161 research outputs found
Toward a new model within the community of inquiry framework: Multivariate linear regression analyses based on graduate student perceptions of learning online
No full textOnline education has seen dramatic changes in recent years and been recognized as a significant learning platform. However, teaching and learning in these environments is not yet well understood. This study evaluated operational models of the Community of Inquiry (COI) framework that explain student perceptions of learning online. The study participants ( n = 256) were graduate students from multiple institutions who had taken at least one online course as part of their degree requirements. Survey data were collected using the WebTALK survey, a Likert-scale instrument. A two-phase, sequential quantitative research program composed of a series of multivariate linear regression analyses was conducted. The first phase was confirmatory and examined the measurement of four COI constructs: cognitive presence (CP), which represents students\u27 interaction with the course content; teaching presence (TP), which represents students\u27 interaction with instructional tools and learning activities; and social presence (SP), which represents students\u27 interaction with other learners and cultural aspects of the learning environment, and learning presence (LP), which represents students\u27 self-regulation and learning strategies. The first phase included a series of confirmatory factor analyses (CFAs) to evaluate the measurement models of the TP, SP, LP, and CP constructs individually, followed by the WebTALK measurement model, which modeled all four constructs simultaneously. The second phase focused on testing several hypotheses that explore how the COI constructs relate and interact with one another. These hypotheses were evaluated using SEM path analyses and hierarchical linear regression analyses. The findings indicate that the WebTALK instrument provided a reliable measure of all four COI constructs with Cronbach\u27s alpha values ranging from 0.63 to 0.92 and measurement models with very good model fit. While SP acted as a mediator between the other COI constructs when analyzed individually, mediation criteria were not met when all four constructs are included in the model simultaneously. In addition, LP did not have significant moderation effect in this study, which contradicts findings from independent prior research. Together, these findings indicate that LP significantly relates to the other COI constructs, but in a way that is not well-explained by the existing models. A post-hoc hypothesis was generated based on the analysis of the three hypotheses tested in the second phase of this study. Findings suggest that the post-hoc hypothesis, where both SP and LP act as mediators between TP and CP and SP has a direct effect on LP, should be accepted. This dissertation makes unique contributions to the study of online learning environments through the COI framework by introducing a comprehensive survey that includes learning presence and producing evidence on the multi-dimensionality of the COI constructs and strong relationship between learning presence and cognitive presence
A phenomenographic analysis of first-year engineering students\u27 experiences with problems involving multiple possible solutions
No full textEngineers are expected to solve problems that are ill-structured. These problems are presented with a lack of necessary information and allow for different ways of engaging with the problem; they are open-ended and involve multiple possible solutions with multiple means of evaluation. In order to allow maximum time for students to develop skills for solving such problems, undergraduate engineering programs can introduce such problems during the first year of students’ education, in the form of cornerstone design tasks. This provides students with more opportunities to develop their ability to engage with ill-structured problems, which are characteristic of engineering work. Researchers have documented variation within both the behavior and perceptions of students’ early experiences with design problems. General themes include novice-like design behavior, discomfort with lack of information, difficulty with problem scoping, and resistance to ambiguity. To build on these generalizations of students’ experiences, a more thorough understanding of the variation in how students experience this phenomenon of engaging with ill-structured problems is needed to design effective learning environments. This work presents the qualitatively different ways that engineering students experience problems with multiple possible solutions during their first year of engineering studies. Using phenomenography as the methodological framework, data were collected through in-depth, semi-structured interviews with 27 first-year engineering students. The iterative, phenomenographic analysis resulted in seven descriptive categories for the ways participants experienced problems involving multiple possible solutions. The names of these categories represent the different foci of the students’ experiences: completion, transition, iteration, organization, collaboration, reasoning, and growth. These categories are organized along two crucial dimensions of variation: reaction to ambiguity and role of multiple perspectives. In general, less comprehensive ways of experiencing the phenomenon include seeking information to make the problem more well-structured and thereby allowing the completion of a classroom task. Movement towards more comprehensive ways of experiencing include accepting ambiguity as inherent to the problem, and utilizing multiple perceptions to develop a design solution. The most comprehensive ways of experiencing included experiences that embraced ambiguity as an integral part of the problem solving process and internalized multiple perspectives through working with and learning from others. The resulting outcome space is of practical use to engineering educators who wish to create more inclusive and effective cornerstone design learning environments. The findings demonstrate that significant variation is present in the way that a small group of first-year engineering students from a single university experience engaging with problems that involve multiple possible solutions. Powerful ways of experiencing this crucial aspect of engineering education include appreciation of the multiple ways of perceiving an ill-structured problem as well as an ability to accept the ambiguity that is associated with engaging with these types of problems. While some students are capable of such an experience, others do seek a single correct answer through an attempt to eliminate ambiguity. Knowing these key axes of variation informs educators’ ability to accommodate a range of ways of experiencing design tasks and to design learning environments that foster development in these identified aspects of the experience to promote more meaningful learning experiences
A Phenomenographic Investigation of the Ways Engineering Students Experience Innovation
