Redesign of the Introduction to Engineering Course and its Impact on Students’ Knowledge and Application of the Engineering Design Process

This evidence-based practice paper describes the changes made to a 2-credit introduction to engineering course at Arizona State University to teach the engineering design process in the context of a semester-long project. The previous course design used the first half of the semester to teach important aspects of the engineering design process through scaffolding activities designed to highlight each step in the design process before having students apply those steps to a full design project in the second half of the semester. The new course design utilizes more justin-time learning strategies as students learn and apply the design process steps directly to their project as they work on the same project throughout the entire semester. To assess the impact that this course has on the students’ knowledge and application of the engineering design process as well as potential benefits that may arise from the change in course structure, students were asked to critique a Gantt chart which described a flawed design process. This prompt was administered as a preand post-test during the fall 2015 semester. The results were coded according to 8 levels described in the literature related to this assessment technique: needs assessment/establishing design criteria; design context review; idea generation; analysis and decision-making; building and testing; overall layout of a design process and iteration; time allotments; and documentation. Results showed statistically significant increases in scores between preand post-tests at all 8 levels for the new course structure. The post-test scores were also compared to results from the same prompt administered in the spring 2015 semester, before the changes were made to the course, in order to compare the impact of the new course structure. The results showed a statistically significant increase in the overall critique scores as well as in the “Idea Generation” and “Building and Testing” levels. Based on these results, suggestions for course improvements will be made as well as insights into the use of scaffolding activities verses teaching the engineering design process in the context of a project will be discussed. Suggestions will also be made for further improvement of the assessment tool.