Assessment of Self-Regulated Learning in Service-Learning Project in a First-Year Seminar in Engineering Course

Assessment and Analysis of Use of Self-regulated Learning in Laboratory-based Extracurricular Undergraduate/First-year Graduate Research Projects

“…In the prior pilot studies in [5] [11], our analysis and comparison of data led to a conclusion that the use of SRL skills by two student groups, i.e., seniors and freshmen, is at a comparable level although their knowledge in engineering and relevant technical skills would be hugely different. One question arises --Is the use of SRL skills by those two student groups in senior year and freshman year truly at a comparable level or is it due to the limitations of the survey instrument that primarily measures student perception?…”

“…In [3], SRL skills were applied to students in a specific engineering/computer-science course called, data structure, to assess their learning effectiveness in the course. Also, specifically for project-based courses integrating engineering design activities carried out in the curricular settings, SRL skills were applied for a pilot study in senior/capstone design courses (e.g., see [4], [5]) or introductory freshmen courses with small engineering projects as part of the coursework (e.g., see [7], [11]). These pilot studies reported that both seniors and freshmen in engineering used a reasonable level of SRL skills while carrying out their respective engineering projects.…”

“…Derived from a widely-used questionnaire for assessment of SRL in general classroom settings [9][10], it captures student's perception of metacognition along the cycle of engineering design which typically includes problem definition, conceptual design, preliminary design, detailed design, and design communication. This survey instrument was utilized in some prior pilot studies on use of SRL skills in engineering design in the classroom settings, including the study by the survey creator [4], as well as our prior studies in a senior design course [5] and a freshmen course [11]. In these pilot studies, five SRL features were used: 1) task interpretation, 2) planning strategies, 3) cognitive actions, 4) monitoring and fix-up strategies, and 5) criteria of success.…”

“…For intuitive understanding from these numerical results, we consider that, as in [5] [11], the average scores greater than or equal to 3.0 and less than 3.5 (i.e., 3.0 ≤ average score x < 3.5) represent a "reasonable level" in using SRL skills; average scores below 3.0 represent "room for improvement"; and average scores greater than or equal to 3.5 represent a "highly desirable" level. It should be noted, though, that the average score of 3.0 set as the threshold for intuitive rating is our own choice, without rigorous validation, based on the scores assigned to the four possible answers, i.e., 1: Almost Never; 2: Sometimes; 3: Often; 4: Almost Always.…”

“…We also briefly compared the current results on student perception from extracurricular research with our previous results from senior capstone [5] and freshmen [11] courses. Shown in Figure 2, all average scores are above the 3.0 threshold line.…”