No full textInnovation has become an important phenomenon in engineering and engineering education. By developing novel, feasible, viable, and valued solutions to complex technical and human problems, engineers support the economic competitiveness of organizations, make a difference in the lives of users and other stakeholders, drive societal and scientific progress, and obtain key personal benefits. Innovation is also a complex phenomenon. It occurs across a variety of contexts and domains, encompasses numerous phases and activities, and requires unique competency profiles. Despite this complexity, many studies in engineering education focus on specific aspects (e.g., engineering students’ abilities to generate original concepts during idea generation), and we still know little about the variety of ways engineering students approach and understand innovation. This study addresses that gap by asking: 1. What are the qualitatively different ways engineering students experience innovation during their engineering projects? 2. What are the structural relationships between the ways engineering students experience innovation? This study utilized phenomenography, a qualitative research method, to explore the above research questions. Thirty-three engineering students were recruited to ensure thorough coverage along four factors suggested by the literature to support differences related to innovation: engineering project experience, academic major, year in school, and gender. Each participant completed a 1–2 hour, semi-structured interview that focused on experiences with and conceptions of innovation. Whole transcripts were analyzed using an eight-stage, iterative, and comparative approach meant to identify a limited number of categories of description (composite ways of experiencing innovation comprised of the experiences of several participants), and the structural relationships between these categories. Phenomenographic analysis revealed eight categories of description that were structured in a semi-hierarchical, two-dimensional outcome space. The first four categories demonstrated a progression toward greater comprehensiveness in both process and focus dimensions. In the process dimension, subsequent categories added increasingly preliminary innovation phases: idea realization, idea generation, problem scoping, and problem finding. In the focus dimension, subsequent categories added key areas engineers considered during innovation: technical, human, and enterprise. The final four categories each incorporated all previous process phases and focus areas, but prioritized different focus areas in sophisticated ways and acknowledged a macro-iterative cycle, i.e., an understanding of how the processes within a single innovation project built upon and contributed to past and future innovation projects. These results demonstrate important differences between engineering students and suggest how they may come to experience innovation in increasingly comprehensive ways. A framework based on the results can be used by educators and researchers to support more robust educational offerings and nuanced research designs that reflect these differences
How engineering innovators characterize engineering innovativeness: A qualitative study
No full textThe use of science and engineering skills to address the problems of modern society is regarded as an economic strategy in developed countries across the world. However, business and political leaders in the United States feel that we, as a society, do not understand that new global competition can match and even outpace us on innovation. Many of the studies on innovators are not specific to engineers. This study filled a gap in the understanding of what characteristics constitute innovative behavior in engineers. The purpose of this study was to explore engineers\u27 views of innovation and innovators who create and implement innovations in order to develop socially accepted descriptions of these phenomena. More specifically, three research questions were examined: How do engineers define and describe innovations and the innovation process? , What are the characteristics or knowledge, skills, and attributes that enable engineers to translate their creative ideas into innovations that benefit society?, and, How do these individual characteristics that enable engineers to be innovative vary across the stages of innovation? This study of engineering innovativeness was set in an interpretivist framework and developed a socially co-constructed description of engineering innovativeness. The data were collected through interviews with experienced and recognized engineering innovators who described engineers who were innovative including themselves. To inform the full study an exploratory convenient interview-based pilot study of engineering innovativeness was conducted with engineering innovators. Participants were identified using a purposeful criterion and snowball sample and recruited by contacting engineering professionals in multiple disciplines and locations to act as connectors and also recruited using snowballing through engineering innovators. A grounded theory analysis approach for integrated data collection and analysis was used to construct and test models of engineering innovativeness across the interviewee-defined stages of the innovation process. After construction of a codebook and coding reviews with research collaborators, interviews were coded until theoretical and categorical saturation was achieved. Participants identified definitions of an innovation and the innovation process, engineering innovator characteristics and an overall model of engineering innovativeness and a model of engineering innovativeness in the participant defined stages of the innovation process. A description of the non-innovative engineer as a negative case was also developed
The Honeycomb of Engineering
No full textThe Honeycomb of Engineering is a framework that outlines six type of engineering inquiries. The flexible nature of the design process is adapted to guiding different inquiries by highlighting key cells of the honeycomb. With a honeycomb representation, this framework also centers negotiation of risks and benefits at the center of the design process and enables iteration through communication and reflection
The Cognitive And Motivational Scaffolding That First Year Engineering Students Need When Solving Design Problems In Collaborative Teams
No full textThe Inaugural Readership and Authorship Report of the Journal of Pre-College Engineering Education Research (J-PEER)
No full textThe Journal of Pre-College Engineering Education Research (J-PEER) approaches a decade of publications since its launch in 2011. This inaugural report presents metrics and statistics on J-PEER\u27s readership and authorship, looking specifically at data from 2019, along with reflections from the founding and immediate-past editors
Journal of Pre-College Engineering Education Research (J-PEER) Annual Report from January 1, 2020 to December 31, 2020
No full textOver the last ten years, the Journal of Pre-College Engineering Education Research (J-PEER) has been disseminating research that seeks to investigate, enhance, and transform pre-college engineering education and, ultimately, to create an engineering‐literate society. The 2020 annual report presents readership metrics and statistics of the decade, trends and metrics on J-PEER\u27s authorship in 2020, and our reflections on the last year
Journal of Pre-College Engineering Education Research (J-PEER) Annual Report from January 1, 2021, to December 31, 2021
No full textThis annual report includes the Journal of Pre-College Engineering Education Research’s readership metrics and statistics, authorship metrics and trends, and our reflections on 2021. In the last year, the Journal of Pre-College Engineering Education Research started to publish special issues and the editorial team has been working to transform pre-college engineering education
- …
