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Lifelong Learning and Information Literacy Skills and the First-Year Engineering Undergraduate: Report of a Self-Assessment

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Conference

2011 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Location

Vancouver, BC

Publication Date

June 26, 2011

Start Date

June 26, 2011

End Date

June 29, 2011

ISSN

2153-5965

Conference Session

Information Literacy Programs for First-Year Engineering Students

Tagged Division

Engineering Libraries

Page Count

9

Page Numbers

22.1016.1 - 22.1016.9

DOI

10.18260/1-2--18284

Permanent URL

https://strategy.asee.org/18284

Download Count

601

Paper Authors

biography

Meagan C. Ross Purdue University, West Lafayette

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Meagan Ross is passionate about providing awareness of engineering to K-12 educators, enabling them to actively and confidently influence students to become the next generation of world changing engineers. Through her consulting business, Meagan regularly develops and facilitates workshops on STEM careers for K-12 educators, parents, and students, with the personal objective to help close the gender gap in engineering.

Meagan Ross is a Ph.D. student in the School of Engineering Education at Purdue University, and is a recipient of a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship. She received a B.S. in Computer Science from Texas Woman’s University, and a M.S. in Electrical Engineering from Texas Tech University. Prior to beginning her doctoral studies, she worked as a microelectromechanical-systems (MEMS) engineer for Texas Instruments.

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Michael Fosmire Purdue University, West Lafayette Orcid 16x16 orcid.org/0000-0002-5138-8178

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Purdue University Libraries

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biography

Ruth Wertz P.E. Purdue University, West Lafayette Orcid 16x16 orcid.org/0000-0002-9698-3392

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Ruth E. H. Wertz is a graduate student in Engineering Education at Purdue University. She is a Professional Engineer in the State of Indiana with her B.S. and M.S. degrees in Civil Engineering from Trine University and Purdue University.

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Monica E. Cardella Purdue University, West Lafayette Orcid 16x16 orcid.org/0000-0002-4229-6183

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Monica E. Cardella is an Assistant Professor of Engineering Education and is the Co-Director of Assessment Research for the Institute for P-12 Engineering Research and Learning (INSPIRE) at Purdue University. Dr. Cardella earned a B.Sc. in Mathematics from the University of Puget Sound and an M.S. and Ph.D. in Industrial Engineering at the University of Washington. At the University of Washington she worked with the Center for Engineering Learning and Teaching (CELT) and the LIFE Center (Learning in Informal and Formal Environments). She was a CASEE Postdoctoral Engineering Education Researcher at the Center for Design Research at Stanford before beginning her appointment at Purdue. Her research interests include: learning in informal and out-of-school time settings, pre-college engineering education, design thinking, mathematical thinking, and assessment research.

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Senay Purzer Purdue University, West Lafayette Orcid 16x16 orcid.org/0000-0003-0784-6079

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Senay Purzer is an Assistant Professor in the School of Engineering Education and is the Co-Director of Assessment Research for the Institute for P-12 Engineering Research and Learning (INSPIRE) at Purdue University. Purzer has received her M.A. and Ph.D. degrees in Science Education at Arizona State University. She has a B.S. degree in Physics Education and a B.S.E. in Engineering. She has journal publications on instrument development, teacher professional development, and K-12 engineering education. Her creative research focuses on design problem-solving, collaborative learning, and assessment research.

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Abstract

Lifelong learning and information literacy skills and the first year engineering undergraduate: Report of a self-assessmentABET accreditation requires engineering students to attain ‘a recognition of the need for and anability to engage in lifelong learning.” (Outcome 3.i)1 However, there are few standard tools thatattempt to assess the skills and techniques students need in order to achieve those outcomes.Focusing on the problem articulation and information literacy skills embedded in lifelonglearning competencies, the authors constructed a standardized assessment to measure studentself-perceptions of how often they employ those skills. The criteria for these competencies werebased on the Information Search Process of Carol Kuhlthau2, engineering design processcharacteristics, and the authors’ own analysis of previous student work. The specific behaviorsprobed include: problem or task articulation, problem solving, information gathering, and theuse, evaluation, and documentation of that information. This assessment was given to the entireclass of first-year engineering undergraduates at a Research I institution in Fall of 2010(N=1631). Results of the assessment were then correlated with other measures of studentperformance in a course required for all first-year engineers. Overall, students expressed lessconfidence in their ability both to find and to evaluate information than in the other conceptsprobed, while they reported documenting and citing sources as one of their most highly ratedskills. Comparing self-assessments with more direct measures of student performance yields asubstantial ‘novice effect’ of inflated self-perception of competency. 1. ABET Engineering Accreditation Commission. 2010. Criteria for Accrediting Engineer- ing Programs. Baltimore, MD: ABET. [http://www.abet.org/Linked%20Documents- UPDATE/Criteria%20and%20PP/E001%2010-11%20EAC%20Criteria%201-27-10.pdf] 2. Kuhlthau, Carol.2004. Seeking Meaning: A Process Approach to Library and Infor- mation Services. Westport, CT: Libraries Unlimited.

Ross, M. C., & Fosmire, M., & Wertz, R., & Cardella, M. E., & Purzer, S. (2011, June), Lifelong Learning and Information Literacy Skills and the First-Year Engineering Undergraduate: Report of a Self-Assessment Paper presented at 2011 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition, Vancouver, BC. 10.18260/1-2--18284

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