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1. Exploring the Role of Spatial Visualization in Design Process of Undergraduate Engineering Students

   Raju, Gibin; Sorby, Sheryl; Reid, Clodagh (June 2023, Review directory American Society for Engineering Education)

   This research paper details a study investigating spatial visualization skills relation to design problem-solving for undergraduate engineering students. Design is outlined as one of the seven attributes that engineering students must demonstrate prior to their graduation as set out through the ABET guidelines. It is important to understand the factors that contribute to design capability to achieve this learning goal. Design problems by their nature are cognitive tasks and as such require problem solvers to draw both on learned knowledge and pertinent cognitive abilities for their solution. In the context of engineering design problem solving, spatial visualization is one such cognitive ability that likely plays a role. Previous research has demonstrated a link between spatial visualization and design. This work aims to advance on that research by exploring how spatial visualization relates to the design process enacted by undergraduate engineering students. There were two phases to data collection for this research. In the first phase, 127 undergraduate engineering students completed four spatial tests. In the second phase, 17 students returned to complete three design tasks. This paper will focus on one of these design tasks, the Ping Pong problem where individuals are asked to design a ping pong launcher to hit a target from a given distance at a specific height. A purposive sample of 9 first-year and 8 senior students were selected to engage in a think aloud protocol during the problemsolving task based on their spatial visualization skill levels (high vs. low). The think aloud protocol was used to assign pre-defined codes for design activity for each of the 17 participants. Through analysis of these codes, results indicated that there is an association between the spatial skills of students and the design processes/actions that they employ. These insights will be discussed relative to their potential influence on engineering education, specifically in developing design capability. 

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2. Problem solving and perseverance in geometry: Revelations from think alouds with middle grades students

   Mannix, J. P.; Bentley, B.; Krupa, E. E. (November 2022, Proceedings of the forty-fourth annual meeting of the North American Chapter of the International Group for the Psychology of Mathematics Education)

   Lischka, A. E.; Dyer, E. B.; Jones, R. S.; Lovett, J. N.; Strayer, J.; Drown, S. (Ed.)

   Problem solving is a very important skill for students to learn (e.g., Bonilla-Rius, 2020; NGA, 2010), and part of developing problem solving skills is learning to persevere. One strategy for learning how to persevere is by providing students with materials that allow them the opportunity to engage with challenging problems (e.g., Kapur, 2010; Middleton et al., 2015). This study of the Volume unit of the AC2inG materials analyzes students’ strategies for problem solving and persevering. Findings from these think-aloud interviews indicate that different students will utilize one or more methods for solving challenging problems, such as asking clarifying questions, talking themselves through the problem, and attempting various mathematical approaches. 

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3. WIP: Think-aloud interviews for assessment of engineering students' opportunities to practice professional skills

   Li, Tiantian; Bill, Victoria; Holloway, Eric A.; Douglas, Kerrie A.; Martin, Julie P. (June 2022, ASEE annual conference exposition proceedings)

   As the need for interdisciplinary collaboration increases, industry needs engineers who are not only affluent in technical engineering skills but also efficient in skills such as communication, problem-solving, engineering ethics, and business management. As a result, engineering programs are tasked with providing students with sufficient opportunities to develop non-technical professional skills to better prepare them for the workforce. Previous research has focused on exploring how and where students tend to develop profession skills and assessments have been established to measure the level of professional skills. However, without a means to measure whether students are getting sufficient opportunities for development, it is hard for educators and engineering programs to determine whether or where scaffolding are needed. We developed an instrument to assess undergraduate engineering students’ opportunities for professional skill development. To increase content validity, we conducted 20 think-aloud interviews with students from a large Midwestern university. The aim of this WIP is two-fold. We present the preliminary results of the think-aloud interview to determine what changes need to be made to existing items and what emerging themes appear regarding to participants’ professional skill development opportunities. After thematic analysis of the interview transcripts, we revised 10 items by simplifying the grammar or altering certain words that tend to confuse participants or carry negative connotations. We found that, compared to students who have only been involved in class projects, those with co-curricular experiences tend to report more opportunities in skills related to business management principles and problem-solving skills. Co-curricular activities were also the most referenced in building communication skills. Our next step will be piloting the instrument across multiple institutions and conducting validation analysis. 

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4. A Phenomenological Study of Expert Problem Solving

   https://doi.org/10.18260/1-2--45703  

   De_Rosa, Alexander; Reed, Teri (April 2024, ASEE Conferences)

   I initially became interested in knowledge transfer after observing my students’ general inability to use mathematical knowledge and skills in an applied (engineering) context. My personal belief was that the students should have an understanding of basic basic mathematical concepts, like integration, and be able to use them correctly to solve problems. Clearly, something was missing in my students’ understanding or perhaps memory that was causing them problems in this regard. In my initial work on knowledge transfer, I found that many students did not even recognize the need to transfer knowledge and for example, to integrate to solve a problem framed in an engineering context unless they were prompted to do so. Concerned by this troubling observation, coupled with my belief that engineers should be able to both understand and apply mathematical concepts in their coursework and careers, I determined to investigate the cause of the problem and, if possible, evidence a potential solution to help students transfer mathematical knowledge into an applied (engineering) context. In this study, I examine an expert (faculty) approach to problem solving using a semi-structured, think-aloud interview protocol coupled with a thorough thematic analysis for phenomenological themes. This analysis, grounded in an existing framework of knowledge transfer, provides a rich, thick description of the knowledge transfer, and problem solving process employed by the faculty expert and serves as a useful comparative case against which student approaches to problem solving and knowledge transfer can be judged. Important findings of this study relate to the extensive use of reflective and evaluative practices employed by the faculty member at all stages of the problem solving process. These internal checks and balances are rarely observed among novice problem solvers and perhaps represent behaviors that we, as educators, should seek to impart in our students if they are to become more adaptable engineers who are better equipped to transfer their knowledge and skills across a range of contexts. 

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5. Work in Progress: Promoting the Transfer of Math Skills to Engineering Statics

   https://doi.org/10.18260/1-2--44334  

   De_Rosa, Alexander; Reed, Teri; Arndt, Angela (June 2023, ASEE Conferences)

   Students often face difficulties in transferring concepts, knowledge and skills between their courses. This difficulty is especially true of the fundamental math and science courses that are often taught outside the major of the student and without engineering context. At the same time, graduating engineers are moving into an increasingly interdisciplinary workplace that values the ability to work broadly across a range of contexts. More work is needed to better prepare students to adapt their knowledge and skills to new situations and to demonstrate how the various courses and concepts within their curricula relate. In this study, we ask students, teaching assistants and faculty to “think aloud” through their solution to a statics problem that requires mathematical knowledge to be transferred in order to be solved. Two faculty, two teaching assistants and seven undergraduate students are interviewed as they think aloud through the problem. Interview transcripts and solutions to the statics problem are then examined for themes and patterns in responses in order to draw conclusions about the challenges different populations face in transferring knowledge and solving such problems. Observations indicated that students could apply simple integration skills to find the area of a shape when given a curve describing its shape, but could not use integration to find the centroid. The participants did however recall being taught how to calculate centroids in the past and discussed a lack of usage of this skill causing their inability to recall it correctly. Student participants in general displayed simple approaches to problem solving based on reading the problem statement rather than following an engineering approach starting with governing equations. A potential barrier to problem solving success was identified in the varying symbols used by different research participants which could lead to a lack of understanding if these symbols are not clearly explained and defined in a classroom setting. Future work will further examine these themes, as well as developing prompts and activities to promote knowledge transfer and problem solving success. 

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