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Development of a Standardized Laboratory Exam for a Materials and Manufacturing Course

Richard B. Griffin, K. Ted Hartwig

Mechanical Engineering Texas A&M University College Station, TX 77843

Abstract

Many courses have a laboratory component. Some fraction of the courses have laboratory as part of the course while the remaining fraction have it as a separate course that need not be taken with the lecture portion of a course. Mechanical Engineering at Texas A&M University has a junior level materials and manufacturing course that includes the laboratory as part of the course. Over the years, faculty have wondered whether or not students learn in laboratory what the faculty envision is important and significant. For the past several years, we have worked on developing a laboratory test that assesses what the students have learned. This paper will discuss the development of the questions and examine the student responses. These will be compared with the course objectives and ABET program objectives a through k.

Introduction

Laboratory activities have been an integral part of the education process for a long time. It is the opinion of faculty that hands-on-activities enhance the learning process. Very few persons would like to have their blood drawn from a phlebotomist who had never practiced, but had only read the book.

Typically, engineering courses have the laboratory as either an integral part of the class or a separate free standing course that may or may not be taken with the lecture portion of the class. In mechanical engineering at Texas A&M University, we have a four-credit junior materials and manufacturing course that includes laboratory as part of the course. This course has recently been developed and we have reported on the development of the course at conferences.1, 2, 3 A question that has bothered the faculty is whether or not the students have grasped the concepts we hope to have them develop from doing the laboratory activities. One of the ways of doing this is to use a standardized test that enables the students to be compared on a

“Proceedings of the 2005 American Society for Engineering Education Annual Conference & Exposition Copyright © 2005, American Society for Engineering Education”

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Hartwig, K. T., & Griffin, R. (2005, June), Development Of A Standardized Laboratory Exam For A Materials And Manufacturing Course Paper presented at 2005 Annual Conference, Portland, Oregon. 10.18260/1-2--14354