Research Initiation: Investigating Engineering Students Habits of Mind: A Case Study Approach

Purdue University, West Lafayette IN

Investigators

Abstract

The problems facing engineers in the 21st century are highly complex, involving often competing requirements related to available technology, societal needs, environmental considerations, and others. Fostering the ability of students to solve these complex problems requires going beyond teaching technical skills to consider the way engineers think. This project is an interdisciplinary study that aims to characterize undergraduate engineering students' "habits of mind", which are modes of thinking required for engineering students to become effective problem solvers capable of transferring such skills to new contexts. An example of habit of mind is a willingness to make mistakes while trying to solve a problem, an attitude that allows engineers to successfully attack problems that were previously unsolved. Students who have these habits of mind will be prepared to address complex issues such as those described in the NAE Grand Challenges. The project will leverage an education website called Rhea (www.projectrhea.org) along with data acquired as part of an engineering course to identify how students experience scientific habits of mind as they engage in problem solving. To this end, qualitative and quantitative research methods enhanced with machine learning techniques will be combined. This will be accomplished through an interdisciplinary partnership in which a boundary spanning research program to identify and validate novel research methods and formative and summative assessment mechanisms will be initiated. The efforts will center on enhancing qualitative and quantitative educational research and assessment methods with machine learning techniques such as automatic data clustering. The rationale for this project is that its successful completion will (a) enable the research team to develop collaborative inter-disciplinary efforts where the PI Boutin will develop expertise in educational research methods and the co-PI Magana will develop expertise in machine learning; (b) provide a context for an exploratory study to be used as a baseline to apply for future funding to establish a program in engineering education research methods and assessment; (c) address challenges in cultivating a culture of lifelong learning among professional and future engineers via scientific habits of mind in an engineering context; and (d) develop new methods to characterize and measure different aspects of professional formation processes in engineering education. The long term vision is to develop an interdisciplinary partnership in the field of machine-learning-assisted education research.