Design and Development Research: Deploying Adaptive Learning Environments to Overcome Background Deficiencies and Facilitate Mastery of Computer Engineering Content

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Many students who intend to major in computer engineering do not persist through the introductory sequence of digital logic courses that are part of every accredited computer engineering program in the U.S. These students often lack the necessary prerequisite knowledge due to their varied backgrounds and incoming preparedness levels. This problem is compounded by the large class sizes of introductory college courses, which make it difficult to accommodate the background knowledge and the skills of individual students. Additionally, an e-learning environment has the potential to reach a broad audience through remote delivery, thus further increasing the impact of this approach. This enables community colleges and 4-year universities to move toward a true two-plus-two transfer program by allowing students to complete lower-level computer engineering courses remotely before transferring. The adaptive learning materials in this project will be developed for use in an introductory digital circuits course and a logic design course. Both of these courses contain laboratory components that will also be addressed by this work. The materials will be developed as self-contained learning modules that can be used at different colleges with varying schedules (e.g., semester vs. quarter). The materials will consist of a unified, adaptive learning environment that can be implemented using any course management system (e.g., Moodle, Desire2Learn, Blackboard) to eliminate the need for proprietary software. An accompanying lab kit will facilitate hands-on learning in a low-cost, portable form factor to facilitate remote delivery and eliminate the financial barrier of offering a meaningful laboratory experience. The materials will be tested at a diverse set of institutions: Montana State University, a Ph.D. granting, research active university, MSU-Billings, a 4-year non-research university, Flathead Valley Community Colleges, the largest 2-year community college in Montana, and Salish Kootenai College, a Tribal College proving both 2-year and 4-year degrees for Native Americans. This broad range of participants will allow the team to assess the effectiveness of the adaptive learning materials while simultaneously considering the relationship between student background and the student learning experience. Both quantitative and qualitative measures will be used to assess the adaptive learning modules. Direct measures will be collected on student performance, including the number of ungraded quiz attempts within an adaptive module, end of module exam scores, time required to complete a module, and time spent at each level of difficulty within a module. Surveys will be used to collect student satisfaction with the adaptive learning environment that will include feedback on their impression of content difficulty, workload compared to other courses of the same credit load, and their sense of how well the material was personalized to their needs. Student demographic information will be collected including gender, ethnicity, age, socioeconomic background, ACT scores and college credits obtained. This information will be used to understand how different groups use and benefit from the course materials. Focus groups will also be conducted with student participants at Michigan State University in order to collect qualitative data on student learning and attitudes toward the e-learning system. Phone interviews will be conducted with students from the other participating institutions. The interim findings from this assessment will be used as feedback to enhance the adaptive learning system in order to accommodate a broader range of participants.