Supporting First-year Students in an Introductory Mechanical Engineering Course to Succeed in Statics
- Conference
- Location
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Portland, Oregon
- Publication Date
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June 23, 2024
- Start Date
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June 23, 2024
- End Date
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July 12, 2024
- Conference Session
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MECH - Technical Session 6: Curriculum Development and Pedagogical Strategies
- Tagged Division
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Mechanical Engineering Division (MECH)
- Permanent URL
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https://peer.asee.org/48038
Paper Authors
Dave Kim
Washington State University, Vancouver
orcid.org/0000-0003-1640-9030
Dr. Dave Kim is Professor and Mechanical Engineering Program Coordinator in the School of Engineering and Computer Science at Washington State University Vancouver. His teaching and research have been in the areas of engineering materials, fracture mechanics, and manufacturing processes. In particular, he has been very active in pedagogical research in the area of writing pedagogy in engineering laboratory courses. Dr. Kim and his collaborators attracted close to $1M in research grants to study writing transfer of engineering undergraduates. For technical research, he has a long-standing involvement in research concerned with the manufacturing of advanced composite materials (CFRP/titanium stack, GFRP, nanocomposites, etc.) for marine and aerospace applications. His recent research efforts have also included the fatigue behavior of manufactured products, with a focus on fatigue strength improvement of aerospace, automotive, and rail structures. He has been the author or co-author of over 200 peer-reviewed papers in these areas.
Lurana Crowley Washington State University
Abstract
This research explores scaffolding strategies employed at Washington State University Vancouver to support first-year students in succeeding in an introductory mechanical engineering course, with a particular focus on their subsequent performance in Statics. As in many undergraduate engineering programs student retention has been a concern, especially in the lower division of the mechanical engineering program. In the past two years the introductory mechanical engineering course has been redesigned to prepare students for the rest of their engineering curriculum by incorporating several design projects, involving senior students and faculty as mentors, and giving freshman a more robust preparation for the challenging second year course: Statics. The results show an improvement in student retention, with 92% of students passing the introductory course in the experimental years compared to 80% in the control years. Furthermore, the percentage of students passing Statics with a C or better increased from 47% in the control years to 54% in the experimental years. However, there was a slight increase in the rate of non-passing grades in Statics for the experimental years. Analysis revealed that students’ strength in math significantly influenced their success in the introductory course and Statics, highlighting the importance of sufficiently preparing students in lower-division courses for student retention.
Kim, D., & Crowley, L. (2024, June), Supporting First-year Students in an Introductory Mechanical Engineering Course to Succeed in Statics Paper presented at 2024 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition, Portland, Oregon. https://peer.asee.org/48038
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