Motivating With Inquiry Arousal: Creative Problem Solving In Engineering Courses

Many students pursue engineering disciplines because they enjoy creating systems and devices that are used to solve real problems. However, it is our belief that many engineering classes, especially at the introductory level, fail to engage students because they focus too much on objective data-manipulation exercises instead of encouraging inventive problem solving. This paper examines the effects of methods that allow students in an introductory level engineering course to use their creativity and inventiveness to solve problems, an approach referred to as inquiry arousal. The approach used in this research was to modify a certain number of laboratory requirements to allow the student to apply an open-ended problem solving approach to obtain a solution. The goal of the assigned problems was to allow the student some flexibility to be creative while demonstrating fundamental mechanics. The authors obtained data and evaluated the effects of this approach through grade performance and student feedback. This paper attempts to measure the effects that assignments based on an inquiry arousal approach have on both the students’ interest in the material and the students’ level of learning.