Collaborative Research: Crossing the Threshold of Problem Solving: Electrical Engineering vs. Chemistry

参与机构：马萨诸塞大学波士顿分校(牵头)内布拉斯加州大学林肯分校核心区(S)：STEM学习/STEM学习环境-本科教育项目描述该项目正在研究两个STEM学科的本科生在解决问题方面的抽象能力。这个为期三年的项目涉及内布拉斯加-林肯大学电气工程和马萨诸塞大学波士顿大学化学专业的教职员工和学生。这项研究正在检查每个学科的两门课程(通常发生在大二和大三)，以寻找抽象门槛的证据--学生可以跨越的推理能力差距。本研究试图用一种名为表征映射的认知加工模型来表征应用于问题解决的推理。本研究检验了两个假设：1)许多学生没有完全成熟的抽象过程，也就是认知供应，可以测量他们的抽象过程是什么，以及他们使用抽象进行推理的程度。2)在每个本科生STEM课程的某个地方，认知需求都会增加，以至于典型的学生目前的抽象能力与提出的问题的复杂性不匹配，这影响了学生的表现。正在研究的研究问题是：RQ1：如何使用表征映射来表征两个不同STEM学科-电气工程和化学-的学生解决问题的过程和抽象程度？RQ2：有什么证据表明本科电气工程和化学课程中存在抽象门槛？RQ3：在电气工程和化学教育中，具体学科抽象的细微差别是什么？这个理论驱动的项目涉及一项严格的跨学科研究，有可能显著提高对学生在解决与STEM学科中深层次概念相关的问题时如何推理的理解。这一努力与美国国家科学院基于学科的教育研究(DBER)的报告直接一致，该报告将“交叉概念和认知过程的跨学科研究”作为其在本科STEM教育研究方面前景看好的方向的四个总体建议之一。该项目对如何提高学生问题解决方法的知识库做出了重大贡献，并有助于揭示在两个STEM学科中，一般领域和依赖学科的认知加工是如何相互作用的。BROADER的重要性体现在其与DBER报告的强烈一致性上，该项目是一个国家感兴趣的领域。该项目正在揭示两个STEM学科抽象的共性，并澄清这两个学科之间抽象的差异。这一努力提供了基本的见解，以支持教师如何利用共性，并故意为学生提供在解决问题时练习依赖于学科的推理策略的途径。将数据收集放在两所截然不同的大学--中西部的一所传统研究型大学和东北部的一所少数民族非传统大学--使研究结果具有更大的潜在相关性，这些发现正在科学和工程教育的高调会议上广泛传播。一项跨学科研究正在产生更容易转移到其他STEM学科的成果，从而增强了它们被广泛采用的潜力。

PARTICIPATING INSTITUTIONS: University of Massachusetts Boston (Lead)University of Nebraska-LincolnCORE AREA(s):STEM Learning/STEM Learning Environments - Undergraduate EducationPROJECT DESCRIPTION The project is studying the abstraction capacity in problem solving among undergraduate students in two STEM disciplines. The three-year project involves faculty and students in electrical engineering at University of Nebraska-Lincoln and in chemistry at University of Massachusetts Boston. The study is examining two courses in each discipline (that typically occur in the sophomore and junior years) for evidence of an abstraction threshold - the gap in reasoning ability that can be crossed by students. The project is seeking to characterize reasoning applied to problem solving using a cognitive processing model, Representation Mapping.The study tests two hypotheses: 1) Many students do not have fully mature processes for abstraction, i.e., cognitive supply, and it is possible to measure what their processes are and the degree to which they are capable of reasoning using abstraction. 2) Somewhere in each undergraduate STEM curriculum, cognitive demand increases to the point where a typical students current capacity for abstraction is not matched to the complexity of problems posed, and this impacts student performance. The research questions being studied are: RQ1: How can students problem solving processes and degree of abstraction in two different STEM disciplines - electrical engineering and chemistry - be characterized using Representation Mapping? RQ2: What evidence is there that abstraction thresholds exist in undergraduate electrical engineering and chemistry curricula? RQ3: What are discipline-specific nuances of abstraction in electrical engineering and chemistry education?This theory-driven project involves a rigorous interdisciplinary study that has the potential to significantly advance the understanding of how students reason when solving problems associated with deep concepts in STEM disciplines. The effort is in direct alignment the report from the National Academies on Discipline-Based Education Research (DBER), which includes "Interdisciplinary studies of cross-cutting concepts and cognitive processes" as one of its four overall recommendations for promising directions in studying undergraduate STEM education. The project is making significant contributions to the knowledge base on how to increase students' problem solving approaches and is helping to uncover how domain-general and discipline-dependent cognitive processing interact in two STEM disciplines.BROADER SIGNIFICANCE As manifest by its strong alignment with the DBER report, the project is an area of national interest. The project is uncovering commonalities of abstraction in two STEM disciplines and clarifying differences in abstraction between the disciplines. This effort is providing fundamental insights to support how instructors can capitalize on commonalities and deliberately provide avenues for students to practice discipline-dependent reasoning strategies in problem solving. Situating the data collection in two very different universities - a traditional research university in the Midwest and a majority minority non-traditional university in the Northeast - lends greater potential relevance to the findings, which is being widely disseminated at high profile conferences in both science and engineering education. An interdisciplinary study is producing results that are more readily transferred to other STEM disciplines, thus enhancing their potential for broad adoption.