Assessment Of Environments For Fostering Effective Critical Thinking (Effects) On A First Year Civil Engineering Course

The Environments For Fostering Effective Critical Thinking (EFFECTs) are modular inquiry based tools specifically designed to develop critical thinking skills and collaborative teamwork skills and to improve the transfer of core knowledge in engineering classes. Student capacity for making reasonable estimates, or ballparking, is also developed in this framework. EFFECTs are based on a driving question where students work in the context of a realistic civil engineering project. Each driving question is followed up with hands on activities to enhance the student’s core knowledge, stimulate critical thinking, and perfect their estimation abilities. EFFECTs have been implemented at three different institutions for two years. This paper discusses the implementation of EFFECTs and assessment techniques in a first-year course for undergraduate civil engineering students. Four data sources are used to measure the development of students’ critical thinking skills and estimation abilities. These include: i) a prepost written test of both core knowledge and fundamental skills, ii) open-ended, written decision worksheets responding to each EFFECT’s driving question, iii) journal entries, and iv) student evaluation of the class. This paper focuses on the implementation of the EFFECTs and assessment techniques. In particular, the use of an online driven database to fast-track the assessment of critical thinking and core knowledge during the EFFECTs