Language or Problem-formulation Difficulties? An FE Exam Experiment in a Hispanic Setting

This paper describes and discusses the results of an experiment that was conducted by the author in a course that trains mechanical engineering students to pass the Fundamentals of Engineering (FE) Exam. Passing the FE Exam is one of the requirements for professional licensure in engineering. The experiment took place in a required training course that is part of the mechanical engineering curriculum at a private university in Puerto Rico where the student population is essentially 100% Hispanic, i.e., Spanish is their first language. The primary objective of the experiment was to differentiate between language difficulties (the FE Exam is in English) versus weaknesses in formulating a problem. The motivation for the experiment stemmed from the fact that the passing rates in the FE Exam in Puerto Rico are approximately half than the national average reported by NCEES, which typically reports a national average passing rate for first-time exam takers of approximately 75%, including the exam takers from Puerto Rico. The language issue has been suspected as a probable cause for the lower passing rates in Puerto Rico. The author has also suspected difficulties in problem formulation. The experiment was designed to capture each of these two issues independently. The results showed that 100% of the students (n=27) were able to correctly and fully translate the problem from English to Spanish. Although it is only one experiment, the results suggest that the issue of the English language is not as critical as originally hypothesized. On the other hand, only 48% of the students were able to correctly formulate the given problem. This may turn out to be an important finding because, if this sample is representative of the entire population’s capacity to formulate, then a passing rate ceiling of 50% is predicted. The capacity to formulate is at the heart of passing the FE Exam. The process of formulating a problem requires critical thinking skills, i.e., to be able to discern the true from the false and know the reasons why. In particular, students must fully understand the concepts so that they know when to apply them (and when not to apply them) in a problem. This skill is encompassed in ABET Outcome E: The ability to identify, formulate, and solve an engineering problem. The paper fully describes the problem, the questions that were asked, and the structure for grading this problem, which was part of a class exam. The paper also discusses the misconceptions that students showed in their responses, issues with the lack of availability of FE Exam passing rate data, and ideas for future work. The author hopes that this paper will stimulate discussion among educators of Hispanic engineering students who, perhaps, have noticed similar patterns in their engineering courses.