Pub Date : 2018-10-01DOI: 10.1109/FIE.2018.8658777
L. Nagurney
Software Defined Radio (SDR) has evolved in the past decade from a topic that was only briefly mentioned in passing in graduate special topics courses to one that is now accessible to students at all levels. The rapid proliferation of cost effective SDR hardware has allowed not only the development of undergraduate SDR communication labs, but affordable test instrumentation that may be used in a variety of courses. This paper will outline a series of hardware choices and exercises that make SDR not just a topic for advanced communications, but a topic that can enhance undergraduate and graduate courses in communications, analog and digital signal processing, and instrumentation.
{"title":"Software Defined Radio for Communications","authors":"L. Nagurney","doi":"10.1109/FIE.2018.8658777","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1109/FIE.2018.8658777","url":null,"abstract":"Software Defined Radio (SDR) has evolved in the past decade from a topic that was only briefly mentioned in passing in graduate special topics courses to one that is now accessible to students at all levels. The rapid proliferation of cost effective SDR hardware has allowed not only the development of undergraduate SDR communication labs, but affordable test instrumentation that may be used in a variety of courses. This paper will outline a series of hardware choices and exercises that make SDR not just a topic for advanced communications, but a topic that can enhance undergraduate and graduate courses in communications, analog and digital signal processing, and instrumentation.","PeriodicalId":354904,"journal":{"name":"2018 IEEE Frontiers in Education Conference (FIE)","volume":"2 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2018-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"122400545","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2018-10-01DOI: 10.1109/FIE.2018.8658604
Brit-Maren Block
This paper presents a novel theory-based teaching concept for bachelor students on the subject of “digitalization”. The constant increase of changes driven by the surrounding context of digitalization affects all areas of industry and social life. Consequently, there is an urgent need to anchor the topic of digitalization in a holistic approach in engineering education. This paper contributes to the research discourse on suitable implementation methods in the teaching-learning module “Summer School Technology 4.0: Digitalization”. The contribution aims to generate new insights for engineering education practice and research (1) by classifying the significance of “digitalization” in the research landscape of engineering didactics, (2) by demonstrating the diversity-oriented and student-centered theoretical study approach of the teaching-learning concept and the embedding in the research of teaching-learning, (3) through the presentation of the methodological-didactic design of the course and its implementation in engineering education, and (4) by the introduction of the evaluation concept in mixed method design.
{"title":"An innovative teaching approach in Engineering Education to impart reflective digitalization competences","authors":"Brit-Maren Block","doi":"10.1109/FIE.2018.8658604","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1109/FIE.2018.8658604","url":null,"abstract":"This paper presents a novel theory-based teaching concept for bachelor students on the subject of “digitalization”. The constant increase of changes driven by the surrounding context of digitalization affects all areas of industry and social life. Consequently, there is an urgent need to anchor the topic of digitalization in a holistic approach in engineering education. This paper contributes to the research discourse on suitable implementation methods in the teaching-learning module “Summer School Technology 4.0: Digitalization”. The contribution aims to generate new insights for engineering education practice and research (1) by classifying the significance of “digitalization” in the research landscape of engineering didactics, (2) by demonstrating the diversity-oriented and student-centered theoretical study approach of the teaching-learning concept and the embedding in the research of teaching-learning, (3) through the presentation of the methodological-didactic design of the course and its implementation in engineering education, and (4) by the introduction of the evaluation concept in mixed method design.","PeriodicalId":354904,"journal":{"name":"2018 IEEE Frontiers in Education Conference (FIE)","volume":"12 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2018-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"114176238","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2018-10-01DOI: 10.1109/FIE.2018.8658678
Catherine G. P. Berdanier, Ellen Zerbe
At the graduate level, most milestones are based on the ability to write for an academic audience, whether that be for dissertation proposals, publications, or funding opportunities. Writing scholars often discuss the process by which graduate students learn to join their academic “discourse communities” through academic literacies theory. Graduate attrition researchers relate the feeling of belonging with persistence in doctoral programs; however, there has not to date been any research that directly studies engineering writing attitudes and perceptions with student career trajectories, persistence, or attrition. To meet this need, this paper presents research from a larger study analyzing graduate level engineering writing and attrition. The explicit objective of this paper is to present quantitative data relating current graduate engineering students’ attitudes, processes, and concepts of academic writing with the certainty of their career trajectory. Five scales measuring aspects of writing were deployed to engineering programs at ten research intensive universities across the United States, with a final total of n=621 graduate student respondents that represent early-career, mid-career, and late-career stages of the graduate timeline. Results indicate that graduate student processes and conceptions of engineering writing correlate with the likelihood of pursuing careers in various engineering sectors after completing their graduate degree programs.
