A New Approach to Evaluate Student Learning Outcomes Resulting From Participation in Remotely Operated Vehicle Competitions

国家对具有进入大学技术人员教育项目所需的内容、知识和技能的学生以及熟练的技术劳动力的需求日益增长。机器人竞赛是吸引学生学习STEM学科的热门场所。这样的比赛可以将学生、导师和机构与各种成功和吸引人的基于技术的项目联系起来。自2001年以来，海洋先进技术教育中心(Mate)一直支持遥控飞行器(ROV)大赛。ROV大赛的目标包括激发学生对STEM的兴趣，帮助他们发展21世纪的工作技能，并使他们能够在STEM的职业道路上展望自己。该项目将支持参与的学生能够确定他们需要通过这一活动获得的知识和技能，清楚地看到他们需要改进的领域，并在他们继续教育和/或准备进入劳动力大军时利用这些知识。该项目的重点包括高中、社区大学和参加国内或国际ROV比赛的大学生。该项目建立在综合赛后调查结果的基础上，并对其进行了扩展，这些调查结果支持ROV竞赛对参赛学生的价值，并与NSF ATE计划的目标保持一致。除了蒙特利半岛学院的Mate中心外，该项目还汇集了纽约州立大学布法罗学院，以及卡尔顿学院科学教育资源中心提供的技术资源。该项目建立在评估纽约州立大学布法罗州立大学发展的本科生研究的成功方法的基础上。这一方法名为评估本科生研究(EvalateUR)，评估理想的学生结果，包括内容知识和工作技能，如沟通技能、创造力、自主性、克服障碍的能力、批判性思维和解决问题的能力。EvalateUR还帮助学生发展元认知技能，这反过来又促进了学生对自己学业优势和劣势的了解。该项目将调整EvalateUR以服务于参加Mate地区和国际ROV比赛的学生，支持教师顾问指导正在设计和制造ROV的学生，并就比赛的学术价值向Mate提供可靠的反馈。将支持以下目标：1)确保所有参加比赛的学生在参加比赛之初就知道他们应该掌握哪些具体的知识和技能，以便为进一步的教育和/或工作做准备；2)更准确地衡量每个参加比赛的学生在实现这种掌握方面取得了多大的进步；3)以增强学生元认知能力的方式实现这些目标；以及4)使用来自所有参与比赛的机构的数据来创建一个数据库，其中包含可靠的、经过统计验证的结果，显示学生在特定知识和技能方面的成长。还预计，其他机器人竞赛，如FIRST、VEX、Botball和国际无人驾驶车辆系统协会的陆地、空中和海洋项目套件，都代表着这种方法的潜在用户。项目成果的传播将包括这些机器人社区以及其他国家协会和NSF ATE社区。该项目由NSF高级技术教育计划资助，该计划专注于为推动国家经济的先进技术领域培养技术人员。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。

There is a growing national demand for students with the content knowledge and skills needed to enter college level technician education programs and the skilled technical workforce. Robotics competitions are popular venues for engaging students in STEM disciplines. Such competitions can connect students, mentors, and institutions to a variety of successful and engaging technology-based programs. The Marine Advanced Technology Education Center (MATE) has supported the Remotely Operated Vehicle (ROV) Competition since 2001. The goals of the ROV competition include sparking student interest in STEM, helping them develop 21st Century workplace skills, and enabling them to envision themselves on STEM career pathways. This project will support the ability of participating students to identify the knowledge and skills they need to gain through this activity, to see clearly the areas where they need to improve, and to use this knowledge to their advantage as they continue their education and/or prepare to enter the workforce. The project focus includes high school, community college, and college/university students who participate in national or international ROV competitions. This project builds upon and extends findings obtained using comprehensive post-competition surveys that support the value of the ROV competitions for participating students, and is aligned with the goals of the NSF ATE program. In addition to the MATE Center at Monterey Peninsula College, the project brings together the State University of New York College at Buffalo, and the technical resources available through the Science Education Resource Center at Carleton College. This project builds on a successful approach for evaluating of undergraduate research developed at SUNY Buffalo State. This approach, Evaluate Undergraduate Research (EvaluateUR), assesses desirable student outcomes, including both content knowledge and workplace skills, such as communication skills, creativity, autonomy, an ability to overcome obstacles, critical thinking, and problem-solving skills. EvaluateUR also helps students develop metacognition skills, which in turn promote student understanding of their academic strengths and weaknesses. The project will adapt EvaluateUR to serve students participating in MATE's regional and international ROV competitions, support faculty advisors as they mentor students who are designing and building ROVs, and provide reliable feedback to MATE about the academic value of the competitions. The following objectives will be supported: 1) Ensure that all students involved in the competitions know at the outset of their participation what specific knowledge and skills they should be mastering to prepare for additional education and/or the workplace; 2) Measure more precisely how much growth each student participate has demonstrated toward achieving such mastery; 3) Accomplish these goals in a way that strengthens student metacognitive abilities; and 4) Use data from all institutions involved in the competition to create a database of reliable, statistically validated findings showing student growth on specific knowledge and skills. It is also anticipated that other robotics competitions, such as FIRST, VEX, Botball, and the Association of Unmanned Vehicle System International's suite of land, air, and sea programs, represent potential users of this methodology. Dissemination of project results will include these robotics communities as well as other national associations and the NSF ATE community. This project is funded by the NSF Advanced Technological Education program that focuses on the education of technicians for the advanced-technology fields that drive the nation's economy.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.