Collaborative Research: Developing a Concept Inventory for Engineering Design Graphics

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Engineering graphics is one of the largest enrollment courses within engineering and engineering technology; however, much of engineering graphics education today teaches the "CAD tool of the day" rather than the fundamental concepts. This project will conduct educational research in the development of a concept inventory for engineering graphics concepts that can be used by STEM educators to help a wide spectrum of students. Concept Inventories have been developed for many fundamental courses in the STEM fields. Most notably, the Force Concept Inventory developed in the early 1980s, sparked a reform in physics education that focused more on student understanding of fundamental concepts rather than rote memorization of facts. Hence Concept Inventories enable faculty to design their courses with a focus on the fundamentals and provide them with a validated means of assessing student understanding of these basic concepts. Since students enroll in engineering graphics within high schools, community colleges, and four-year institutions, this project holds great potential to improve the learning of fundamental concepts in engineering graphics for many students. In a prior NSF project DUE-1044269, the research team used a Delphi Study to identify the fundamental concepts in engineering graphics. This project will develop its inventory based on those previously identified fundamental concepts. The instrument will be developed through a rigorous research and development process and will fill a gap in engineering and technology education. The project results will be disseminated broadly and will be targeted to faculty from a wide array of institutions, including high schools, community colleges, and four-year colleges. The project results will be long lasting within the engineering graphics education community of scholars.