Quantitative Impacts and Student Perceptions of Offering Multi-Attempt Lockdown Assessment in Two Engineering Core Courses: Dynamics and Thermodynamics

Marino Nader; Ronald F. DeMara

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Conference: ASEE Southeast Section Conference
Location: Arlington, Virginia
Publication Date: March 12, 2023
Start Date: March 12, 2023
End Date: March 14, 2023
Conference Session: Thermodynamics
Tagged Topic: Professional Engineering Education Papers
Page Count: 9
DOI: 10.18260/1-2--45035
Permanent URL: https://peer.asee.org/45035
Download Count: 57

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Paper Authors

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Marino Nader University of Central Florida

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Marino Nader
Marino Nader is an Associate lecturer in the Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Department at the University of Central Florida and has been working on digitizing courses and exams, creating different course modalities. Dr. Nader obtained his B.Eng.,

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Ronald F. DeMara P.E. University of Central Florida orcid.org/0000-0001-6864-7255

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Ronald F. DeMara is Pegasus Professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, and joint faculty member of Computer Science, at the University of Central Florida, where he has been a full-time faculty member since 1993. He has completed over 325 articles, 50 funded projects as PI or Co-PI, and 56 graduates as Ph.D. dissertation and/or M.S. thesis advisor. He was previously an Associate Engineer at IBM and a Visiting Research Scientist at NASA Ames, in total for four years, and has been a registered Professional Engineer since 1992. He has served ten terms as a Topical Editor or Associate Editor of various IEEE Transactions and in many IEEE/ACM/ASEE conferences including General Co-Chair of GLSVLSI-2023. He has received the Joseph M. Biedenbach Outstanding Engineering Educator Award from IEEE and is a Fellow of AAAS.

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Abstract

Marino Nader1, and Ronald F. DeMara2 1Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, and 2Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering University of Central Florida, Orlando, FL 32816-2362 Abstract

Instructor-level assessment methodologies specific to engineering core curricula are synergized with institutional-level testing infrastructures to improve outcomes spanning academic integrity, grade accuracy, and elevating students’ success. The combination of multiple attempt testing within a properly-proctored testing environment is explored herein. Namely, we compare the students’ success rates in two different engineering core courses: Dynamics (required course for engineering majors) and Thermodynamics (required by several degree programs in engineering at the institution). Dynamics enrolled 155 students and Thermodynamics enrolled 282 at a large state university during Summer 2022, which were each analyzed via control and invention cohorts. Both classes were delivered as hybrid online/live courses and the tests were assessed in an Evaluation Proficiency Center (EPC) where students were permitted three attempts per test. They were also afford the opportunity to convene with the Graduate Teaching Assistants (GTAs) after machine scoring of each attempt to engage metacognition and learn from their mistakes. These tests are based on a foundation of large questions pools, so that later attempts rarely repeat delivery of the identical problems and values. Yet, there is intrinsic motivation that one or two questions may be re-asked from a previous attempt giving students an innovative incentive to pursue better clarification in case of repetition. The EPC provides a uniform testing environment with 140 seats, materials in lockers, distractions reduced, and ceiling-mounted cameras as deterrent to integrity violations. CANVAS was the Learning Management System (LMS) used for these courses, which provided Computer-Based Assessment (CBA) that facilitated the three-attempt testing. With the above testing environment, the least class average improvement from the first and the third (last) attempt for Thermodynamics was 16% in the third test. A similar comparison for dynamics attained a rate of 41% improvement for the first assessment in the course. A student survey was conducted for each course that confirmed a very large percentage of students agreed that this formative assessment method is effective and worthwhile to motivate their learning.

Citation
Format

Nader, M., & DeMara, R. F. (2023, March), Quantitative Impacts and Student Perceptions of Offering Multi-Attempt Lockdown Assessment in Two Engineering Core Courses: Dynamics and Thermodynamics Paper presented at ASEE Southeast Section Conference, Arlington, Virginia. 10.18260/1-2--45035

TY - CPAPER
AB - Marino Nader1, and Ronald F. DeMara2
1Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, and
2Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
University of Central Florida, Orlando, FL 32816-2362
Abstract

Instructor-level assessment methodologies specific to engineering core curricula are synergized with institutional-level testing infrastructures to improve outcomes spanning academic integrity, grade accuracy, and elevating students’ success. The combination of multiple attempt testing within a properly-proctored testing environment is explored herein. Namely, we compare the students’ success rates in two different engineering core courses: Dynamics (required course for engineering majors) and Thermodynamics (required by several degree programs in engineering at the institution). Dynamics enrolled 155 students and Thermodynamics enrolled 282 at a large state university during Summer 2022, which were each analyzed via control and invention cohorts.
Both classes were delivered as hybrid online/live courses and the tests were assessed in an Evaluation Proficiency Center (EPC) where students were permitted three attempts per test. They were also afford the opportunity to convene with the Graduate Teaching Assistants (GTAs) after machine scoring of each attempt to engage metacognition and learn from their mistakes. These tests are based on a foundation of large questions pools, so that later attempts rarely repeat delivery of the identical problems and values. Yet, there is intrinsic motivation that one or two questions may be re-asked from a previous attempt giving students an innovative incentive to pursue better clarification in case of repetition.
The EPC provides a uniform testing environment with 140 seats, materials in lockers, distractions reduced, and ceiling-mounted cameras as deterrent to integrity violations. CANVAS was the Learning Management System (LMS) used for these courses, which provided Computer-Based Assessment (CBA) that facilitated the three-attempt testing. With the above testing environment, the least class average improvement from the first and the third (last) attempt for Thermodynamics was 16% in the third test. A similar comparison for dynamics attained a rate of 41% improvement for the first assessment in the course. A student survey was conducted for each course that confirmed a very large percentage of students agreed that this formative assessment method is effective and worthwhile to motivate their learning.

AU - Marino Nader
AU - Ronald F. DeMara P.E.
CY - Arlington, Virginia
DA - 2023/03/12
PB - ASEE Conferences
TI - Quantitative Impacts and Student Perceptions of Offering Multi-Attempt Lockdown Assessment in Two Engineering Core Courses: Dynamics and Thermodynamics
UR - https://peer.asee.org/45035
DO - 10.18260/1-2--45035
ER -