Assessment of Student Learning Experience in Two Exemplary Engineering Projects

Abstract

In this paper, we examine and quantify similarities of two engineering projects each of which is either 1) an undergraduate research project primarily integrating off-the-shelf devices and referred to as the "system integration and configuration project" or 2) a project primarily involving bottomup implementation using discrete electronic components and ICs while conceived in a top-down design and referred to as the "design and implementation project." For the quantification of similarities and characteristics of project activities, we apply the Cohen's kappa to survey data obtained from a group of students who have been on both types of projects. Our analysis indicates that the quantification technique using the Cohen's kappa could be a useful tool to evaluate similarities of two engineering projects in addressing student learning outcomes.

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

“…where o p is the relative number of observations in agreement and e p is the probability of an agreement occurring by chance. For each question in the questionnaire, Cohen's kappa can be calculated as illustrated in [16]. In interpreting the value of Cohen's kappa, the most widely cited interpretation [17] is that the best possible strength of agreement between raters is when κ = 1.0, values in the range of 0 < κ < 1.0 represent varying levels of agreement from slight to substantial, and κ < 0 indicates poor agreement [15].…”

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Run-Time Estimation of a Battery-Powered Video-Streaming Payload for Balloon Flights

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