“Engineering Economics Jeopardy!” Mobile App for University Students

This article presents the “Engineering Economics Jeopardy!” mobile app development process and college students’ satisfaction assessment of the developed app. The app includes a general tools E-book, calculator, reference tables, conceptual questions, and calculation problems in an engaging fashion. The E-book is a summary of the key concepts of engineering economics. The calculator provides functions to solve basic engineering economics problems with formulas. The tables allow the users to compute discrete compound interest factors. Through this Jeopardy! game, users can compete with two virtual opponents that have artificial intelligence to answer conceptual questions and calculation problems. Different sets of problems range from the simple questions on the time value of money to more complex concepts, such as sensitivity analysis, Monte Carlo simulation, and supply–demand equilibrium. This app is intended to give students more opportunity to learn and practice concepts of engineering economics whenever and wherever they want using their mobile devices. Accomplishments of this work include the following:

• “Engineering Economics Jeopardy!” mobile app has been developed and distributed.

• Five thousand people have downloaded the app so far.

• The effectiveness of the developed app has been researched with 116 college students who were enrolled in engineering economics courses across two semesters.

     

Why do students present different design objectives in engineering design projects?

Engineering design practice has been recognized as an effective approach to engage students in STEM learning. However, we noticed that students who possessed strong STEM knowledge did not necessarily perform well on their design projects. Thus, this study sought to explore factors that shaped students’ design objectives and means. A design-based research was adopted using a single group teaching experiment, in which students’ performance in relation to conceptual knowledge, engineering design practice, and their STEM attitudes were assessed in different design complexity groups. Based on the findings of this study, we concluded that students’ interest and metacognitive skills might be the key factors affecting their motivation during the engineering design process. Their abilities in predictive analysis and testing/revising were core elements affecting their design thinking. Our work provides preliminary evidence on how students form and present different design purposes and objectives in an engineering design project.     

Introduction of CAA into a Mathematics Course for Technology Students to Address a Change in Curriculum Requirements

The mathematical requirements for engineering, science and technology students has been debated for many years and concern has been expressed about the mathematical preparedness of students entering higher education. This paper considers a mathematics course that has been specifically designed to address some of these issues for technology education students. It briefly chronicles the changes that have taken place over its lifetime and evaluates the introduction of Computer Assisted Assessment (CAA) into a course already being delivered using Computer Aided Learning (CAL). Benefits of CAA can be categorised into four main areas. 1. Educational – achieved by setting short, topic related, assessments, each of which has to be passed, thereby increasing curriculum coverage. 2. Students – by allowing them to complete assessments at their own pace removing the stress of the final examination. 3. Financial – increased income to the institution, by broadening access to the course. Improved retention rate due to self-paced learning. 4. Time – staff no longer required to set and mark exams. Most students preferred this method of assessment to traditional exams, because it increased confidence and reduced stress levels. Self-paced working, however, resulted in a minority of students not completing the tests by the deadline. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

High school student modeling in the engineering design process

A diverse group of 20 high school students from four states in the US were individually provided with an engineering design challenge. Students chosen were in capstone engineering courses and had taken multiple engineering courses. As students considered the problem and developed a solution, observational data were recorded and artifacts collected. Quantitative methods were used to identify how students allocated their time across different types of modeling. Qualitative methods were used to review data from three students who spent substantial time engaged in graphical and two kinds of mathematical modeling. These students were profiled and their patterns of modeling are represented visually and described in context. Much of the modeling done by these 20 students was graphical in nature. Few students informed their thinking with mathematical representations, yet predictive mathematical modeling is essential to engineering design. Implications for the classroom include encouraging students to transfer understanding of science and mathematics into technology and engineering contexts through modeling.     

Student perceptions and performance in online and offline collaboration in an interior design studio

Competence in collaboration is one of the critical abilities that interior design majors are expected to develop during the course of their education; however, few students are competent to collaborate with others online. The purposes of this study were to identify student perceptions and performance in online collaboration compared to those of offline collaboration and to explore the way students collaborate online. A total of 29 junior interior design students participated in the study. After finishing each online and offline collaborative project, they completed a survey. The findings show that students are more satisfied with offline collaboration and perceive offline collaboration as more effective than online collaboration; however, no significant difference was apparent in student performance online and offline. In addition, the findings show the need to provide appropriate online interface for design collaborations. This paper includes lessons learned and recommendations to promote both online and offline collaboration in a design studio.     

Student technological creativity using online problem-solving activities

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of online (web-based) creative problem-solving (CPS) activities on student technological creativity and to examine the characteristics of student creativity in the context of online CPS. A pretest–posttest quasi-experiment was conducted with 107 fourth-grade students in Taiwan. The quantitative analysis revealed that the technological creativity of the online-CPS students was better than that of the traditional group. It was evident that students in the online-CPS groups were better at analytic than at synthetic thinking. Metaphor and analogy were used to produce new ideas most frequently. In addition to generating ideas by themselves, students arrived at solutions by refining and adapting others’ thoughts with little discussion or interaction on the web. Consideration of the feasibility of production was the most important factor in the technological creativity of students.     

