User Study: Influence of Number of Design Errors on Ability to Predict Performance With and Without Controls

2013 ◽  
Author(s):  
Somaiah Thimmaiah ◽  
Keith Phelan ◽  
Joshua D. Summers
Keyword(s):  
Engineering Students ◽  
User Study ◽  
Failure Modes ◽  
P Value ◽  
First Year ◽  
Psychology Class ◽  
Design Activities ◽  
Undergraduate Psychology ◽  
Domain Familiarity ◽  
The Impact

Design reviews are typically used for three types of design activities: 1) identifying errors, 2) assessing the impact of the errors, and 3) suggesting solutions for the errors. This experimental study focuses on understanding the second issue as it relates to the number of errors considered, the existence of controls, and the level of domain familiarity of the assessor. A set of design failures and associated controls developed for a completed industry sponsored project is used as the experimental design problem. Non-domain individuals (students from an undergraduate psychology class), domain generalists (first year engineering students), and domain-specialists (graduate mechanical engineering students) are provided a set of failure modes and asked to estimate the likelihood that the system would still successfully achieve the stated objectives. Primary results from the study include the following: the confidence level for all domain population decreased significantly as the number of design errors increased (largest p-value = 0.0793) and this decrease in confidence is more significant as the design errors increase. The impact on confidence is less when solutions (controls) are provided to prevent the errors (largest p-value = 0.0334), the confidence decreased faster for domain general engineers as compared to domain specialists (p = <0.0001). The domain specialists showed higher confidence in making decisions than domain generals and non-domain generalists as the design errors increase.

An Experimental Study on the Influence That Failure Number, Specialization, and Controls Have on Confidence in Predicting System Failures1

2016 ◽  
Vol 139 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Somaiah Thimmaiah ◽  
Keith Phelan ◽  
Joshua D. Summers
Keyword(s):  
Experimental Study ◽  
Engineering Students ◽  
Failure Modes ◽  
P Value ◽  
First Year ◽  
Psychology Class ◽  
Design Activities ◽  
Undergraduate Psychology ◽  
Domain Familiarity ◽  
The Impact

Design reviews are typically used for three types of design activities: (1) identifying errors, (2) assessing the impact of the errors, and (3) suggesting solutions for the errors. This experimental study focuses on understanding the second issue as it relates to the number of errors considered, the existence of controls, and the level of domain familiarity of the assessor. A set of design failures and associated controls developed for a completed industry sponsored project is used as the experimental design problem. Nondomain generalists (students from an undergraduate psychology class), domain generalists (first year engineering students), and domain specialists (graduate mechanical engineering students) are provided a set of failure modes and asked to provide their own opinion or confidence on whether the system would still successfully achieve the stated objectives. The confidence level for all domain populations decreased significantly as the number of design errors increased (largest p-value = 0.0793), and this decrease in confidence is more significant as the number of design errors increases. The impact on confidence is lower when solutions (controls) are provided to prevent the errors (largest p-value = 0.0334) as the confidence decreased faster for domain general engineers as compared to domain specialists (p = < 0.0001). The domain specialists showed higher confidence in making decisions than domain generalists and nondomain generalists as the design errors increase.

Can Design Teams Be Empathically Creative? A Simulation-Based Investigation on the Role of Team Empathy on Concept Generation and Selection

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mohammad Alsager Alzayed ◽  
Scarlett R. Miller ◽  
Jessica Menold ◽  
Jacquelyn Huff ◽  
Christopher McComb
Keyword(s):  
Engineering Design ◽  
Design Process ◽  
Engineering Students ◽  
Computational Simulation ◽  
Idea Generation ◽  
First Year ◽  
Concept Generation ◽  
Team Members ◽  
Design Activities ◽  
The Impact

Abstract Research on empathy has been surging in popularity in the engineering design community since empathy is known to help designers develop a deeper understanding of the users’ needs. Because of this, the design community has been invested in devising and assessing empathic design activities. However, research on empathy has been primarily limited to individuals, meaning we do not know how it impacts team performance, particularly in the concept generation and selection stages of the design process. Specifically, it is unknown how the empathic composition of teams, average (elevation) and standard deviation (diversity) of team members’ empathy, would impact design outcomes in the concept generation and selection stages of the design process. Therefore, the goal of the current study was to investigate the impact of team trait empathy on concept generation and selection in an engineering design student project. This was accomplished through a computational simulation of 13,482 teams of noninteracting brainstorming individuals generated by a statistical bootstrapping technique drawing upon a design repository of 806 ideas generated by first-year engineering students. The main findings from the study indicate that the elevation in team empathy positively impacted simulated teams’ unique idea generation and selection while the diversity in team empathy positively impacted teams’ generation of useful ideas. The results from this study can be used to guide team formation in engineering design.

scholarly journals FROM STEM TO STEAM IN ENGINEERING DESIGN

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chantal Rodier ◽  
Mohamed Galaleldin ◽  
Justine Boudreau ◽  
Hanan Anis
Keyword(s):  
Engineering Design ◽  
Engineering Students ◽  
Early Years ◽  
First Year ◽  
Arts And Humanities ◽  
Curricular Design ◽  
The Arts ◽  
Design Activities ◽  
The University ◽  
The Impact

