Confidence – A Path to Mastering Challenges, Exploring Strategies to Strengthen students’ Confidence in Graphical Expression Through Transformative Experiences

This study is an exploration into strategies designed to strengthen students’ awareness of the relationship between their perceived and actual skills and abilities. Early engineering graphics courses are often students’ first exposure to professional standards, expecting them to apply concepts, to choose critically, to qualitatively evaluate and to work harmoniously with their hands and minds. Classroom experience shows that students are increasingly unable to gauge their level of preparedness and to participate effectively in classroom activities. Students are struggling to visualize and sketch objects and processes, they are overwhelmed to employ descriptive geometry and to interpret two-dimensional representations of objects. The early and often exclusive use of digital tools, as well as an emphasis on standardized testing, seems to leave students unprepared for the challenges they encounter in engineering graphics courses. The strategy chosen for this study is a comparison of students’ initial perception of their preparedness at the beginning of the semester with their confidence level based on accomplishments at the end of the semester. The outcome of this study hopes to illustrate that the chosen methods can support instructors of early engineering graphics courses in sustaining a quality educational outcome as well as offering tools and experiences to students to encourage them in taking ownership of their education. Figure 1 depicts the strategy for this study. Figure 1. Strategy of Study P ge 26392.2