{"title":"Correlations between graduate student writing concepts and processes and certainty of career trajectories","authors":"Catherine G. P. Berdanier, Ellen Zerbe","doi":"10.1109/FIE.2018.8658678","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1109/FIE.2018.8658678","url":null,"abstract":"At the graduate level, most milestones are based on the ability to write for an academic audience, whether that be for dissertation proposals, publications, or funding opportunities. Writing scholars often discuss the process by which graduate students learn to join their academic “discourse communities” through academic literacies theory. Graduate attrition researchers relate the feeling of belonging with persistence in doctoral programs; however, there has not to date been any research that directly studies engineering writing attitudes and perceptions with student career trajectories, persistence, or attrition. To meet this need, this paper presents research from a larger study analyzing graduate level engineering writing and attrition. The explicit objective of this paper is to present quantitative data relating current graduate engineering students’ attitudes, processes, and concepts of academic writing with the certainty of their career trajectory. Five scales measuring aspects of writing were deployed to engineering programs at ten research intensive universities across the United States, with a final total of n=621 graduate student respondents that represent early-career, mid-career, and late-career stages of the graduate timeline. Results indicate that graduate student processes and conceptions of engineering writing correlate with the likelihood of pursuing careers in various engineering sectors after completing their graduate degree programs.","PeriodicalId":354904,"journal":{"name":"2018 IEEE Frontiers in Education Conference (FIE)","volume":"79 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2018-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"122149646","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2018-10-01DOI: 10.1109/FIE.2018.8658838
A. Mikroyannidis, Karen Kear, Andrew Smith, Allan Jones, J. Rosewell, Helen Donelan, M. Wermelinger, Chris Sanders, Allan Third, T. Connolly
An increasingly connected society demands people who can design, set up, monitor and maintain networks of computers and devices. Traditional classroom instruction cannot keep pace with demand, and networking hardware costs can be too high for widespread classroom use. This paper presents the Open Networking Lab, a new UK initiative for supporting handson vocational learning in computer networking. The Open Networking Lab will facilitate the development of introductory practical networking skills without using hardware, through the provision of a web-based network simulation package integrated into learning resources and activities. These learning resources will be evaluated by students and lecturers from a cluster of Further Education colleges in the UK and will subsequently be made available to learners worldwide via free and open courseware.
