Comparing Students’ Solutions to an Open-ended Problem in an Introductory Programming Course with and without Explicit Modeling Interventions

This study assesses more than 800 students' awareness of engineering model types before and after taking two first-year engineering courses across two semesters and evaluates the effect of each course.Background: All engineers must be able to apply and create models to be effective problem solvers, critical thinkers, and innovative designers. To help them develop these skills, as a first step, it is essential to assess how to increase students' awareness of engineering models. According to Bloom's taxonomy, the lower remember and understand levels, which encompass awareness, are necessary for achieving the higher levels, such as apply, analyze, evaluate, and create. Research Questions: To what extent did student awareness of model types change after taking introductory engineering courses? To what extent did student awareness of model types differ by course or semester?Methodology: In this study, a survey was designed and administered at the beginning and end of the semester in two first-year engineering courses during two semesters in a mid-sized private school. The survey asked students questions about their definition of engineering modeling and different types of models.Findings: Overall, student awareness of model types increased from the beginning of the semester toward the end of the semester, across both semesters and courses. There were some differences between course sections, however, the students' awareness of the models at the end of the academic year was similar for both groups.

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“…For an example of these types of problems and the assessment tools used, refer to two previous publications [24], [25].…”

Section: A Settings and Participantsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Student Awareness of Models in First-Year Engineering Courses

et al. 2023

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“…These were substantially revised to incorporate modeling language, concepts, projects, and problems throughout. The modeling interventions implemented in the MATLAB course included an iterative modeling problem similar to MEAs and modeladaptation activities (MAAs) [17,18]. The other pedagogical interventions were further discussed in other publications [12,16].…”

Section: Setting and Participantsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Developing a Program to Assist in Qualitative Data Analysis: How Engineering Students’ Discuss Model Types

Rodgers,

Verleger,

Marbouti

et al.

2022 ASEE Annual Conference &Amp; Exposition Proceedings

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This Research paper discusses the opportunities that utilizing a computer program can present in analyzing large amounts of qualitative data collected through a survey tool. When working with longitudinal qualitative data, there are many challenges that researchers face. The coding scheme may evolve over time requiring re-coding of early data. There may be long periods of time between data analysis. Typically, multiple researchers will participate in the coding, but this may introduce bias or inconsistencies. Ideally the same researchers would be analyzing the data, but often there is some turnover in the team, particularly when students assist with the coding. Computer programs can enable automated or semi-automated coding helping to reduce errors and inconsistencies in the coded data.In this study, a modeling survey was developed to assess student awareness of model types and administered in four first-year engineering courses across the three universities over the span of three years. The data collected from this survey consists of over 4,000 students' open-ended responses to three questions about types of models in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields. A coding scheme was developed to identify and categorize model types in student responses. Over two years, two undergraduate researchers analyzed a total of 1,829 students' survey responses after ensuring intercoder reliability was greater than 80% for each model category. However, with much data remaining to be coded, the research team developed a MATLAB program to automatically implement the coding scheme and identify the types of models students discussed in their responses.MATLAB coded results were compared to human-coded results (n = 1,829) to assess reliability; results matched between 81%-99% for the different model categories. Furthermore, the reliability of the MATLAB coded results are within the range of the interrater reliability measured between the 2 undergraduate researchers (86-100% for the five model categories).With good reliability of the program, all 4,358 survey responses were coded; results showing the number and types of models identified by students are presented in the paper.

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“…The intervention at University 3 would likely require the least amount of changes to the course and ideally present a more accessible intervention, which focused on making implicit modeling throughout the course explicit. Some of the specific interventions in the Programming Course at University 1 are discussed in previous studies [13,14]. • One design project was revised to ensure physical, virtual, mathematical, computational, and financial models were incorporated • Modeling language was integrated throughout Lab portion of the only first-year engineering course University 3…”

Section: Setting and Participantsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In part of this larger project, the team has worked on utilizing the Models and Modeling Perspective (M&MP) design principles and MEAs to develop and implement modeling problems in an introductory programming course. The use of both mathematical and computational modeling as a framework to help students develop programs to solve engineering problems has shown some promising results [13,14].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…For example, having students develop code that can respond to a variety of input conditions is a computer model, but is typically referred to as "programming logic". The previously mentioned interventions [13,14] present examples of computational modeling language integrated throughout a programming course. This is another place where modeling is commonly implicitly implemented and could be explicitly incorporated.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Types of Models Identified by First-Year Engineering Students

Rodgers,

Thompson,

Verleger

et al.

2021 ASEE Virtual Annual Conference Content Access Proceedings

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His research interests are focused on using action research methodologies to develop immediate, measurable improvements in classroom instruction and on the development of software tools to enhance engineering education. Dr. Verleger is an active member of ASEE, having served as the founding chair of the Student Division, a Program Chair and a Director for the Educational Research and Methods Division, and the General Chair of the First-Year Division's First-Year Engineering Experience Conference.

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Comparing Students’ Solutions to an Open-ended Problem in an Introductory Programming Course with and without Explicit Modeling Interventions

Cited by 3 publications

References 23 publications

Student Awareness of Models in First-Year Engineering Courses

Student Awareness of Models in First-Year Engineering Courses

Developing a Program to Assist in Qualitative Data Analysis: How Engineering Students’ Discuss Model Types

Types of Models Identified by First-Year Engineering Students

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