Student Learning of Criterion 3 (a)‐(k) Outcomes with Short Instructional Modules and the Relationship to Bloom's Taxonomy

Abstract

Engineering accreditation criteria require that engineering graduates demonstrate competency with a set of skills identified in Criterion 3 (a)-(k). Because of a scarcity of instructional material on many of these topics, a team of engineering instructors developed and tested a set of short modules for teaching these skills. Using before and after module surveys, the students indicated their confidence in their ability to do specific tasks derived from the module's learning objectives. Data also were obtained with a control group not receiving the instruction. In comparing pre-and post-module data, 33 percent of the comparisons were significantly different at the 0.05 level. In comparing control and post-module data, the corresponding value was 44 percent. These results indicate that instruction with these short modules produced a significant effect on student learning. I. INTRODUCTIONEngineering accreditation criteria require that engineering programs demonstrate that their students have developed the set of skills defined in ABET Engineering Criterion 3 (a)-(k) [1]. In order for student to acquire these skills, engineering faculty must teach them in an effective way. The literature suggests that this must involve explicit instruction in a workshop or cooperative learning format, opportunities to practice the skill, frequent feedback, and structured discussion activities [2][3][4][5][6]. Engineering instructors, who try to teach processing skills using these methods as a part of a traditional engineering course, confront a number of problems, particularly the scarcity of appropriate instructional material. To begin filling this void, ten engineering faculty members from six departments developed a set of instructional modules for teaching several skills derived from the outcomes identified in Criterion 3(a)-(k). They identified fifteen processing skills in four categories as shown in Table 1. The resulting instructional modules are posted on our Web site and described in several earlier reports [7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14]. The present report describes a systematic study of the effectiveness of these modules in changing the students' perception of their learning. It also looks at how these effects are related to the level of the learning as defined by Bloom's taxonomy [15][16][17].Module developers first established a common set of specifications so all of the modules had certain essential characteristics. Developers designed the modules for a week of classes (i.e., three 50-minute class periods) in upper-level engineering courses. To increase the effectiveness and appeal of the modules, they incorporated active/cooperative learning and the use of Web-based resources [5,6,[18][19][20][21][22][23][24][25]. Each module contained learning objectives, a justification, and student exercises and assignments, along with an instructor's guide.Individual learning objectives for each module were placed into one of the six categories in the Bloom's taxonomy [15][16][17]. Table 2 shows the distribution of learning ...

Becoming an Engineer: Toward a Three Dimensional View of Engineering Learning

“…Other studies of this second type have used measures of student satisfaction as proxies for learning (Olds and Miller, 2004;Porter and Fuller, 1998). A third type of article has been prescriptive, laying out programmatic directions for engineering student learning, but not exploring empirically how or what students learned (Dym, 1999;Pimmel, 2003;Schneck, 2001). Worth noting also is that "learning" itself as a topical focus was a relatively uncommon one for JEE articles until recently.…”

Cooperative Education Work Assignments: The Role of Organizational and Individual Factors in Enhancing ABET Competencies and Co‐op Workplace Well‐Being

“…In response to these changes, schools are now emphasizing how to incorporate these new criteria into engineering curricula [5] as well as how educational techniques can be augmented to better instill the required skills in students [6]. Although the analysis and evaluation of instructional modes for these new objectives are evident in the engineering education journals, there has not yet been consideration of how cooperative education fits in.…”

Teaching product design in line with Bloom's taxonomy and ABET student outcomes

“…Figure-1 Bloom's revised taxonomy [4] II. BLOOM'S TAXONOMY AND ABET OUTCOMES What ABET refers to as "student outcomes" in its Engineering Criterion 3 (a) to (k) is a set of skills that engineering graduates need to successfully embark on a professional career [5]. Bloom's taxonomy also addresses the same issue, a set of educational objectives or goals, classified from lower to higher-order thinking, but for the whole spectrum of education rather than only engineering [6,7].…”