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

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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.