Research Initiation: Advanced Modeling of Metacognitive Problem Solving and Group Effectiveness in Collaborative Engineering Teams

大多数工程专业人员通过学术课程获得他们的技术技能。然而，为了成功地完成他们的专业使命，毕业的工程师需要更广泛的专业技能。解决问题、元认知意识、团队合作和支持可持续发展的心态是21世纪帮助工程师解决复杂问题的技能。这些专业技能还允许工程师在协作团队中有效地工作。本项目旨在调查工科学生如何发展他们的专业技能，并提供一种测量和量化这些技能的方法。本科工程专业的学生将以个人或小组的形式解决现实生活中的制造问题，同时评估和提高他们的专业技能。为了优化团队绩效，在解决问题过程中发生的冲突和错误将被最小化。通过掌握这些技能，工科学生将成为有效的问题解决者，并将准备好解决工作环境中的复杂问题。将利用广泛的学术和工业传播和外联来加强项目结果的更广泛影响。这一举措将开发一种新的综合方法，以了解工程专业学生群体的专业技能，并确定学生在个人和团体环境中解决工程问题时是否关注正确的元素。物理模拟和虚拟现实测试平台将用于研究协作团队中的元认知问题解决和团队效率。通过眼动追踪和运用心理学的学习和注意理论来测量学生的低水平注意，测试平台将有助于确定学生在学习过程中关注的是什么。然后，该项目将开发分析模型来优化团队绩效。分析模型将结合冲突和错误算法和统计建模方法来描述这个学习过程，并确定可以在哪里进行改进。这些模型将为元认知决策过程提供有价值的见解。通过研究眼球运动（使用眼动追踪），可以对元认知及其影响因素有更深入的了解。因为眼球运动是注意力的表现，这将有助于确定学生在这个过程中正在关注什么信息，并最终处理什么信息。通过比较物理模拟和虚拟现实环境，本研究将为虚拟现实技术在教育领域的适用性提供见解。研究活动将纳入本科课程，以支持解决问题的技能发展。这项研究将通过提高本科工科学生的福祉、创新和创造性解决问题的能力，为我们国家的经济增长和安全做出贡献。这反过来将对我们的社会、学术环境以及制造业、服务业和医疗保健行业产生积极影响。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

Most engineering professionals acquire their technical skills through academic curricula. However, in order to succeed in fulfilling the missions of their professions, graduating engineers require a broader set of professional skills. Problem-solving, metacognitive awareness, teamwork, and mindsets supporting sustainability are 21st century skills that help engineers solve complex problems. These professional skills also allow engineers to work effectively in collaborative teams. This project aims to investigate how engineering students develop their professional skills and provide an approach for measuring and quantifying these skills. Undergraduate engineering students will work individually and in groups to solve real-life manufacturing problems while their professional skills are assessed and enhanced. In order to optimize team performance, the conflicts and errors that occur during the problem solving process will be minimized. By acquiring these skills, engineering students will become effective problem solvers and will be prepared to address complex problems in their work environment. Extensive academic and industry dissemination and outreach will be used to bolster the broader impact of project findings.This initiative will develop a new integrated approach to understanding professional skills in the engineering student population and determine if students are attending to the correct elements while solving engineering problems, both in individual and group settings. Physical simulations and virtual reality testbeds will be used to study metacognitive problem-solving and group effectiveness in collaborative teams. The testbeds will help to pinpoint what the students are paying attention to during the learning process as the low-level attention is measured through eye-tracking and application of psychological theories of learning and attention. The project will then develop analytical models to optimize team performance. The analytical models will combine conflict & error algorithms and statistical modeling methods to describe this learning process and identify where improvements can be made. The models will provide valuable insights into the metacognitive decision-making process. By studying eye movements (using eye-tracking), a deeper understanding of metacognition and factors affecting it can be achieved. Because eye movements are indicative of attention, this will allow determination of what information is being attended to, and ultimately processed, by students engaged in the process. By comparing physical simulations with virtual reality environments, this research will provide insights into the applicability of virtual reality technologies in the education domain. Research activities will be integrated into undergraduate courses to support problem-solving skill development. The research will contribute to the economic growth and security of our nation by enhancing the well-being, innovation, and creative problem-solving skills of undergraduate engineering students. This in turn will positively impact our society, academic environment, as well as manufacturing, service and healthcare industries.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.