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Using Start-Up Questions to Effectively Prepare Engineers for the Fundamentals of Engineering Exam

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Conference

2024 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Location

Portland, Oregon

Publication Date

June 23, 2024

Start Date

June 23, 2024

End Date

July 12, 2024

Conference Session

Civil Engineering Division (CIVIL) Technical Session - Effective Teaching 2

Tagged Division

Civil Engineering Division (CIVIL)

Permanent URL

https://peer.asee.org/48242

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Paper Authors

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Matthew K Swenty P.E. Virginia Military Institute Orcid 16x16 orcid.org/0000-0002-1166-3817

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Matthew (Matt) Swenty obtained his bachelor's and master's degrees in Civil Engineering from Missouri S&T and then worked as a bridge designer at the Missouri Department of Transportation. He then went to obtain his Ph.D. in Civil Engineering at Virginia Tech followed by research work at the Turner-Fairbank Highway Research Center on concrete bridges. He is currently a professor of civil engineering and the Jackson-Hope Chair in Engineering at VMI. He teaches engineering mechanics, structural engineering, and introduction to engineering courses and enjoys working with his students on bridge related research projects and the ASCE student chapter. His research interests include engineering licensure policies, civil engineering curriculum development, and the use of innovative materials on concrete bridges.

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Benjamin Z. Dymond Northern Arizona University Orcid 16x16 orcid.org/0000-0002-4752-3445

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Ben Dymond obtained his B.S. and M.S. degrees in Civil Engineering at Virginia Tech before obtaining his Ph.D. in Civil Engineering at the University of Minnesota Twin Cities. Ben is currently an associate professor of structural engineering at Northern Arizona University.

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Kacie Caple D'Alessandro Virginia Military Institute

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Joshua T. Hewes P.E. Northern Arizona University

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Robin Tuchscherer Northern Arizona University

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Dr. Tuchscherer is a Professor of Structural Engineering and has served at Northern Arizona University since 2011. His teaching and research interests focus on structural engineering, structural concrete, infrastructure, and educational reform.

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Rebekah Martin Virginia Military Institute Orcid 16x16 orcid.org/0000-0001-8188-7683

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Charles D Newhouse P.E. Virginia Military Institute

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Charles D. “Chuck” Newhouse received his Ph.D. in Civil Engineering at Virginia Tech after working nine years as a consulting structural engineer for MMM Design Group in Norfolk, Virginia. He spent three years teaching at Texas Tech University before joining the faculty at the Virginia Military Institute in 2008 where he is now the Charles S. Luck, Jr. ’20 Institute Professor in Engineering. He is also currently serving as the department head of the Civil and Environmental Engineering department.

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Abstract

The National Council of Examiners for Engineering and Surveying (NCEES) Fundamentals of Engineering (FE) exam is important to university students who plan to pursue a professional engineering license, and civil engineering has the highest proportion of graduates that eventually become licensed. An important step in this process is to prepare university students to take and pass the FE exam prior to graduation. Many different methods have been implemented to prepare students for the exam. The study described herein sought to prepare students for the FE exam while they were enrolled in required undergraduate courses that cover core civil engineering topics on the FE exam.

Students at two different universities were tasked with completing FE-style questions on quizzes to prepare for the FE exam while enrolled in the following courses: dynamics, statics, fluid mechanics, structural analysis, and reinforced concrete design. In each course, the FE-style questions were based on questions published in FE review manuals, textbooks, or a NCEES practice exam. Each question was focused on a single topic, normally administered as multiple choice, presented at the beginning of a class period to review material (i.e., start-up, concept check, review quiz, etc.), and required to be solved by students within a short amount of time (e.g., 5 minutes) to simulate the FE exam. Approximately 10 FE-style questions were presented to students in each class over the term. After completing the quiz questions, class time was dedicated to discussing the solution and approaches to solving these types of problems. Later in the term, students were presented with similar FE-style questions a second time on an assessment. Both attempts were part of the grade in the courses.

To assess if the objectives of this study had been achieved, individual quiz question scores from the first and final assessments were compared to determine if student performance improved throughout the course. Furthermore, a student perception survey was administered before and after implementing the FE-style questions to determine how this review method affected students’ familiarity with the FE exam, their confidence in passing the FE exam, and their preferred FE preparation method. Results from the study indicated that students were significantly more familiar with the FE exam, FE-style questions, and FE exam expectations. By the end of the study, 57% of students were confident that they would pass the exam and only 6% were not confident. Students appreciated the opportunity to review more questions in class and thought using the transition time at the beginning of class to review the material with FE-style questions was a good use of time. Furthermore, student performance on the FE-style quiz questions significantly increased; students correctly answered 73% of the FE-style questions presented on their second attempt near the end of the semester. FE-style start-up quiz questions were a good use of time and provided significant benefits to the students throughout this study.

Swenty, M. K., & Dymond, B. Z., & D'Alessandro, K. C., & Hewes, J. T., & Tuchscherer, R., & Martin, R., & Newhouse, C. D. (2024, June), Using Start-Up Questions to Effectively Prepare Engineers for the Fundamentals of Engineering Exam Paper presented at 2024 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition, Portland, Oregon. https://peer.asee.org/48242

ASEE holds the copyright on this document. It may be read by the public free of charge. Authors may archive their work on personal websites or in institutional repositories with the following citation: © 2024 American Society for Engineering Education. Other scholars may excerpt or quote from these materials with the same citation. When excerpting or quoting from Conference Proceedings, authors should, in addition to noting the ASEE copyright, list all the original authors and their institutions and name the host city of the conference. - Last updated April 1, 2015