Identifying and addressing student difficulties in engineering statics

A program has been implemented to advance engineering education at our institution. It follows a three-step process that consists of (1) identifying student difficulties, (2) designing instructional materials to address these difficulties, and (3) using assessment data to test the effectiveness of the materials. In this paper, we have illustrated this process in the context of a first-semester engineering mechanics course. Through analysis of answers on diagnostic tests and in interviews, we have identified student difficulties with the concepts of forces and moments and concerning the choice of systems and its implications. One specific misconception, which to our knowledge has not been previously recognized, is the belief that the effect of force couples depends on their point of application. This is somewhat ironic because the lack of such a dependence is what distinguishes couples from moments of individual forces and hence motivates the introduction of this concept in the first place. This common misunderstanding of students was revealed when exploring student conceptions of static equivalence that appeared from an analysis of the FCI/SCI sequence of tests. Although persistent among the body of students we interviewed it is not identified in the FCI/SCI sequence, and only emerged serendipitously through the course of our interviews. Upon reflection many factors may contribute to this misunderstanding, and instructional material may be readily developed to address it. The results of this investigation have then been used to guide the development of curricular materials that foster conceptual understanding of the key concepts in engineering mechanics. Specifically, we have designed instructional strategies that help students overcome the difficulties we have found. By considering incorrect statements of fictional students, for example, the students in our courses are given the opportunity to rethink their understanding of relevant concepts. The materials we develop take the form of collaborative-group worksheets that can be implemented in small-group instruction as well as large lecture settings. Data obtained from standardized post-tests after two implementations of the curriculum strongly indicate that student conceptual understanding has been substantially improved. The fact that this is particularly true for concepts that have been explicitly addressed by the worksheets suggests that an extension of our research and development effort to other topics has a realistic chance of making an impact in undergraduate engineering education. © 2011 American Society for Engineering Education.

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370: Education

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Identifying and addressing student difficulties in engineering statics