{"title":"The Open Networking Lab: Hands-on Vocational Learning in Computer Networking","authors":"A. Mikroyannidis, Karen Kear, Andrew Smith, Allan Jones, J. Rosewell, Helen Donelan, M. Wermelinger, Chris Sanders, Allan Third, T. Connolly","doi":"10.1109/FIE.2018.8658838","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1109/FIE.2018.8658838","url":null,"abstract":"An increasingly connected society demands people who can design, set up, monitor and maintain networks of computers and devices. Traditional classroom instruction cannot keep pace with demand, and networking hardware costs can be too high for widespread classroom use. This paper presents the Open Networking Lab, a new UK initiative for supporting handson vocational learning in computer networking. The Open Networking Lab will facilitate the development of introductory practical networking skills without using hardware, through the provision of a web-based network simulation package integrated into learning resources and activities. These learning resources will be evaluated by students and lecturers from a cluster of Further Education colleges in the UK and will subsequently be made available to learners worldwide via free and open courseware.","PeriodicalId":354904,"journal":{"name":"2018 IEEE Frontiers in Education Conference (FIE)","volume":"30 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2018-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"117023361","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2018-10-01DOI: 10.1109/FIE.2018.8659323
M. Vigeant, R. Alan Cheville, Charles J. Kim, M. Prince, E. Jablonski, J. Tranquillo
Work in progress (research-to-practice). The entrepreneurial mindset, as articulated by the Kern Entrepreneurial Engineering Network or KEEN, rests on a foundation of three “C”s - Curiosity, Connections, and Creating value. In prior work, we developed an approach to assess students’ situational curiosity in response to class activities. We discovered that the creation of real artifacts excited student curiosity and explored the extent to which open-ended problem solving did as well. We have also proposed rubric-based assessments of student designs as a measure of value-creation. The second of the three “C”s, connections, has presented assessment challenges to this point.In this work, we discuss our literature review and search for valid and reliable instruments and subscales for connections. We propose a “2I” model where connections is defined as the ability to “integrate” knowledge to provide “insights”. We also propose an in-class activity similar to a brainstorming exercise already in use in many design-based courses. We have developed a rubric for assessing results of this exercise that can be used to both assess participants’ facility with forming connections and as the basis for a conversation with students about how to make more meaningful connections. Further, faculty can use this activity to stimulate students’ idea generation about course topics. We have tested this approach in two settings, and find initial results promising. We continue to seek feedback from the community as we work to turn this into a valid and reliable instrument for the assessment of connections through the “2I” model.
{"title":"Preliminary Efforts to Define, Assess, and Improve Students’ Ability to Make “Connections” as Part of Developing an Entrepreneurial Mindset","authors":"M. Vigeant, R. Alan Cheville, Charles J. Kim, M. Prince, E. Jablonski, J. Tranquillo","doi":"10.1109/FIE.2018.8659323","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1109/FIE.2018.8659323","url":null,"abstract":"Work in progress (research-to-practice). The entrepreneurial mindset, as articulated by the Kern Entrepreneurial Engineering Network or KEEN, rests on a foundation of three “C”s - Curiosity, Connections, and Creating value. In prior work, we developed an approach to assess students’ situational curiosity in response to class activities. We discovered that the creation of real artifacts excited student curiosity and explored the extent to which open-ended problem solving did as well. We have also proposed rubric-based assessments of student designs as a measure of value-creation. The second of the three “C”s, connections, has presented assessment challenges to this point.In this work, we discuss our literature review and search for valid and reliable instruments and subscales for connections. We propose a “2I” model where connections is defined as the ability to “integrate” knowledge to provide “insights”. We also propose an in-class activity similar to a brainstorming exercise already in use in many design-based courses. We have developed a rubric for assessing results of this exercise that can be used to both assess participants’ facility with forming connections and as the basis for a conversation with students about how to make more meaningful connections. Further, faculty can use this activity to stimulate students’ idea generation about course topics. We have tested this approach in two settings, and find initial results promising. We continue to seek feedback from the community as we work to turn this into a valid and reliable instrument for the assessment of connections through the “2I” model.","PeriodicalId":354904,"journal":{"name":"2018 IEEE Frontiers in Education Conference (FIE)","volume":"73 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2018-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"117268384","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2018-10-01DOI: 10.1109/FIE.2018.8658739
T. Anagnos, Eva Schiorring
While scholarships can serve as an important source of financial support and motivation for students attending university, they do not guarantee that recipients will graduate on time or graduate at all. Personal, health, and financial issues can conspire to overwhelm students, who then may stumble academically and thus lose their scholarships. To maximize the impact of scholarships, the NSF-funded S-STEM Engineering Leadership Pathway Scholars (ELPS) program provides support and activities to motivate and prepare upper division students to complete B.S. engineering degrees with the attitudes, knowledge, and skills to be leaders in the 21st century workforce and to pursue graduate degrees. Dedicated mentors and frequent interactions with industry professionals have been key to the success of the program. The average graduation rates and time to degree for these students are better than those of the university. Furthermore, ELPS recipients participated at higher rates in research and other professional development programs than typical students at San José State University. This innovative practice work-in-progress paper presents results of a post-scholarship survey and follow-on interviews, which indicate that the high-impact practices embedded in ELPS, in particular the mentoring, have had a positive impact on recipients’ leadership skills and attitudes, their career paths, and their overall university experience.