Enhanced and conventional project-based learning in an engineering design module

Engineering education focuses chiefly on students’ ability to solve problems. While most engineering students are proficient in solving paper questions, they may not be proficient at providing optimal solutions to pragmatic project-based problems that require systematic learning strategy, innovation, problem-solving, and execution. The present study aims to determine whether an enhanced Project-based learning (PBL) with appropriate innovative interventions leads to increased students’ ability to achieve better learning and project outcomes. The interventions refer to incorporating added learning and facilitating methods, namely, (1) use of mind-maps; (2) employment of analogies; and (3) use of round-table discussions. The study was conducted with a total number of 60 first-time PBL students equally divided into two classes with one serving as an experimental class and another as a control class. In addition, one class of students had a lower academic standing compared to the other (control). The rubric for the project-based module included a written knowledge test and a scenario-based oral examination to test knowledge and problem-solving skills, a artefact demonstration to evaluate artefact’s performance. A major finding of this study was that there were significant differences in knowledge scores, problem-solving ability and artefact performance between students undergoing conventional and enhanced PBL methods. It could also be inferred from this study that students who had undergone enhanced PBL method designed better systems and had better performing artefacts than those who were subjected to the conventional PBL approach. Finally, it was concluded that incorporating enhanced learning and facilitating methods to group-centric, project-based driven education provided a more fertile environment to promote better learning experience and improved problem-solving ability which could eventually lead to developing innovative and pragmatic solutions to real-world engineering problems.     

“Let’s Bid!” - A modular activity to promote interest in engineering economy

Abstract

This article presents a modular activity designed to promote interest and understanding of engineering economics concepts in a complex environment. Through a competition game, called “Let’s Bid!”, the students are able to understand the relationship between technological characteristics and supply and demand equilibrium in electricity markets, and discuss how uncertainty impacts investments in generation capacity and firm pricing strategies. This innovative teaching method was implemented in middle school, high school, and undergraduate college settings. Each implementation took less 60?minutes, and resulted in a strong student interest and understanding of engineering economics concepts (i.e., supply-demand equilibrium, risk, and markets).     

Letter From the Editor

The use of transform techniques can greatly enhance The task of modeling cash flows. Considerable work has been done since Crubbatrom's on the application of transform technique to cash-flow analysis. However, little attention is given to transform techniques by the engineering economics community at large, as evidenced by the lack of ita coverage In engineering economy textbooks. This paper represents the continual effort of the authors to suggest the use of transform techniques for engineering economy problems. A loan problem is formulated using the traditional method, the Zeta-transform method, and a difference equation approach using matrix methods. Simplified results are obtained using closed-form solutions from both the transform and difference equation methods. The loan problem is extended to an equipment financing situation, which is formulated using the Zeta-transform method and the traditional method as well. An illustrative example is included.     

A Review of: “FLOOD PLAIN MANAGEMENT: IOWA'S EXPERIENCE” Edited by Merwin D. Dougal Iowa State University Press 1969 270pp. $6.95

In its development as academic subject matter, engineering economics started as a set of simple determinations of alternative costs for engineering projects, predominately in the civil and mechanical fields. It subsequently began using later-developed techniques of quantitative analysis such as operations research, microeconomics, managerial economics, and finance. To reinforce its position in the engineering curriculum for the ever more important environmental sciences, it is suggested that engineering economics courses seek to bring their analytic resources to bear on the many possible topics included in this set of disciplines.     

Sourcing in the global aerospace supply chain using online reverse auctions

This article discusses the use of online reverse auctions to source engineered components in global aerospace supply chains using online reverse auctions and examines the specific case where a long-established U.S. economic cluster supporting large tier-one aerospace companies must compete against globally distributed sources of supply favored by their customers due to unit price savings, principally the result of lower wages. The article also examines if global sourcing practices based on power-based bargaining is an intelligent or effective solution to market pressure demanding lower prices, or whether collaborative problem solving and the creation of knowledge-sharing networks offers greater potential for cost savings and improved long-term supply chain competitiveness. Key factors that contributed to the recent failure of global sourcing initiatives using online reverse auctions are presented. Findings can be generalized to other industries that use online reverse auctions for globally sourcing engineered components that rely on networks of supporting service suppliers to create finished goods.     

