Does Student Access to Solution Manual Pose a Challenge?

Abstract

Homework problems are assigned to give students the educational experience of solving problems without having access to their solutions and engineering textbooks provide excellent problem sets for homework assignments. Publishers supply solution manuals as a resource for the instructors, with most manuals providing detailed solutions for each problem in the textbook. Since most engineering textbooks solution manuals are currently in digital format, they are readily available to students. This paper provides information on how students get access to solution manuals and gives examples of indicators that students are using solution manuals in completing their homework assignments. It shows the effect of solution manuals on student performance by comparing grade distributions in thermodynamic courses whose students had access to the solution manual with those when most students completed their homework assignments on their own. It is shown that the percentage of unsuccessful attempt in rigorous thermodynamic courses (grades of D, F, and W) increases when students have access to the solution manual. Other contributing factors influencing student lack of success are also highlighted. Alternate methods for assigning homework problems as well as various grading policies used to improve student success are described. The latest method in assigning homework problems as well as a new grading policy has shown significant improvement in student performance and success.

Challenges in Virtual Instruction and Student Assessment during the COVID-19 Pandemic

“…Assessing student knowledge has been a major challenge during the pandemic. A sharp increase in cheating was detected in recent years [10][11][12][13]. Scholastic dishonesty includes copying solution manuals for homework assignments, using phones, text, and apps to share answers; using phones to take images of exam questions, sending them to external tutoring services, and copying solutions received from the external tutoring services.…”

Student Cheating and Their Perception Regarding the Consequences of Cheating

“…Over ninety percent of students use textbook solution manuals in completing their homework assignments. The rates of students admitting to cheating during their college education has increased from 26% in 1963 to 54% in 1993 [7]. That percentage is much higher today.…”

“…However with the availability of digital copies of the textbook solution manuals since the early 2000, student use of engineering textbook solution manuals in doing homework assignments has dramatically increased. Several studies have reported on this topic [7][8][9][10][11][12][13].…”

“…There are other resources such as Cramster (www.cramster.com) or Course Hero (www.coursehero.com) where students can find solutions to textbook homework problems or solutions to previous exams [7,11].…”

Using Automotive Safety in a Service-learning Project for Undergraduate Dynamics

“…Students learn that they must simply look in the previous pages for the "right equation" apply it correctly and find the "right answer." The proliferation of online solution manuals also corrupts the process allowing students to see the entire solution without the effort of synthesizing the course material 4,5 . Although solving a wide variety of problems gives students more practice and may illustrate more concepts, it does not encourage students to go in depth on any one problem, apply critical thinking or conduct outside research.…”