{"title":"Helping Students Get More than Their Money from an Engineering Scholarship Program","authors":"T. Anagnos, Eva Schiorring","doi":"10.1109/FIE.2018.8658739","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1109/FIE.2018.8658739","url":null,"abstract":"While scholarships can serve as an important source of financial support and motivation for students attending university, they do not guarantee that recipients will graduate on time or graduate at all. Personal, health, and financial issues can conspire to overwhelm students, who then may stumble academically and thus lose their scholarships. To maximize the impact of scholarships, the NSF-funded S-STEM Engineering Leadership Pathway Scholars (ELPS) program provides support and activities to motivate and prepare upper division students to complete B.S. engineering degrees with the attitudes, knowledge, and skills to be leaders in the 21st century workforce and to pursue graduate degrees. Dedicated mentors and frequent interactions with industry professionals have been key to the success of the program. The average graduation rates and time to degree for these students are better than those of the university. Furthermore, ELPS recipients participated at higher rates in research and other professional development programs than typical students at San José State University. This innovative practice work-in-progress paper presents results of a post-scholarship survey and follow-on interviews, which indicate that the high-impact practices embedded in ELPS, in particular the mentoring, have had a positive impact on recipients’ leadership skills and attitudes, their career paths, and their overall university experience.","PeriodicalId":354904,"journal":{"name":"2018 IEEE Frontiers in Education Conference (FIE)","volume":"1 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2018-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"129575562","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2018-10-01DOI: 10.1109/FIE.2018.8659235
Julie A. Rursch, Paul Pfister, A. Luse, Tyler Tran
Universities are now seeing the post-Millennial generation enrolling in freshman engineering courses. These outcome-oriented students engage with the course topics if they can see how the skills being developed can be used outside the classroom. To this end, the authors substituted a contemporary game controller, a PlayStation4 DualShock4 (DS4), for a microcontroller with sensors (Arduino Esplora) that was used in the freshman laboratory exercises to enhance the connection to the “real world” and increase engagement with the course concepts. Using laboratory scores from two consecutive fall semesters at a large, Midwestern university, the authors found the substitution of the DS4 for the Esplora had a significant positive effect on the total scores for the entire semester, as well as positive significant effect on the formalized lab reports.
{"title":"The Constantly Evolving Freshman Engineering Course: The Case of the DualShock4 Game Controller to Increase Engagement with Laboratory Exercises for an Introductory Problem Solving Course","authors":"Julie A. Rursch, Paul Pfister, A. Luse, Tyler Tran","doi":"10.1109/FIE.2018.8659235","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1109/FIE.2018.8659235","url":null,"abstract":"Universities are now seeing the post-Millennial generation enrolling in freshman engineering courses. These outcome-oriented students engage with the course topics if they can see how the skills being developed can be used outside the classroom. To this end, the authors substituted a contemporary game controller, a PlayStation4 DualShock4 (DS4), for a microcontroller with sensors (Arduino Esplora) that was used in the freshman laboratory exercises to enhance the connection to the “real world” and increase engagement with the course concepts. Using laboratory scores from two consecutive fall semesters at a large, Midwestern university, the authors found the substitution of the DS4 for the Esplora had a significant positive effect on the total scores for the entire semester, as well as positive significant effect on the formalized lab reports.","PeriodicalId":354904,"journal":{"name":"2018 IEEE Frontiers in Education Conference (FIE)","volume":"24 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2018-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"129463565","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2018-10-01DOI: 10.1109/FIE.2018.8658609
K. Youmans, I. Villanueva, L. Nadelson, Jana Bouwma-Gearheart, Adam Lenz, Sarah Lanci
Makerspaces are a growing trend in engineering and STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) education at both the university and K-12 levels. These spaces which, in theory, are characterized by a community of likeminded individuals interested in digital fabrication and innovative design, are argued to provide opportunities to foster the skills sets critical to the next generation of engineers and scientists. However, spaces for making are not new to the engineering curriculum as many engineering programs have well-established machine shops or project labs that students utilize to complete course projects. In this work-in-progress exploratory study, the authors evaluated early undergraduate students’ perceptions of two contrasting spaces, a contemporary makerspace and a traditional engineering shop. As part of an Introduction to Engineering course, students were asked to visit the two campus spaces, identify important equipment and policies they noticed in each space, and describe their perception of how the spaces were similar or different. Based on our initial findings, we speculate that access and safety issues in engineering shops may limit their use by early year engineering undergraduates. Alternatively, digital fabrication technologies and community culture in makerspaces can provide access to a hands-on prototyping and collaborative learning environment for early year engineering students.