Creativity, communication skills, interdisciplinary sensitivity, and cultural and civic responsibility are vital skills and perspectives to inculcate in contemporary engineering students. A number of studies have demonstrated the benefits of exposing engineering students to arts, as studying arts and humanities can open up their minds to creative ideas from great minds outside of science and engineering. In most cases, engineering students are exposed to the arts by taking a few non-technical courses as electives. Many students view these courses as less important and irrelevant to their field of studies. Integrating the arts into the technical engineering curriculum is challenging but critical to engineering design, particularly in early years, and represents a natural opportunity. This paper discusses the approach taken by the Faculty of Engineering at the University of Ottawa of exposing students to the arts through curricular and extra-curricular design activities. These include offering design challenges, a first-year engineering design course and summer internships. This paper also discusses the challenges that arise in delivering such curriculum and the impact of such exposure on the engineering students involved.

scholarly journals FROM STEM TO STEAM IN ENGINEERING DESIGN

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chantal Rodier ◽  
Mohamed Galaleldin ◽  
Justine Boudreau ◽  
Hanan Anis
Keyword(s):  
Engineering Design ◽  
Engineering Students ◽  
Early Years ◽  
First Year ◽  
Arts And Humanities ◽  
Curricular Design ◽  
The Arts ◽  
Design Activities ◽  
The University ◽  
The Impact

Creativity, communication skills, interdisciplinary sensitivity, and cultural and civic responsibility are vital skills and perspectives to inculcate in contemporary engineering students. A number of studies have demonstrated the benefits of exposing engineering students to arts, as studying arts and humanities can open up their minds to creative ideas from great minds outside of science and engineering. In most cases, engineering students are exposed to the arts by taking a few non-technical courses as electives. Many students view these courses as less important and irrelevant to their field of studies. Integrating the arts into the technical engineering curriculum is challenging but critical to engineering design, particularly in early years, and represents a natural opportunity. This paper discusses the approach taken by the Faculty of Engineering at the University of Ottawa of exposing students to the arts through curricular and extra-curricular design activities. These include offering design challenges, a first-year engineering design course and summer internships. This paper also discusses the challenges that arise in delivering such curriculum and the impact of such exposure on the engineering students involved.

scholarly journals Breastfeeding, maternal asthma and wheezing in the first year of life: a longitudinal birth cohort study

2017 ◽  
Vol 49 (5) ◽  
pp. 1602019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Meghan B. Azad ◽  
Lorena Vehling ◽  
Zihang Lu ◽  
David Dai ◽  
Padmaja Subbarao ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Birth Cohort ◽  
Respiratory Health ◽  
Birth Cohort Study ◽  
P Value ◽  
First Year ◽  
Dependent Manner ◽  
Complementary Foods ◽  
Adjusted Rate ◽  
First Year Of Life ◽  
The Impact

The impact of breastfeeding on respiratory health is uncertain, particularly when the mother has asthma. We examined the association of breastfeeding and wheezing in the first year of life.We studied 2773 infants from the Canadian Healthy Infant Longitudinal Development (CHILD) birth cohort. Caregivers reported on infant feeding and wheezing episodes at 3, 6 and 12 months. Breastfeeding was classified as exclusive, partial (supplemented with formula or complementary foods) or none.Overall, 21% of mothers had asthma, 46% breastfed for at least 12 months and 21% of infants experienced wheezing. Among mothers with asthma, breastfeeding was inversely associated with infant wheezing, independent of maternal smoking, education and other risk factors (adjusted rate ratio (aRR) 0.52; 95% CI 0.35–0.77 for ≥12 versus <6 months breastfeeding). Compared with no breastfeeding at 6 months, wheezing was reduced by 62% with exclusive breastfeeding (aRR 0.38; 95% CI 0.20–0.71) and by 37% with partial breastfeeding supplemented with complementary foods (aRR 0.63; 95% CI 0.43–0.93); however, breastfeeding was not significantly protective when supplemented with formula (aRR 0.89; 95% CI 0.61–1.30). Associations were not significant in the absence of maternal asthma (p-value for interaction <0.01).Breastfeeding appears to confer protection against wheezing in a dose-dependent manner among infants born to mothers with asthma.

scholarly journals Makerspaces in First-Year Engineering Education

2019 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 8
Author(s):  
Pooya Taheri ◽  
Philip Robbins ◽  
Sirine Maalej
Keyword(s):  
Engineering Students ◽  
Evaluation Criteria ◽  
Applied Science ◽  
First Year ◽  
Maker Movement ◽  
Student Survey ◽  
Group Project ◽  
Main Component ◽  
Diploma Program ◽  
The Impact

