The Efficacy Of An Engineering Graphics Course For Both Students With And Without Prior Engineering Graphics Experience

Students start university-level engineering graphics with varied levels of knowledge. Some students have taken computer aided drafting courses while in high school, while others have no engineering graphics experience at all. This paper considers one college-level engineering graphics course and its effectiveness in educating students with varying levels of knowledge in engineering graphics. This study was performed on two course sections; one section was taught in a traditional face-to-face setting and the other section was delivered though distance education. One objective of the research is to determine the students’ proficiency in engineering graphics upon entering and completing the course. This was done through the use of a pretest and posttest. No statistical difference was found between the pretest of the experienced students and the inexperienced students. Also, students improved between the pretest and posttest regardless of their prior engineering graphics experiences. Therefore, students start the collegelevel course with similar skills and benefit from the course regardless of their engineering graphics experience. However, the course seemed to have little effect on the visualization skills of students as little improvement was made from the pretest to the posttest. The experienced students improved the most on section and auxiliary views, thus students seem to gain from a review of section and auxiliary views. Based on a survey given at the end of the semester, nearly all the students felt they learned something new from the course. Most students with experience in engineering graphics had never used 3D solid modeling CAD software. Also, the majority of students, both experienced and inexperienced, felt the pace and workload in the course were adequate. The few students that felt overwhelmed by the workload and pace of the course understood it was necessary to learn all the required material. Students with familiarity in both AutoCAD and Inventor, the software used in the course, struggled in creating working drawings using AutoCAD. Specifically, they had trouble manually creating the multiview projections and properly dimensioning the drawings. This research finds that all students, regardless of their experience, benefit from taking engineering graphics at the university level.