{"title":"Makerspaces vs Engineering Shops: Initial Undergraduate Student Impressions","authors":"K. Youmans, I. Villanueva, L. Nadelson, Jana Bouwma-Gearheart, Adam Lenz, Sarah Lanci","doi":"10.1109/FIE.2018.8658609","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1109/FIE.2018.8658609","url":null,"abstract":"Makerspaces are a growing trend in engineering and STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) education at both the university and K-12 levels. These spaces which, in theory, are characterized by a community of likeminded individuals interested in digital fabrication and innovative design, are argued to provide opportunities to foster the skills sets critical to the next generation of engineers and scientists. However, spaces for making are not new to the engineering curriculum as many engineering programs have well-established machine shops or project labs that students utilize to complete course projects. In this work-in-progress exploratory study, the authors evaluated early undergraduate students’ perceptions of two contrasting spaces, a contemporary makerspace and a traditional engineering shop. As part of an Introduction to Engineering course, students were asked to visit the two campus spaces, identify important equipment and policies they noticed in each space, and describe their perception of how the spaces were similar or different. Based on our initial findings, we speculate that access and safety issues in engineering shops may limit their use by early year engineering undergraduates. Alternatively, digital fabrication technologies and community culture in makerspaces can provide access to a hands-on prototyping and collaborative learning environment for early year engineering students.","PeriodicalId":354904,"journal":{"name":"2018 IEEE Frontiers in Education Conference (FIE)","volume":"172 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2018-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"116141772","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2018-10-01DOI: 10.1109/FIE.2018.8658880
J. Stolk, Jonathan Jacobs, Camille Girard, Lauren Pudvan
This work-in-progress study examines connections among classroom climate, psychological needs satisfaction, and motivations in a college course setting. According to self-determination theory (SDT), positive forms of motivation arise when people experience a sense of competence, relatedness, and autonomy. In learning settings, these three basic psychological needs are satisfied when students feel a sense of efficacy and mastery; a supportive connection to others; and choice and control. Research illustrates that instructors play an important role in creating environments that support these three needs through their pedagogical choices, interactive style, and classroom culture and climate setting. In this study, we explore relationships among students’ needs satisfaction, perceptions of the learning climate, and situational motivations. Participants in the study are first-year undergraduate engineering students enrolled in a technical course that uses non-traditional pedagogies to integrate math, science, and engineering. Student responses to the Situational Motivation Scale, Basic Psychological Needs Satisfaction scale, and Learning Climate Questionnaire are analyzed using descriptive statistics, t-tests, and bivariate correlations. Consistent with SDT predictions, our findings show that students’ needs satisfaction and positive evaluations of the learning climate correlate positively to autonomous motivations. We also observe that students’ positive motivations are not entirely temporally stable. Over a one-week period in a course project, students report a significant drop in positive motivations followed by a quick recovery. Using information on the course context and assignments, we offer possible explanations for the temporal shifts in motivations. Our preliminary findings highlight important connections between motivations and course variables that instructors may influence through their choice of learning activities and pedagogies.
