Thomas StahovichProfessorMechanical Engineering Dept stahov@ucr.edu(951) 827-7719
Computer-based interventions to foster student engagement in introductory engineering courses
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AWARD NUMBER
008544-002
FUND NUMBER
33304
STATUS
Closed
AWARD TYPE
3-Grant
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AWARD EXECUTION DATE
8/29/2016
BEGIN DATE
9/1/2016
END DATE
8/31/2018
AWARD AMOUNT
$299,971
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Sponsor Information
SPONSOR AWARD NUMBER
SPONSOR
SPONSOR TYPE
FUNCTION
Organized Research
PROGRAM NAME
Proposal Information
PROPOSAL NUMBER
16040466
PROPOSAL TYPE
New
ACTIVITY TYPE
Basic Research
PI Information
PI
Stahovich, Thomas
PI TITLE
Other
PI DEPTARTMENT
Mechanical Engineering
PI COLLEGE/SCHOOL
Bourns College of Engineering
CO PIs
Project Information
ABSTRACT
To be academically successful, students must devote the necessary effort to studying and completing homework assignments and must engage in these activities in a timely and effective fashion. However, prior research has shown that students in introductory engineering courses are often insufficiently engaged in their learning. This project will investigate two computer-based interventions intended to remedy this problem. The first intervention, called the dashboard system, will provide students with quantitative feedback about their level of engagement (e.g., the extent to which they read the textbook in advance of lecture and the extent to which they begin homework early). The second intervention, called the merit badge system, will provide students with virtual rewards for completing learning tasks in a timely fashion. These rewards, which are commonly used in games, will include earned points, badges, and achievement levels. These systems will be used and evaluated in two large undergraduate engineering courses at the University of California Riverside (UCR). UCR is the most ethnically diverse campus in the UC system, is one of the most diverse major US research institutions, and is a Hispanic Serving Institution. Many of the students are first generation college-attending. Understanding how to improve the learning processes of these diverse students is intended to increase student success and create increased opportunities for students from traditionally underrepresented groups to succeed in STEM careers.
This project is based on the hypothesis that providing students with detailed feedback about their progress toward completing learning tasks will lead to increased engagement and, consequently, improved learning outcomes. Two proposed interventions will provide students with feedback about behavioral metrics of their engagement captured with smartpens and tablet computers. The smartpens will record homework activity and notetaking as timestamped pen strokes. An instrumented document viewer on the tablets will measure students' use of instructional materials such as e-books and lecture handouts. These technologies will provide a detailed, digital record of learning activities, making it possible to compute measures of engagement, such as the amount of time a student spends on particular learning activities and when he or she does so. The dashboard system will provide direct feedback of these measures of engagement. The merit badge system will use gamification techniques to foster engagement by motivating students to increase their measured levels of engagement. Studies will be conducted to evaluate the effectiveness of these two approaches for both fostering engagement and improving learning outcomes.(Abstract from NSF)
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