Collaborative Research: Development and Testing of a Fundamentals of Environmental Engineering Concept Inventory

该项目正在开发环境工程基础概念清单(FEECI)，并在美国十所大学校园进行第一轮测试，提供必修的本科收费课程。项目目标还包括进一步完善FEECI及其传播。这项工作的预期结果是在土木工程和/或环境工程的核心课程中评估概念理解的有效、可靠的工具。这一工具将在评估Abet标准下的方案认证方面发挥重要作用，并提供必要的技术，用于对收费课程中的教学方法和教学框架进行形成性评估。另一个重要的成果将是开发团队的形成，这是一个强大的教职员工社区，接受过FEECI使用培训，致力于改进收费教学。该项目的具体活动和里程碑包括：1.对FEECI开发团队的14名成员进行在线Delphi学习-来自10所大学的一组教员教授收费课程多年。开发团队正在确定FEECI中关键但容易在学生中产生误解的概念；2.学生访谈和集思广益会议，以从学生的角度生成关键概念的列表(类似于教师生成的列表的指导方针)；3.基于前两个里程碑的概念协调列表和FEECI的一组多项选择题草稿；4.在环境工程与科学教授协会(AEESP)夏季会议上开发团队成员面对面会议上完成的FEECI的最终测试版；5.2011年秋季和2012年春季在10个校区的学生中试用FEECI；6.使用来自10所参与大学的数据对FEECI的效度和可靠性进行统计分析；正在根据对测试数据的分析、学生访谈和专家同行评议来完善FEECI问题草案；还在为使用FEECI编写文件并指导对其应用结果的解释。

This project is developing a Fundamentals of Environmental Engineering Concept Inventory (FEECI) and doing the first round of testing at ten US university campuses with required undergraduate FEE courses. Project goals also include further refinement of the FEECI and its dissemination. The expected outcome of this work is a validated, reliable instrument for assessing conceptual understanding in a core curriculum course for Civil and/or Environmental engineering. Such an instrument will play an important role in assessment for programmatic accreditation under the ABET standards, and provide a needed technique for formative assessment of instructional methods and pedagogical frameworks in the FEE curriculum. Another important outcome will be the formation of the Development Team, a strong community of faculty, trained in the use of the FEECI and dedicated to improving FEE instruction.Specific activities and milestones of this project include:1. On online Delphi study of 14 members of the FEECI Development Team - a group of faculty members from ten universities who have taught FEE courses for many years. The development team is determining the concepts in FEE that are critical but prone to misconception among students;2. Student interviews and brainstorming sessions to generate a list of critical concepts from the students' perspectives (similar to the guidelines for the faculty generated list); 3. A reconciled list of concepts based on the first two milestones and a draft set of multiple-choice questions for the FEECI;4. A finalized beta version of the FEECI completed during a face-to-face meeting of the Development Team members at the Association of Environmental Engineering & Science Professors (AEESP) summer meeting;5. A trial use of the FEECI to students at ten campuses in fall 2011 and spring 2012;6. A statistical analysis of validity and reliability of the FEECI using data from the ten participating universities;The draft FEECI questions are being refined based on analysis of test data, student interviews, and expert peer review; Documentation is also being prepared for using the FEECI and guiding the interpretation of the results of its application.