Developing Ontological Schema Training Methods to Help Students Develop Scientifically Accurate Mental Models of Engineering Concepts

这个工程教育研究项目的目标是帮助学生开发更基本准确的小规模动态过程的心理模型。鉴于目前对纳米技术（例如微流体，生物技术，遗传工程，纳米级机器）进步的兴趣，新的工程毕业生必须牢牢掌握基本过程，其特征是小规模动态系统。因此，必须确定是否可以向工程专业的学生提供关于特定本体模式的指导（例如，涌现过程本体），以及他们获得这种模式是否提高了他们从相关本体中学习新概念内容的能力。这项研究将解决两个研究问题：（1）为什么受过教育的工程专业的学生坚持错误地描述小规模的过程中使用宏观模型？以及（2）我们如何设计教学方法来引导这些学生理解和使用更科学正确的模型？PI将通过创建有效的图式训练协议和材料来测试Chi和Slotta的涌现现象理论，这些协议和材料用于帮助工程专业的学生创建在小长度尺度上操作的基本重要动态过程的适当心理模型。他们将建立在Chi和她的同事提供的成功的理论框架，以及米勒和Streveler正在进行的关于工程专业学生对热力学和运输科学的误解的研究的基础上。为了将拟议的研究与Chi和Slotta以前和正在进行的工作进行比较，拟议的培训设计与他们精心控制的研究设计平行。通过这种设计，PI将能够收集证据，可以支持或反驳Chi的涌现理论（从而推进认知心理学的知识库），以及探索Chi的理论如何告知工程教育界学生如何学习工程（从而推进工程教育研究知识库）。PI还将获得有关如何教工程专业学生有关涌现的知识，并有证据支持将这种培训纳入工程课程。

The goal of this engineering education research project is to help students develop more fundamentally accurate mental models of small-scale dynamic processes. Given the current interest in advances in nanotechnology (e.g.microfluidics, biotechnology, genetic engineering, nanoscale machines), new engineering graduates must have a firm grip of fundamental processes, which are characterized by small-scale dynamic systems. Therefore it must be determined whether engineering students can be provided with instruction concerning a particular ontological schema (e.g., the Emergent Process ontology), and whether their acquisition of this schema improves their ability to learn new conceptual content from the relevant ontology. The proposed study will address two research questions: (1) why do educated engineering students persist in incorrectly describing small-scale processes using macroscopic models? and (2) how can we design instructional approaches that lead such students to understand and use more scientifically correct models? The PIs will test Chi and Slotta's theory of emergent phenomena by creating effective schema training protocols and materials for helping engineering students create appropriate mental models of fundamentally important dynamic processes operating at small length scales. They will build on the successful theoretical framework offered by Chi and her colleagues, as well as on-going research by Miller and Streveler concerning engineering students' misconceptions in thermal and transport sciences. In order to compare the proposed study to previous and ongoing work by Chi and Slotta, the design of the proposed training is parallel to their carefully controlled research designs. Through this design the PIs will be able to gather evidence that can support or refute Chi's Emergence theory (thus forwarding the knowledge base in cognitive psychology) as well as explore how Chi's theory can inform the engineering education community about how students learn engineering (thus forwarding the engineering education research knowledge base). The PIs will also gain knowledge about how to teach engineering students about emergence, and have evidence to support the inclusion of this kind of training in the engineering curriculum.