Introducing Experimental Design In Mechanical Engineering Laboratories

Mechanical engineering students at Mercer are required to take two laboratory courses, one in the third year of the curriculum and the other in the fourth. Prior to 1996, the junior level laboratory consisted of 10 well-defined, single period experiments, in which students executed a prescribed procedure, analyzed the data that were collected, and reported the results obtained. The lab was modified in 1997 to include a set of three experiments that were more open-ended in nature, required more time to complete, and contained a procedural design component. While we are intrinsically convinced that the design of experiments component introduced to the juniorlevel course in 1997 has been helpful, it is not abundantly clear from performance in the seniorlevel lab that any enhanced understanding of experimental development carries over from one term to the next. This paper compares the performance of students functioning under both the “old” and “new” lab structures.