Training Engineering Students to Ask Better Questions

该项目旨在通过加强学生在本科工程课程中的学习来服务于国家利益。具体地说，该项目将调查培训学生提出更好的问题是否会改善STEM的学习结果，如课程知识、对自己学习的认识以及他们在未来课程中提出更好问题的能力。认识到自己的困惑并提出问题来驱散困惑的能力是支持自主学习的一项基本思维技能。来自小学和中学环境的研究证据证实，可以训练学童提出更复杂的问题。此外，更有限的大学水平研究将提出更好问题的能力与更好的阅读理解联系起来。然而，这些结果并没有揭示出提出更好问题的能力是否会导致对课程材料的更好理解和/或思维过程的改善。这个项目的目的是训练工科学生如何写出能引发更高层次思考的问题。它还将研究这种培训是否会改善内容知识和思维过程，如元认知。该项目将为本科生提供一门工程静力学课程，培训他们如何撰写高质量的问题。该项目还将衡量这种培训对学生STEM学习结果的影响。预计帮助工科学生提出好的问题将有助于学生在工程项目中取得学术成功，并支持他们在工程生涯中的终身学习。该项目将把培训材料和干预措施组织成工具包，便于其他学生和教师使用。干预组的学生将接受培训和练习，以编写高质量的问题，解决他们自己在工程静力学课程中的困惑。我们将采用定量、定性和混合的方法来探讨这种干预对内容知识和元认知知识的影响，以及问题质量的提高与这些学习结果之间的关系。这个项目将有助于展示如何在工程课程中有效地教授提问，并理解学生提出更好的问题所产生的可衡量的学习结果。通过确定STEM教育者关心的对学习结果的影响，干预应该对许多其他STEM教员有用。此外，为了便于向教职员工和学生分发，干预措施将被打包成工具包，设计为可扩展和可适应的，以便干预措施可以在其他工程课堂和其他学科可行地实施。这些工具包将包括教育文献中的背景信息、评定问题质量的培训材料以及开展培训课程的指导方针。该项目得到了NSF改善本科生STEM教育计划：教育和人力资源的支持，该计划支持研究和开发项目，以提高所有学生的STEM教育的有效性。该项目处于参与学生学习轨道中，IUSE：EHR计划通过该轨道支持有前途的实践和工具的创建、探索和实施。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。

This project aims to serve the national interest by enhancing student learning in undergraduate engineering courses. Specifically, the project will investigate if training students to ask better questions improves STEM learning outcomes, such as course knowledge, awareness of their own learning, and their ability to ask better questions in future courses. The ability to recognize one's own confusion and to ask a question to dispel that confusion is an essential thinking skill that supports independent learning. Evidence from studies in primary and secondary school settings confirms that school children can be trained to ask more sophisticated questions. In addition, the more limited college-level studies link the ability to ask better questions to better reading comprehension. However, the results do not reveal whether the ability to ask better questions can lead to better understanding of course material and/or improvements in thinking processes. This project aims to train engineering students how to write questions that lead to higher-level thinking. It will also study whether this training results in improved content knowledge and thinking processes, such as metacognition. The project will provide undergraduate students an engineering statics course with training in how to write high quality questions. The project will also measure the effects of this training on the students’ STEM learning outcomes. It is expected that helping engineering students to ask good questions will contribute to the students’ academic success in engineering programs and support lifelong learning throughout their engineering careers. The project will organize the training materials and interventions into toolkits that can be used easily by other students and faculty.Students in the intervention group will be provided training and practice in writing high quality questions that address their own confusions in an engineering statics course. Quantitative, qualitative and mixed method approaches will be used to explore the effect of this intervention on content knowledge and metacognitive knowledge, as well as the relationships between improved question quality and these learning outcomes. This project will contribute to demonstrating how question-asking may be taught effectively within engineering courses and to understanding the measurable learning outcomes that result from students asking better questions. By determining the effect on learning outcomes that are of concern to STEM educators, the intervention should be useful to many other STEM faculty. Further, for easy distribution to both faculty and students, the intervention will be packaged into toolkits that are designed to be scalable and adaptable, such that the intervention can be feasibly implemented in other engineering classrooms and other disciplines. The toolkits will include background information from the educational literature, training materials for rating question quality, and guidelines for conducting training sessions. This project is supported by the NSF Improving Undergraduate STEM Education Program: Education and Human Resources, which supports research and development projects to improve the effectiveness of STEM education for all students. The project is in the Engaged Student Learning track, through which the IUSE: EHR program supports the creation, exploration, and implementation of promising practices and tools.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.