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The hands-on approach in teaching and learning is an important resource to be explored because it offers a meaningful platform for student-instructor interaction that fosters sound scientific reasoning and improves the understanding of abstract chemistry concepts. Experiment-centric pedagogy (ECP) is a contemporary teaching approach that integrates active student participation in problem-based activities through hands-on mobile devices. This paper describes how experiment-centric pedagogy (ECP) has been used to teach key chemistry concepts to undergraduate students in the chemistry discipline at Historically Black University (HBCU). To assess whether ECP achieves a lasting increase in undergraduate student curiosity and engagement in the chemistry discipline, ECP was implemented from Fall 2021 to Fall 2022 using an inexpensive, safe, and portable electronic instrumentation system usable in both classrooms and laboratories. The Motivated Strategies for Learning Questionnaire developed by Pintrich, Smith, García, and McKeachie in 1991 was used to measure the key constructs associated with students’ curiosity and engagement. The classroom observation protocol (COPUS) was used to assess instructors’ effectiveness, and signature assignments were used to evaluate knowledge gains.
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Utilization of Real-life Hands-on Pedagogy to Motivate Undergraduate Students in Grasping Transportation Related Concepts
Real-life hands-on pedagogy adequately grounded in workable social learning theory is a precursor to motivating students to grasp transportation-related concepts. At a historically black university, an evidence-based, experiment-focused, hands-on method of instruction was adopted in the transportation discipline from the fall of 2020 until now. This paper outlines the development and implementation of hands-on pedagogy in the transportation systems discipline from fall 2020 to fall 2022. The Motivated Strategies for Learning Questionnaire (MSLQ) developed by Pintrich, Smith, García, and McKeachie in 1991 was used to measure key constructs associated with students' success, such as motivation, epistemic and perceptual curiosity, and self-efficacy. Signature assignments were developed to measure student success outcomes from adopting the pedagogy. The results of the MSLQ administered to 44 students impacted by the pedagogy reveal a significant increase in the students' key constructs associated with success. The pedagogy reveals better knowledge gain and classroom engagement than the traditional teaching approach.
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- Award ID(s):
- 1915614
- PAR ID:
- 10467764
- Publisher / Repository:
- American Society for Engineering Education, 2023. https://peer.asee.org/44591
- Date Published:
- Subject(s) / Keyword(s):
- Real-life hands-on pedagogy, transportation-related concepts, motivation, epistemic and perceptual curiosity, and self-efficacy
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Location:
- https://peer.asee.org/44591
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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