Better Preparing Students For Basic Measurements Courses

This paper will examine the difference in performance between two groups of students enrolled in the juniorlevel Mechanical Engineering course Basic Measurements (MEEN 382). This course covers measurement theory and application in a lecture and laboratory format. The primary difference between these two student groups is their curriculum background, due to a change in the Mechanical Engineering curriculum at Louisiana Tech University. As a result of the transition from the old engineering curriculum to the new curriculum, there is a unique collection of students proceeding through our Mechanical Engineering program, particularly the current junior class: some of these students have been through a traditional engineering curriculum, while others have been through the integrated freshman and sophomore curriculum. Some details of this new curriculum will be offered in this paper; further information can be found in Nelson and Napper. 1 These performance data will be used to investigate the effectiveness of the new curriculum in preparing students for the material presented in the Basic Measurements course. I. Background of the Freshman Integrated Curriculum About four years ago, the College of Engineering and Science at Louisiana Tech University began developing an innovative freshman engineering curriculum. The cornerstone of this new curriculum is the creation of Engineering Problem Solving courses and the integration of these new courses with Engineering Mathematics courses and Science courses. The purpose of the integration is to provide experience with the engineering use of the skills being learned in math and science. The typical freshman year consists of three academic quarters. During each of these three quarters, an Engineering Mathematics course (three semester credit hours or SCH) is taught along with an Engineering Problem Solving course (two SCH). Two Chemistry courses and a Physics course are also required during this three-quarter academic period. This freshman engineering curriculum began in the Fall quarter of 1997 with a pilot group of 40 self-selected students, who experienced the integration of the math, science, and engineering problem solving courses. The content and presentation of the math and science courses were examined as part of the creation of the engineering problem solving courses. The integration is provided through extensive links between the math and science principles, and the use of these principles in solving engineering problems. The following academic year, the curriculum was refined based on the pilot group’s experiences and feedback, and the program was expanded to include 120 freshmen. Also, the pilot freshman integrated group became the pilot group for the integrated sophomore curriculum. P ge 759.1 “Proceedings of the 2002 American Society for Engineering Education Annual Conference & Exposition Copyright © 2002, American Society for Engineering Education” In the Fall quarter of 1999, all incoming freshmen engineering majors were required to participate in the new freshman curriculum, while the previous freshman curricula for the individual engineering programs were eliminated. Nelson and Napper 1 provide more details on the experiences with this freshman integrated curriculum. II. The Mechanical Engineering Basic Measurements Course The basic measurements course (MEEN 382 -Basic Measurements) is a two semester credit hour (SCH) course combining lecture and laboratory activities. Topics covered in the lecture portion include static and dynamic signal characteristics, dynamic system behavior, uncertainty and error propagation, statistics, and sampling. The laboratory activities are designed to complement the lecture topics, and include such activities as static calibration, system response to a step input, uncertainty calculations, statistical analysis, and sampling of a dynamic signal. This course is part of the Mechanical Engineering degree program requirements, and is offered once a year in the fall quarter. III. Student Performance in the Basic Measurements course The performance in the Fall 2001 offering of MEEN 382 is particularly interesting because the student population consists of a mix of students with and without the freshman integrated curriculum background. Those mechanical engineering students who were beginning freshmen in the Fall quarter of 1999 will typically be enrolled in the basic measurements course in the Fall quarter of 2001. This is the first group of students under the mandatory integrated freshman and sophomore curriculum. This offers the opportunity to examine the differences in performance between two groups of students with the most obvious difference between the groups being their academic curriculum background: whether or not they participated in the freshman integrated curriculum. In the Fall quarter of 2001, 57 students completed the basic measurements course. Of these 57 students, 21 had experienced the freshman integrated curriculum, while 36 had not. In this paper, the performance of these groups of students is examined, and comparisons are made between those who experienced the freshman integrated curriculum and those who did not. Several performance characteristics, such as course average, average grade earned in the basic measurements course, average overall student grade point average (GPA), and curriculum background, have been examined. It should be noted here that the curriculum background of the students was not examined until after the final grades had been submitted. This removes any implicit bias by the instructor. Also of note is that the students received the same instruction, regardless of curriculum background. The course was offered as a single lecture section, with 3 laboratory sections, consisting of identical laboratory activities. The author was the sole faculty member responsible for the lecture and all laboratory sections. Figure 1 shows the distribution of student performance measured by course average for the integrated and nonintegrated student groups. In Figure 1, the histogram of the course averages of all the students is presented separated into integrated and nonintegrated groups. The bin size is 5%, with the abscissa bin label representing the lower end of the range. For example, there is one nonintegrated score between 55% and 60%. Although a complete statistical analysis has not been performed, both groups appear to follow a normal distribution. It also seems that the Page 759.2 “Proceedings of the 2002 American Society for Engineering Education Annual Conference & Exposition Copyright © 2002, American Society for Engineering Education” two groups should have different means, as indicated by the histogram. In fact, the means are 76.5% for the non-integrated group and 79% for the integrated group, a difference of 2.5%.