Examining student attitudes to improve an undergraduate online engineering course

Due to the advent of technology and the world wide web, online engineering courses have gained prominence and have become a popular way to learn new content. Universities around the country, in addition to traditional face-to-face courses, are taking advantage of technology and the web to offer online courses to their engineering students. Despite the sudden increase in online courses, students’ attitudes toward these courses remain unknown. This study examined students’ attitudes towards an online engineering course, specifically determining what students found most and least helpful when learning online, what students liked and disliked about the course, and what they perceived were the advantages and disadvantages of taking the online course. The study examined an engineering course titled, Mechanics of Materials, an introductory mechanics course for sophomore engineering students from Aerospace, Mechanics, Civil and Construction, and other engineering disciplines. Historically, the course has been taught in a traditional lecture class, but this study examined a section taught online. Findings show that students liked the availability of the lecture and sample problem videos and liked pacing their learning to their own needs. Introduction and Literature Review Continuous developments in web technology and the use of online teaching mediums, such as Blackboard, have made it easier to implement online courses that are now offered at universities around the United States and are becoming increasingly popular due to the schedule flexibility for students, availability of a wide variety of course materials, integrated clips that offer an effective delivery method for teaching, and the possibility of a reduced degree cost. With their increasing popularity, it is important to provide quality education through these mediums by a continuous effort to improve the course content and delivery. One way to do so is to take into account student attitudes towards online courses to improve the content provided and to determine which aspects of the course to focus on. Undergraduate online engineering courses (UOECs) are offered to both working professionals and full time students at many universities in the United States. Since these classes count towards a student’s graduation or certification, it is of utmost importance to keep improving these classes to provide better education. A study by the U.S. Department of Education suggested that the academic performance of online students is “modestly better” than face-to-face traditionally taught students [1]. Furthermore, according to a study [7] that surveyed 45 randomly selected U.S. based institutions, online learning offers new avenues and challenges to educational instruction. The study urged further research not only in providing online educational opportunities but also in achieving the highest educational quality through this medium. Although online classes have shown promise in other fields of education, limited studies have explored their effects in engineering education. A study [9] conducted in 2005 made a strong argument for the use of online courses for engineering education. It predicted that if online education was to become widespread, the trend of seeing online tools to teach blended classes would become popular. It also predicted that the quality of online course would improve through interactive teaching mediums and constructivist methodologies. The article recommended that engineering colleges explore new methodologies plausible within the online medium that are best applicable to engineering education. In as much as numerous studies have shown the importance of evaluating student perceptions of online courses to tailor the course according to learner needs [2, 3, 4, 8, 10], this study examined students’ attitudes towards an online engineering course to evaluate the effectiveness of various aspects of the course content and its delivery. The UOEC under scrutiny in this paper was a Mechanics of Materials course offered in the Aerospace Engineering Department at Iowa State University. The course consisted of weekly modules, which were inclusive of topic video lectures, instructor-solved sample problem videos, course materials (e.g., lecture slides, supplemental readings), and assignments. The assignments were to be submitted by the students at the end of each week. Each module included videos consisting of three to four topics introducing new concepts and solved sample problems. Each topic video was approximately 12 minutes long, and the sample problem videos were 10 minutes. During the semester, students could contact the professor via email regarding questions or use the online office hours where the professor and students could virtually meet. The faculty who taught the course created the lecture videos of the UOEC. The specific question and comments this study attempted to examine from students taking the online Mechanics of Materials course were: ● Describe the course activities that are most helpful and least helpful to your learning in this course. ● What do you like and dislike about the course? ● List the advantages and disadvantages of the online course compared to traditional courses.