Relevant engineering applications, such as bioseparation of proteins and DNA, soil-cleaning, motion of colloidal particles in different media, electrical field-based cancer treatments, and the cleaning of surfaces and coating flows, belongs to the family of "Applied Field Sensitive Process Technologies" requiring an external field to…

Background: A redesigned curriculum for teaching engineering graphics was adopted in an introductory mechanical engineering course. The rollout of this curriculum was staggered, allowing for comparisons of student perceptions across the newly revised and previous instructional approaches. The new curriculum borrows from content and pedagogy…

Making the students understand the theoretical concepts of digital logic design concepts is one of the major issues faced by the academics, therefore the teachers have tried different techniques to link the theoretical information to the practical knowledge. Use of software simulations is a technique for learning and practice that can be applied…

This qualitative study explores the formation of educational and vocational goals among female first-year engineering students at two community colleges and one four-year institution, as well as contextual influences on this process. Participants' pathways to college are also explored, as well as their pathways into engineering. The findings…

In Biosystems Engineering at Oklahoma State University, senior design is a two semester course in which students work on real-world projects provided by clients. First-year (freshmen and trans­fer) students enroll in an introductory engineering course. Historically, these students worked on a team-based analysis project, and the engineering design…

Today's students enter engineering colleges with different technical backgrounds and prior graphics experience. This may due to their high school of provenience, which can be technical or non-technical. The prior experience affects students' ability in learning and hence their motivation and self-efficacy beliefs. This study intended to evaluate…

Chemical processing industry is progressively focusing their research activities and product placements in the areas of Grand Challenges (or Global Megatrends) such as mobility, energy, communication, or health care and food. Innovation in all these fields requires solving high complex problems, rapid product development as well as dealing with…

Engineers today need both engineering knowledge and social science knowledge to solve complex problems. However, most people have a traditional view of engineering as a field dominated by math and science foci, with little social consequence. This study examined and compared perceptions about engineering from Freshmen taking three different First…

A model of expertise in physics problem solving was tested on undergraduate science, physics, and engineering majors enrolled in an introductory-level physics course. Structural equation modeling was used to test hypothesized relationships among variables linked to expertise in physics problem solving including motivation, metacognitive planning,…

A quasi-experimental study was conducted to investigate the effectiveness of using a service learning (SL) method on influencing introductory engineering students' motivation and ABET program outcomes, compared to the effectiveness of using a conventional, non-service-learning (NSL) method. The sample used in the study was 214 students enrolled in…

This paper describes the redesign and implementation of the course, "Introduction to Programming for Engineers" using microcontroller (MCU) hardware as the programming target. The objective of this effort is to improve the programming competency for engineering students by more closely relating the initial programming experience to the student's…

Over the past few years many universities worldwide have introduced a common first year for all engineering disciplines. This is despite the opinion of many academics that large classes have negative effects on the learning outcomes of first year students. The University of South Australia is also faced with low motivation amongst engineering…

Active and collaborative learning instruments were introduced into an introductory electrical and computer engineering course. These instruments were designed to assess specific learning objectives and program outcomes. Results show that students developed an understanding comparable to that of more advanced students assessed later in the…

Interest in whether real-world problems or a service learning context increases students' academic performance and intent to find careers in engineering is gaining momentum. The belief that diverse student populations resonate with the idea that "engineers can contribute to improving society" is found throughout the literature,…

This correspondence describes an adaptation of puzzle-based learning to teaching an introductory computer programming course. Students from two offerings of the course--with and without the puzzle-based learning--were surveyed over a two-year period. Empirical results show that the synthesis of puzzle-based learning concepts with existing course…