This research initiation grant in engineering education project seeks to answer the question of how technology impacts learning in engineering classrooms. While technology is often assumed to lead to increased learning, it can be expensive for institutions and/or students and thus research is needed to help determine when such investment is most valuable. The collaboration between engineering faculty and psychology researchers this award supports will help to determine whether it is the technology that impacts learning, or other factors that may be replicable at lower cost.
The broader significance and importance of this project will be to investigate how technology impacts a classroom culture, thus informing decisions by universities whether investments in technology are wise for given learning outcomes. The project specifically focuses on women and disabled students who are under-represented in engineering. This project overlaps with NSF's strategic goals of transforming the frontiers through preparation of an engineering workforce with new capabilities and expertise. Additionally NSF's goal of innovating for society is enabled by creating results and research that are useful for society by informing educational policy and practices.
The major goals of the project were to 1. Transform the classroom of traditionally high attrition rate engineering and engineering technology second/third year classes using tablet PC, multiple projection screens, interactive whiteboards, collaborative digital inking (students and faculty writing digitally in a shared cloud workspace), flipped classroom videos, and active learning pedagogical techniques. We call this multiple technology environment with cooperative-active learning the Technology Rich interactive Learning Environment (TRiLE) 2. Measure if the TRiLE can increase student engagement, and student academic success in these traditionally high attrition classes. 3. Understand what features of the TRiLE are most helpful to the students in learning, and the faculty in teaching in a technology rich learning environment. One of the evaluation techniques used in study reviewed student D grades, F grades, or withdrawals (DFW) rates prior to the TRiLE and after the implementation of the TRiLE. We saw a decrease in DFW rates with particular benefit to academically at risk students GPA>2.0 but GPA <3.0. Analysis of DFW rates for control versus treatment groups for the TRiLE project have shown rates of 22.6% for the control groups versus 9% for the treatment group. The decrease in DFW is evidenced over time, with different instructors and different courses. These results support that the TRiLE approach is effective in lowering DFWs which research has shown to correlate with improved retention in engineering programs. The results of the project document the methods of selecting classroom technology features by utilizing pedagogical knowledge of how student learn in support of the content knowledge of the STEM subject being taught. This project stressed in its dissemination, and presentations that the technology features selected for the learning environment must be driven by the active learning pedagogical approach and engineering content being delivered. The project added to base knowledge that learning environment technology must assist students in cooperative active learning approaches. The technology rich pedagogical methods utilized were also detailed in the dissemination products which resulted from this project. These technology rich pedagogical methods detail the new 'visualization' enabled by the technology rich learning environment. These new 'visualization' include the students ability to view and playback in a video format the instructors problem solving process, and the instructors ability to playback student work to understand the student problem solving process including corrections. The results of this project also include the qualitative student feedback on the features of the technology rich learning environment that students value along with the qualitative student learning gains achieved from the structured control versus treatment condition study design utilized for this project. The project also significantly contributed to the professional development of the team members and the many undergraduate researchers who participated in the project in terms of active learning, cooperative learning, and rigorous research in engineering education. This project has demonstrated that the use of integrated technology into an active/cooperative designed learning environment can transform the classroom into a student centered, interactive and engaging learning environment, and lead to increased student engagement and retention in the education of engineers. It is not the technology in itself but the purposefully design of the technology features with the cooperative/active learning pedagogical methods and the curriculum that yields tremendously positive results. The retention of engineering students is critical in ensuring that the engineering education system can graduate sufficient numbers of effective engineers to address future technological and societal problems. As a society we have a number of large challenges/changes in front of us. All of these challenges/changes require engineers to solve challenging and interconnected problems allowing human kind to adapt, adjust and advance. The National Academy of Engineering and the National Science Board have raised concerns about the ability of the engineering education system to graduate sufficient numbers of effective engineers to address these future problems. Ironically, the students’ cognitive capabilities or their potential to perform well as engineers are not significant factors in determining their persistence. Studies have shown that a primary cause of the high attrition rates in introductory engineering programs is the perception that the learning environment is often un-motivating and unwelcoming. This un-motivating and unwelcoming environment can be seen by some students as being rigid, closed, and condescending as noted by Seymour & Hewitt. These learning environment characteristics have been theorized to lower the students engineering self-confidence and lower self-efficacy. Such perceptions are even more problematic for underrepresented populations (women and ethnic/racial groups).