Student response to an Internet-mediated industrial design studio course

The purpose of this study is to investigate student attitudes towards and perceptions of using the Internet and information technology to mediate a design studio course and to propose guidelines and suggestions for developing Internet-mediated design studio courses. Two classes of third-year undergraduate industrial design students in two collaborating universities in Taiwan—Chang Gung University and National Yunlin University of Science and Technology—participated in an experimental design studio course mediated with an online design learning environment. Surveys and focus group interviews were conducted at the end of the course to record students’ attitudes and perceptions. The students thought that the approach used had a positive influence on design teaching and learning and expressed acceptance of using the Internet to support design education. Finally, suggestions were proposed to help design educators in adopting, modifying, and developing systems for using the Internet to mediate design studio courses.     

An Analysis of Student Existing Technological Capability: Developing an Initial Framework

This paper reports on the analysis of student (ages 6–15 years) technological capability as they undertake technological tasks. The activities covered a number of different contexts (including different subject areas), and had differing degrees of openness and methods of presentation. Data was obtained from 261 of the 400 students that took part in the classroom activities. A holistic approach to analysing student performance was developed and this provided insights into the strategies adopted by the students. Some preliminary conclusions are: the focus of students on an end-product meant that they did not fully consider the processes that might be required to solve the problem; student technological approaches were influenced by the culture of the classroom; and existing concepts of technological processes influenced the approaches undertaken. This revised version was published online in August 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Investigating the feasibility of using digital representations of work for performance assessment in engineering

This paper reports on the results of a 3-year study conducted at the Centre for Schooling and Learning Technologies (CSaLT) at Edith Cowan University in collaboration with the Curriculum Council of Western Australia which concerns the potential to use digital technologies to represent the output from assessment tasks in the senior secondary course, Engineering Studies. The general aim of this study is to explore the potential of various digitally-based forms for external assessment for senior secondary courses in terms of manageability, cost, validity and reliability. The problem being addressed was the need to provide students with assessment opportunities in new courses, that are on one hand authentic, where many outcomes do not lend themselves to being assessed using pen and paper over a three hour period, while on the other hand being able to be reliably and manageably assessed by external examiners. That is, the external assessment for a course needs to accurately and reliably assess the outcomes without a huge increase in the cost of assessment. A computer managed examination was designed that consisted of a design task that was broken down into a number of timed activities. Students were paced through each activity, recording their input in the form of a portfolio. Input consisted of text, graphics through a camera, video and voice. The exam outputs were uploaded to a online repository. The students’ work was marked by external assessors using a standards based rubric that allowed the students work to be ranked though Rasch Modelling.     

Assessing the long-term impact of a metacognitive approach to creative skill development

The goal of this research was to determine the long-term impact that selected instructional interventions, based on research in metacognition and learning theory, have on students’ creativity. The study builds off research that has been conducted documenting the impact of creative thinking based instructional interventions. The study tracked design students beginning their freshman year to determine if observed improvements have been maintained throughout 4 years of undergraduate study. Preliminary research statistically tested the introduction of structured metacognitive skills on the development of creative thinking ability for a diverse population of undergraduate design students. This research indicated that an approach to education influenced by research in learning theory and metacognition does, in the short-term, result in students who are more creative. By continuing testing throughout students’ education an equally important question was answered. To what degree do students maintain or improve this level of enhanced creative thinking ability over an extended period of time? The findings showed that students who participated in one or both interventions finished with significantly higher levels of creative thinking. The knowledge gained also demonstrated how newly structured educational interventions utilizing online blogs and other Internet based technologies were successful in enhancing and maintaining students’ creative thinking abilities. The goal was to provide educators with insight and guidance in the application of a metacognitive approach and to introduce available technologies to aid in this process. This study provides educators with a plan of action consisting of a toolbox of creative strategies and a framework for a reflective approach.     

Experiential learning of electronics subject matter in middle school robotics courses

The purpose of this paper is to investigate whether the experiential learning of electronics subject matter is effective in the middle school open learning of robotics. Electronics is often ignored in robotics courses. Since robotics courses are typically comprised of computer-related subjects, and mechanical and electrical engineering, these three areas should be emphasized equally. Many studies reveal impressive learning of computer science and mechanical engineering, but clear evidence of the effectiveness of electronics learning in the higher order thinking skills of middle school students is still lacking. We designed three different robotics courses with electronics subject matter introduced through experiential learning. A parallel group design was used, where three different open learning courses were implemented for middle school students. Based on results of the first and second implementations, we improved students’ learning of relevant content for each successive step of the experiment. In total, 381 middle school students participated in all experiments and were surveyed using pre- and post-tests. The collected data were analyzed using a quantitative research methodology. The findings revealed that the teaching approach was effective. During the learning process, student interest in robotics increased, and overall achievement improved with a medium effect size (η² = 0.13). The best results for the learning of electronics subject matter were found in the learning process (η² = 0.44), where experimental sharing of electronics parts was the most evident approach used by the students. Examination of learning material structure in light of the shared electronics subject matter is analyzed and discussed and possible directions for future research are presented.     

