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技术技能。然而，为了成功地完成其职业使命，毕业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。这些专业技能还使工程师能够在协作团队中有效地工作。这个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。工科本科生将单独和小组合作，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，在解决问题的过程中发生的冲突和错误将降至最低。通过掌握这些技能，工科学生将成为有效的问题解决者，并为解决工作环境中的复杂问题做好准备。将利用广泛的学术和行业传播和外展来支持项目发现的更广泛的影响。这一倡议将开发一种新的综合方法，以了解工科学生群体中的专业技能，并确定学生在个人和小组环境中解决工程问题时是否注意正确的元素。物理模拟和虚拟现实实验台将被用来研究协作团队中的元认知问题解决和团队有效性。通过眼球跟踪和学习和注意心理学理论的应用，试验台将有助于准确地确定学生在学习过程中关注的内容，因为低水平的注意力是通过测量的。然后，该项目将开发分析模型，以优化团队绩效。分析模型将结合冲突与误差算法和统计建模方法来描述这一学习过程，并确定可以改进的地方。这些模型将为元认知决策过程提供有价值的见解。通过研究眼动(使用眼球跟踪)，可以更深入地理解元认知及其影响因素。因为眼球运动是注意力的指示器，这将允许确定参与这一过程的学生正在关注并最终处理哪些信息。通过将物理模拟与虚拟现实环境进行比较，本研究将为虚拟现实技术在教育领域的适用性提供见解。研究活动将融入本科课程，以支持解决问题的技能发展。这项研究将通过提高工科本科生的幸福感、创新能力和创造性解决问题的能力，为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NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势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.