Rethinking First Year Engineering At Boise State: Assessment And Improvement

Boise State University offers three undergraduate engineering programs, Mechanical, Civil, and Electrical & Computer engineering. The engineering program at Boise State is relatively new with its first BS degrees conferred in 1997. Like most engineering programs, we offer a 3-credit course to first year engineering students. When the programs were first conceived and implemented, there was widespread agreement and consensus on the educational objectives and method of implementation of this course. However, as our faculty and student body grew, and as responsibilities for the course moved from department to department and faculty member to faculty member, it became clear that a more integrated and formal approach was required to both define the goals and content of the course and to document the manner in which it is implemented. At this time, we also considered other issues such as resource utilization and methods for offering this course at a distance. A faculty survey was implemented and analyzed and it was found that a strong consensus existed regarding both the over-all goals and the content of the course. In Fall of 2001, the course was re-structured and three sections were offered. During the course, student assessment was implemented to investigate our success in achieving the course goals. Lessons learned from Fall 2001 were used to modify the approach for the Spring 2002 semester. ENGR 120: Introduction to Engineering: Course History and Overview Few elements of the undergraduate curriculum have been the subject of more discussion, research and disagreement than the first engineering course. The only consensus that exists is that there should be such a course. Engineering faculty proceed from that point in one of two ways. The historic approach might be described by the phrase: : “If Professor X is willing to do this job, than she/he should at least be allowed to decide how to do it.” In this case, the course takes on the priorities and biases of the individual given the (often unpopular) task of teaching the course. An alternative would be to work towards a consensus among the faculty about what should be done in first year engineering, and an agreement that all who teach the course will carry out those wishes, regardless of their personal biases. This approach is made P ge 787.1 Proceedings of the 2002 American Society for Engineering Education Annual Conference & Exposition Copyright  2002, American Society for Engineering Education even more difficult when one considers that freshmen engineering is often a course common to many or all engineering majors at an institution. While the first alternative is easier to administer, and offers some perks to the faculty member(s) assigned to the course, the second is becoming more common in light of recent developments in engineering education research and the new approach defined by ABET’s EC 2000. At Boise State, we are in the midst of the transition between the two modes of course delivery, and this paper describes the process by which we assessed the needs of the class and administered it for a year along this new model. Needs Assessment: Faculty Survey In response to widespread and vocal disagreements regarding the current implementation of our introductory course, the dean of engineering formed an ad-hoc committee on the common curriculum. While there seemed to be a shared opinion that the current course was unsatisfactory, there was no consensus as to the direction in which the course should be taken. The ad-hoc committee commissioned a survey of the engineering faculty which focused on three areas: A) What should be the educational objectives of this course, B) What specific course content should be included, and C) How should the college allocate teaching resources to implement this course? The results of this survey were assembled in a report, which was distributed to the faculty. This process facilitated the formation of a shared vision as to the intent and delivery of the course. Due in part to the support by the committee members, we enjoyed very high response rate for the survey, from 10/10 faculty members in Mechanical Engineering to 10/12 in Electrical, and 5/7 in Civil Engineering. A fourth department, Construction Management was also included due to the fact that they are considering using a common introductory course. In the following sections, the results to parts A and B of the survey are summarized. Part A: Educational objectives. The survey asked the faculty to rank a series of possible educational objectives from most important to least. The list, compiled in committee as a result of the discussion surrounding the course is as follows: ENGR 120 should accomplish the following objectives: • Introduce students to the engineering profession • Develop specific technical skills • Develop professional and communication skills • Improve retention by giving students better study and other academic skills • Improve retention by improving student motivation P ge 787.2 Proceedings of the 2002 American Society for Engineering Education Annual Conference & Exposition Copyright  2002, American Society for Engineering Education Figure 1 shows the results of the survey for this section. Note that the top priority for the majority of the faculty is, not surprisingly, an Introduction to the engineering profession. Interestingly, there is a three-way tie for the second priority: specific technical skills (e.g. computer programming, problem solving); specific professional skills (oral presentations, report writing, and teamwork) and improved retention via highlighting the significance of early math and science courses. 0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18 Intro to the Profession Specific Techincal Skills Specific Professional Skills Retention (via motivation) Retention (via study skills) First Priority