Engineering and technology students’ perceptions of courses

As cultural, social, political and economic changes take place, the secondary or high school curriculum should reflect and respond to changing needs and aspirations of students. Technology Education has been proactive in this arena as it has transformed over the decades to meet ever-changing societal needs. The most recent change to the discipline has been to add engineering and, as a result, adopting a new name and curriculum-Engineering and Technology Education. The added component and name change in Technology Education is causing discussions about what the new direction means, what professional preparation changes will be incurred, and what work graduating students will be prepared to do. In light of these changes, this study investigated perceptions of high school students in the United States of America about engineering and technology courses they take. To investigate whether students’ perceptions are in accord with current changes in Engineering and Technology Education, 316 students enrolled in engineering and technology courses in Georgia schools that have an affiliation with the Georgia Engineering and Technology Education Association (GETEA) were surveyed. According to data analyses, students’ perceptions can be divided into two factors. Educational Value of Course (factor 1) was extracted from statements measuring the degree to which the courses prepare students for employment and provide them with information regarding future employment. Personal Relevance of Course (factor 2) was derived from statements measuring students’ perceptions about links between engineering and technology education and their personal lives. Such findings suggest these students valued their engineering and technology courses, planned to continue their education, made good grades, and had varied types of career expectations for jobs such as design engineers and architects.     

Differences and similarities between female students and male students that succeed within higher technical education: profiles emerge through the use of cluster analysis

This study focuses on female and male students who succeed in engineering programmes in Sweden, and why they have success. Data were collected through a questionnaire sent to all engineering students in Sweden registered for their seventh semester during year 2012 and about 30 % of the students in the cohort responded on several questions. The answers were then analysed and interpreted using Pierre Bourdieu’s theory and the concept of capital. The female-students as well as the male-students emerged as homogeneous groups, but SPSS-clustering shows differences and similarities between four female student-profiles and five male students-profiles. The female students who come to graduate as engineers have experiences and resources that seem to be fruitful: well-educated parents, positive attitudes to the engineer students’ traditions, and a positive view of the engineering profession. In addition, they value the traditional teaching with lectures and self-studies. They seem not to have been inspired by compulsory school teaching or teachers there. The male students have the same experiences and resources but there are differences. Among female students, a profile emerges which is absent among the male students and which emphasises the importance of doing good for society, people, and the environment in their future professional roles. Among male students, the student profiles which emerge include one with a primarily practical and technical capital despite the lack of a high degree of educational or scientific capital.     

MACHINE TOOL PRODUCTION IN DEVELOPING COUNTRIES by M. M. Huq and C. C. Prendergast,Scottish Academic Press,Edinburgh, Scotland, 1983, xlll + 132 pp.

Engineering economics courses and textbooks have typically acknowledged the existence of the role of risk in economic decision making, but often in a peripheral way. The approach has been to suggest the existence of risk and uncertainty in engineering decisions, and to quantify that risk. The world of financial decision making includes many more powerful tools and techniques for risk management, rather than just risk measurement. The techniques of risk management include diversification, hedging, insuring, the capital asset pricing model (CAPM), futures contracts, options, and other investments. These portfolio tools are useful to engineering decision making, and the engineering economics community would be well served to include these topics in engineering economics undergraduate education.     

Spatial ability learning through educational robotics

Several authors insist on the importance of students’ acquisition of spatial abilities and visualization in order to have academic success in areas such as science, technology or engineering. This paper proposes to discuss and analyse the use of educational robotics to develop spatial abilities in 12 year old students. First of all, a course to introduce robotics to 6th grade primary school students was designed. The key intention was to prepare practical and motivating sessions in order to foster the students’ involvement in hands-on learning. Hence, during the sessions of the course, challenges were provided for the students, in order to develop their capabilities as proficient problem solvers. The teacher assisted and guided the students, and the students were encouraged to solve the problems by themselves, working in 3-members teams. The main goal of this paper is to discuss and analyse the potential usefulness of educational robotics to develop spatial abilities. To carry out the analysis, students were randomly divided into an experimental group (EG), which participated in the robotics course, and a control group (CG), which did not take part in the robotics course. The extensive existing literature for spatial ability evaluation was analysed and reviewed and a pre-test and a post-test were prepared for use in the research study. Initially, the spatial ability of both EG and CG students was assessed with the pre-test. Then, after finishing the robotics course, the same sets of students were tested with the post-test. An extensive analysis of the results is provided in the paper. Results show that the positive change in spatial ability of the participants in the robotics course (EG) was greater than change evident in the students who did not join the course (CG). The improvement was statistically significant. The results also show that the overall performance of the students depends on the instruments used to evaluate their spatial abilities. Hence, this study manifests clearly the importance of the selection of those instruments.