{"title":"Learners’ Needs Satisfaction, Classroom Climate, and Situational Motivations: Evaluating Self-Determination Theory in an Engineering Context","authors":"J. Stolk, Jonathan Jacobs, Camille Girard, Lauren Pudvan","doi":"10.1109/FIE.2018.8658880","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1109/FIE.2018.8658880","url":null,"abstract":"This work-in-progress study examines connections among classroom climate, psychological needs satisfaction, and motivations in a college course setting. According to self-determination theory (SDT), positive forms of motivation arise when people experience a sense of competence, relatedness, and autonomy. In learning settings, these three basic psychological needs are satisfied when students feel a sense of efficacy and mastery; a supportive connection to others; and choice and control. Research illustrates that instructors play an important role in creating environments that support these three needs through their pedagogical choices, interactive style, and classroom culture and climate setting. In this study, we explore relationships among students’ needs satisfaction, perceptions of the learning climate, and situational motivations. Participants in the study are first-year undergraduate engineering students enrolled in a technical course that uses non-traditional pedagogies to integrate math, science, and engineering. Student responses to the Situational Motivation Scale, Basic Psychological Needs Satisfaction scale, and Learning Climate Questionnaire are analyzed using descriptive statistics, t-tests, and bivariate correlations. Consistent with SDT predictions, our findings show that students’ needs satisfaction and positive evaluations of the learning climate correlate positively to autonomous motivations. We also observe that students’ positive motivations are not entirely temporally stable. Over a one-week period in a course project, students report a significant drop in positive motivations followed by a quick recovery. Using information on the course context and assignments, we offer possible explanations for the temporal shifts in motivations. Our preliminary findings highlight important connections between motivations and course variables that instructors may influence through their choice of learning activities and pedagogies.","PeriodicalId":354904,"journal":{"name":"2018 IEEE Frontiers in Education Conference (FIE)","volume":"1 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2018-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"116236225","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2018-10-01DOI: 10.1109/FIE.2018.8658790
Ravali Gampa, Anna Baynes
This Work in Progress Research Paper presents a visual analytic workflow to assist instructors of introductory computer science courses to manage their students’ learning and success. Sometimes introductory college classes are notoriously called “weed-out” courses, which students who fall behind, are discouraged from continuing the career path. Students with different educational backgrounds may be unnecessarily defeated in these courses. In this work, we identify what class data can be collected and supplied to data analytic tooling to generate insights into monitoring the students’ progress. We first investigate a variety of machine learning tools and techniques on a class dataset. Then, we present work-in-progress designs of a visual analytic workflow. Through the interaction with the visual analytic tool, instructors of the introductory computer science course gather insights into the class, for example, “Which part of the programming assignment is causing students to have the most software bugs?,” “Which exam questions best test the understanding of runtime analysis?,” “What type of student activity results in fascinating over 50% of the class to participate and understand the material?”
{"title":"Visual Analytic Workflow to Understand Students’ Performance in Computer Science Courses","authors":"Ravali Gampa, Anna Baynes","doi":"10.1109/FIE.2018.8658790","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1109/FIE.2018.8658790","url":null,"abstract":"This Work in Progress Research Paper presents a visual analytic workflow to assist instructors of introductory computer science courses to manage their students’ learning and success. Sometimes introductory college classes are notoriously called “weed-out” courses, which students who fall behind, are discouraged from continuing the career path. Students with different educational backgrounds may be unnecessarily defeated in these courses. In this work, we identify what class data can be collected and supplied to data analytic tooling to generate insights into monitoring the students’ progress. We first investigate a variety of machine learning tools and techniques on a class dataset. Then, we present work-in-progress designs of a visual analytic workflow. Through the interaction with the visual analytic tool, instructors of the introductory computer science course gather insights into the class, for example, “Which part of the programming assignment is causing students to have the most software bugs?,” “Which exam questions best test the understanding of runtime analysis?,” “What type of student activity results in fascinating over 50% of the class to participate and understand the material?”","PeriodicalId":354904,"journal":{"name":"2018 IEEE Frontiers in Education Conference (FIE)","volume":"42 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2018-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"121740869","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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