A Formal Assessment of the Haptic Paddle Laboratories in Teaching System Dynamics

In this paper, we present a formal assessment of the haptic paddle, a one degree-of-freedom forcefeedback joystick that has been adopted at several universities as a teaching tool in System Dynamics. System Dynamics is a core mechanical engineering undergraduate course that teaches students to combine knowledge from physics and differential equations to model dynamic systems in several domains. Haptic paddles are useful for hands-on modeling and control laboratories and enables students to physically interact with simulated dynamic systems via their sense of touch. Prior qualitative assessments of haptic paddles have shown that both students and educators believe them to be beneficial in conveying the core concepts of the course and that they increase student enthusiasm for learning the material. Toward quantifying these perceived benefits, we have conducted a systematic assessment of learning objectives associated with haptic paddle laboratories. To do this, we developed a multiple choice quiz consisting of five questions for each of the five sequential laboratories during the semester. To establish if and when students learned the concepts associated with our learning objectives for each lab, we randomized presentation time of the lab quiz to each of our four sections, with the following options: (1) at the beginning of a lab session, (2) after a pre-lab lecture, (3) immediately after completion of the lab, and (4) after completion of the lab report. This assessment architecture enables us to determine whether learning happened in lecture, in the lab itself, or during subsequent reflection on laboratory results during the process of writing the lab report.