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The COVID-19 pandemic forced many colleges and universities to remain on a completely online or remote educational learning for more than a year; however, due to distraction, lack of motivation or engagement, and other internal/external pandemic contributing factors, learners could not pay attention 100% to the learning process. Additionally, given that transportation classes are very hands-on, students could not do the experiment from home due to limited resources available, thereby hampering all three phases of learner interactions. The limitation of the implementation of physical, hands-on laboratory exercises during the pandemic further exacerbated students’ actualization of the critical Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology (ABET) outcomes in transportation: An ability to develop and conduct experiments or test hypotheses, analyze and interpret data and use scientific judgment to draw conclusions. Subsequently, this paper highlights the development and implementation of experiment centric pedagogy (ECP) home-based active learning experiments in three transportation courses: Introduction to Transportation Systems, Traffic Engineering, and Highway Engineering during the pandemic. Quantitative and qualitative student success key constructs data was collected in conjunction with the execution of classroom observation protocols that measure active learning in these transportation courses. The results reveal a significant difference between the pre, and post- tests of key constructs associated with student success, such as motivation, critical thinking, curiosity, collaboration, and metacognition. The results of the Classroom Observation Protocol for Undergraduate STEM (COPUS) show more active student engagement when ECP is implemented.
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Evaluating the Impact of Experiment-Centric Pedagogy on Civil Engineering Undergraduates’ Motivation
Motivation is a strong factor in effective learning, and it has an impact on learning outcomes. Students' motivation can make or break their ability to grasp abstract courses which predominate courses taught in Civil Engineering. Students that are more motivated to study, stick with it longer, and put in more effort to perform better in class, hands-on experiments, and standardized tests. This study is designed to answer the following questions: (i) Is there a significant difference between the motivation of Civil Engineering undergraduates pre and post implementation of experiment-centric pedagogy? (ii) Is there a significant difference between Civil Engineering undergraduates’ motivation pre and post implementation of experiment-centric pedagogy based on gender? and (iii) Is there any significant association between socio-demographic characteristics of Civil Engineering undergraduates and their motivation? Motivation constructs considered in the present study include intrinsic goal orientation, task value, expectancy component, test anxiety, critical thinking, and metacognition. Undergraduates’ responses shall be collected using 7-point Likert-scales, and statistical analyses done using Statistical Package for Social Scientists (SPSS 25.0) at a statistical significance set at 0.05.
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- Award ID(s):
- 1915614
- PAR ID:
- 10467768
- Publisher / Repository:
- American Society for Engineering Education, 2023. https://sftp.asee.org/43440
- Date Published:
- Subject(s) / Keyword(s):
- experiment-centric pedagogy, Civil Engineering, Motivation, intrinsic goal orientation, task value, expectancy component, test anxiety, critical thinking, and metacognition
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Location:
- https://sftp.asee.org/43440
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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