Langara College, as one of the leading undergraduate institutions in the province of British Columbia (BC), offers the “Applied Science for Engineering” two-year diploma program as well as the “Engineering Transfer” two-semester certificate program. Three project-based courses are offered as part of the two-year diploma program in Applied Science (APSC) and Computer Science (CPSC) departments: “APSC 1010—Engineering and Technology in Society”, “CPSC 1090—Engineering Graphics”, and “CPSC 1490—Applications of Microcontrollers”, with CPSC 1090 and CPSC 1490 also part of the Engineering Transfer curriculum. Although the goals, scopes, objectives, and evaluation criteria of these courses are different, the main component of all three courses is a group-based technical project. Engineering students have access to Langara College’s Makerspace for the hands-on component of their project. Makerspaces expand experiential learning opportunities and allows students to gain a skillset outside the traditional classroom. This paper begins with a detailed review of the maker movement and the impact of makerspace in higher education. Different forms of makerspace and the benefits of incorporating them on first-year students’ creativity, sense of community, self-confidence, and entrepreneurial skills are discussed. This paper introduces Langara’s engineering program and its project-based design courses. Langara’s interdisciplinary makerspace, its goals and objectives, equipment, and some sample projects are introduced in this paper in detail. We then explain how the group-project component of APSC 1010, CPSC 1090, and CPSC 1490 are managed and how using makerspace improves students’ performance in such projects. In conclusion, the paper describes the evaluation of learning outcomes via an anonymous student survey.

Engaging Students to Learn Physics and Mathematics through Short High Quality M-Learning Resources

2016 ◽  
pp. 432-452
Author(s):  
Luis Neri ◽  
Julieta Noguez ◽  
Jessica Morales Whitney ◽  
Gerardo Aguilar-Sanchez
Keyword(s):  
Engineering Students ◽  
Cognitive Theory ◽  
First Year ◽  
Learning Resources ◽  
High Quality ◽  
Key Characteristics ◽  
Educational Videos ◽  
And Mathematics ◽  
Learn Physics ◽  
The Impact

A methodology to design short high quality M-Learning resources aimed to engage students to learn Physics and Mathematics is proposed. Key characteristics to generate motivating mobile resources are identified and applied to produce educational video-capsules. Audiovisual design elements based on cognitive theory of multimedia learning are incorporated. Short videos covering central topics of Mathematics and Physics undergraduate courses that can be displayed on mobile devices are designed. A study case with first-year engineering students using the mobile resources is performed in order to assess student engagement. The results indicate that most students show a positive perception on the educational videos. A parallel study in order to evaluate the impact of the mobile educational videos on student learning is also presented. From this analysis it is suggested to incorporate the use of mobile resources as part of active learning methodologies. Some recommendations for designing mobile resources are presented, and suggestions for implementation of the resources are also provided.

Top down, bottom up and classroom reading anxiety and their effect on reading performance of undergraduate engineering students in Pakistan

2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (3) ◽  
pp. 590-603
Author(s):  
Ashfaque Hussain Soomro ◽  
Imran Khan ◽  
Muhammad Younus
Keyword(s):  
Engineering Students ◽  
Negative Impact ◽  
Reading Performance ◽  
First Year ◽  
Top Down ◽  
Bottom Up ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Undergraduate Engineering ◽  
Reading Anxiety ◽  
The Impact

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to explore EFL reading anxiety of first-year undergraduate engineering students and its effect on their reading performance in a public sector engineering university in Pakistan. It specifically aims to explore their top-down, bottom-up and classroom EFL reading anxiety. Design/methodology/approach Data for the present study were collected from 200 first-year engineering students to explore their reading anxiety. A 20-item questionnaire developed by Zoghi and Alivandivafa (2014) was used to measure students’ EFL reading anxiety, while an IELTS academic reading test was used to measure their reading performance. The data were analyzed through exploratory factorial analysis and multiple regression analysis to determine which type of reading anxiety has a significant effect on students’ reading performance. Findings It was found that the bottom-up reading anxiety and the classroom reading anxiety have a significant negative impact on the reading performance of the first-year undergraduate engineering students of a Pakistani university. However, top-down reading anxiety has an insignificant negative impact on the reading performance of university students. Research limitations/implications The data for the current study were drawn from one Pakistani public sector engineering university, and all the students were first-year undergraduates. The data were collected through a self-reported questionnaire and IELTS (academic) reading test. Some of the students may be unfamiliar with the IELTS test pattern, so their reading performance might have been affected. Practical implications Teachers should adopt such a methodology in their EFL classrooms which helps students reduce their reading anxiety. Reading texts must be selected considering the proficiency level of students, and reading strategies must be explicitly taught to reduce bottom-up and top-down reading anxieties. Teachers should create a positive learning environment in their classroom by encouraging students to make an effort to improve their reading skills in order to deal with classroom reading anxiety. Students must be explained that they should help one another rather than ridiculing each other’s reading mistakes. Differentiated instruction can also be adopted to facilitate weak readers. The teachers can provide additional/out of the class support to weak readers in order to help them deal with reading anxiety. Originality/value The EFL reading anxiety among university students in the Pakistani context has received little attention from the researchers. Furthermore, although the impact of EFL reading anxiety on EFL students’ reading performance has been explored previously, the impact of three types of EFL reading anxiety on EFL learners’ reading performance has not been adequately investigated.

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