings. These findings were consistent with Holdhusen who compared four different blended delivery models for his engineering graphics course (Holdhusen, 2009). Unfortunately, Holdhusen's sample sizes were rather small at 10 to 23 students.…”

Comparing Exam Scores in Engineering Graphics Courses Using Fully Online Theory Exams vs Exams That Incorporate Hand Sketching

“…Prior to the pandemic, instructors at different institutions had been experimenting with switching from entirely face to face instruction in engineering graphics and engineering design courses, to hybrid courses that were conducted partly in person and partly online, including incorporating asynchronous instruction and videos [5], [6], [7], [8]. But there had been little specific discussion of testing or assessing the students' sketching abilities in these hybrid courses.…”

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“…However, in foreign languages, universities that have adopted entirely online programs have only met with varying success. Such online programs struggle to fully consider and address the importance of task-based learning or of the roles played by the cognitive processes of "attention" and "awareness" in L2 acquisition [15][16][17] .…”