Collaborative Research: Research: Understanding and Scaffolding the Productive Beginnings of Engineering Judgment in Undergraduate Students

合作研究：研究：理解和支撑本科生工程判断的富有成效的开端

• 批准号: 2313241
• 负责人: Aaron Johnson
• 金额: $ 19.73万
• 依托单位: Regents of the University of Michigan - Ann Arbor
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2023
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2023-08-15 至 2026-07-31
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=2313241&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Collaborative; Research; Understanding; Scaffolding; Productive

Most of the courses that undergraduate engineering students take are “engineering science” courses that present foundational engineering concepts and formulas. However, in these classes students typically complete well-defined “textbook” problems that only have one correct answer. They do not have many opportunities to apply these concepts to ill-defined, complex, open-ended problems like the ones practicing engineers solve. With open-ended problems, the core engineering work is not finding the answer, but rather deciding how to mathematically represent (i.e. “model”) the system so that it can be analyzed. These modeling skills of engineers are called “engineering judgment.” Students need opportunities to learn and practice engineering judgment throughout their entire education, starting in their engineering science courses when they first learn these foundational concepts. This project features two integrated goals—to develop a new type of assignment and to conduct learning science research in context—that will advance knowledge around students’ professional formation as engineers. The new assignment being developed, called Open-Ended Modeling Problems, gives students a chance to practice engineering judgment by asking them to model a complex, real-world system. Intertwined with this assignment development is the in-depth study of how students exhibit engineering judgment in ways that are similar to that of practicing engineers—just at an undergraduate level. This research will inform the structure and implementation of the Open-Ended Modeling Problems and will produce generalizable knowledge about how students solve open-ended problems. This project will be conducted by a research team consisting of engineering education researchers and engineering faculty who will collaborate to develop, implement, and study Open-Ended Modeling Problems.Engineers solving problems in the workplace use mathematical models to analyze physical phenomena in the real world and to design solutions to problems. When constructing mathematical models, engineers use judgment to make assumptions, simplify real world characteristics, and assess the reasonableness of a model’s output. While engineering judgment is essential for engineering practice, engineering students rarely practice or engage in judgment while in school. Students are not usually given the opportunity to solve ill-defined problems that necessitate and cultivate the use of judgment until their capstone design course. This project seeks to investigate how novice engineers—students—make modeling judgments when given the opportunity to solve ill-defined dynamics and thermodynamics problems. It uses a design-based research methodology to produce foundational engineering education research knowledge and evidence-based pedagogical reforms. This project will use a constructivist grounded theory approach to identify students’ emergent judgment skills and to characterize the productive beginnings of engineering judgment (RQ1: In what ways do undergraduate engineering students display the productive beginnings of engineering judgment?). The research project's findings will contribute towards training engineering students to solve more complex problems and better prepare them for solving problems in engineering practice. The project will also investigate how to create scaffolding guidelines to help faculty develop problems that give opportunities for students to practice making judgments (RQ2: What assignment scaffolding supports students’ development of the productive beginnings of engineering judgment?) and help them recognize judgments in students’ thinking and work (RQ3: What assignment scaffolding makes students’ productive beginnings of engineering judgment visible to instructors?). The research team will use interviews, group discussions, student work, and surveys to triangulate the findings. The study will produce a framework of the productive beginnings of engineering judgment; research-to-practice guidelines for writing, assigning, facilitating, and grading open-ended modeling problems; and samples of student work and student discourse that exemplify the productive beginnings of engineering judgment.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.

本科工程专业学生参加的大多数课程都是“工程科学”课程，呈现基础工程概念和公式。但是，在这些课程中，学生通常会填写明确定义的“教科书”问题，这些问题只有一个正确的答案。他们没有很多机会将这些概念应用于不确定的复杂，开放式的问题，例如执业工程师解决的问题。对于开放式问题，核心工程工作没有找到答案，而是决定如何数学代表（即“模型”）系统，以便可以对其进行分析。这些工程师的建模技巧称为“工程判断”。学生在整个教育过程中都需要学习和练习工程判断，从他们的工程科学课程开始时，他们首先学习了这些基本概念。该项目具有两个综合目标：开发新型的作业并在上下文中进行学习科学研究 - 将促进有关学生作为工程师的专业形成的知识。开发的新任务称为开放式建模问题，使学生有机会通过要求建模复杂的现实世界系统来练习工程法官。与这项任务发展交织在一起的是对学生如何以与实践工程师相似的方式展示工程法官的深入研究，这只是在本科生的水平上。这项研究将为开放式建模问题的结构和实施提供信息，并将有关学生如何解决开放式问题的概括知识。该项目将由一个由工程教育研究人员和工程学院组成的研究团队进行，他们将合作开发，实施和研究开放式建模问题。在工作场所解决问题的工程师使用数学模型来分析现实世界中的身体现象，并为问题设计解决方案。在构建数学模型时，工程师会使用法官做出假设，简化现实世界的特征并评估模型输出的合理性。工程法官对于工程练习至关重要，而工程专业的学生很少在学校练习或参与法官。通常，学生没有机会解决不确定的问题，这些问题需要和培养法官的使用，直到其顶峰设计课程为止。该项目旨在调查新颖的工程师（学生）在有机会解决不确定的动态和热力学问题时如何制定法官。它使用基于设计的研究方法来生产基础工程教育研究知识和基于证据的教学改革。该项目将使用建构主义扎根的理论方法来识别学生的新兴法官技能，并表征工程法官的产品起步（RQ1：本科工程专业的学生以什么方式展示了工程判断的产品开始？）。研究项目的发现将有助于培训工程专业的学生解决更复杂的问题，并更好地为解决工程实践中的问题做好准备。该项目还将调查如何创建脚手架指南，以帮助教师制定问题，使学生有机会练习法官（RQ2：哪些分配脚手架支持学生开发工程判断的产品的开发？），并帮助他们认识到学生在学生思维和工作中的评委（RQ3：RQ3：哪些分配分配的分配使学生的生产力使学生的生产力开始进行工程判断的审判？）研究小组将使用访谈，小组讨论，学生工作和调查来进行三角调查结果。该研究将产生工程判断的产品开始的框架；研究对练习指南的写作，分配，支持和分级开放式建模问题；该奖项反映了NSF的法定任务，并认为，使用基金会的知识分子优点和更广泛的影响标准，这一奖项反映了NSF的法定任务，并被认为是珍贵的支持，并认为学生工作和学生话语的样本示例了工程判断的开始。