Are Freshman Engineering Students Able To Think And Write Critically?

“Critical Thinking is defined as reasonable reflective thinking that is focused on deciding what to believe or do. More precisely, it is assessing the authenticity, accuracy, and/or worth of knowledge claims and arguments. It requires careful, precise, persistent and objective analysis of any knowledge claim or belief to judge its validity and/or worth.” 1 This paper reports on a study done to determine critical thinking skills of freshman engineering students measured by assessing an assignment written in response to a cooperative in-class activity. The class, a freshman level, one hour course, “Introduction to Engineering” has been taught by Dr. High (an engineer) for eight years. The class meets for 15 hours during the semester and covers six main areas: academic success; professional success; engineering information; engineering design and problem solving; societal issues of engineers; and personal development. Essentially, this course addresses “professional skills” as defined by ABET criteria. For the purpose of this study three sections with 66 students total were chosen to participate. The cooperative, in-class activity, “The Airplane Design Challenge” asks students to jointly find solutions to the problem of designing an airplane with limited materials and production challenges in order to learn the essential notions in engineering of process and product design. The written assignment asks students to complete a reflective assignment in which they consider their impressions from the activity, how well their group functioned together, describe their group’s product and process design, provide definitions of product and process design and draw conclusions about what this exercise tells them about what engineering is and what an engineer does. A perfect setting for practicing and assessing critical thinking skills, the “Airplane Design Challenge” was modified in the fall 2006 semester to include an explicit question about the students perspective on the activity: Was the “Airplane Design Challenge” a good way to learn to understand the similarities and differences between product and process design? This question acted as the central idea students could develop through the reflections and definitions traditionally required of the assignment. Dr. High, Dr. Damron (an English faculty member) and another English faculty member assessed the students for critical thinking and writing ability using university-wide assessment rubrics.