Training Engineering Students to Ask Better Questions

训练工程专业的学生提出更好的问题

基本信息

批准号：
1945961
负责人：
Saryn Goldberg
金额：
$ 22.5万
依托单位：
Hofstra University
依托单位国家：
美国
项目类别：
Standard Grant
财政年份：
2020
资助国家：
美国
起止时间：
2020-06-15 至 2025-05-31
项目状态：
未结题

来源：
https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1945961&HistoricalAwards=false
关键词：
Training Engineering Students Ask Better

项目摘要

This project aims to serve the national interest by enhancing student learning in undergraduate engineering courses. Specifically, the project will investigate if training students to ask better questions improves STEM learning outcomes, such as course knowledge, awareness of their own learning, and their ability to ask better questions in future courses. The ability to recognize one's own confusion and to ask a question to dispel that confusion is an essential thinking skill that supports independent learning. Evidence from studies in primary and secondary school settings confirms that school children can be trained to ask more sophisticated questions. In addition, the more limited college-level studies link the ability to ask better questions to better reading comprehension. However, the results do not reveal whether the ability to ask better questions can lead to better understanding of course material and/or improvements in thinking processes. This project aims to train engineering students how to write questions that lead to higher-level thinking. It will also study whether this training results in improved content knowledge and thinking processes, such as metacognition. The project will provide undergraduate students an engineering statics course with training in how to write high quality questions. The project will also measure the effects of this training on the students’ STEM learning outcomes. It is expected that helping engineering students to ask good questions will contribute to the students’ academic success in engineering programs and support lifelong learning throughout their engineering careers. The project will organize the training materials and interventions into toolkits that can be used easily by other students and faculty.Students in the intervention group will be provided training and practice in writing high quality questions that address their own confusions in an engineering statics course. Quantitative, qualitative and mixed method approaches will be used to explore the effect of this intervention on content knowledge and metacognitive knowledge, as well as the relationships between improved question quality and these learning outcomes. This project will contribute to demonstrating how question-asking may be taught effectively within engineering courses and to understanding the measurable learning outcomes that result from students asking better questions. By determining the effect on learning outcomes that are of concern to STEM educators, the intervention should be useful to many other STEM faculty. Further, for easy distribution to both faculty and students, the intervention will be packaged into toolkits that are designed to be scalable and adaptable, such that the intervention can be feasibly implemented in other engineering classrooms and other disciplines. The toolkits will include background information from the educational literature, training materials for rating question quality, and guidelines for conducting training sessions. This project is supported by the NSF Improving Undergraduate STEM Education Program: Education and Human Resources, which supports research and development projects to improve the effectiveness of STEM education for all students. The project is in the Engaged Student Learning track, through which the IUSE: EHR program supports the creation, exploration, and implementation of promising practices and tools.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.

该项目旨在通过增强本科工程课程中的学生学习来为国家利益提供服务。具体来说，该项目将调查是否培训学生提出更好的问题，改善了STEM学习成果，例如课程知识，对自己的学习意识以及他们在未来课程中提出更好问题的能力。认识到自己的困惑并要求一个问题来消除混乱是支持独立学习的基本思维技能的能力。小学和中学环境中研究的证据证实，可以培训小学生，以提出更复杂的问题。此外，大学级别的研究较有限，将提出更好的问题提出更好的阅读理解的能力联系起来。但是，结果并未揭示提出更好问题的能力是否可以更好地理解课程材料和/或思维过程中的改进。该项目旨在培训工程专业的学生如何编写导致高级思考的问题。它还将研究该培训是否会改善内容知识和思维过程，例如元认知。该项目将为本科生提供工程静态课程，并通过如何编写高质量问题的培训。该项目还将衡量该培训对学生STEM学习成果的影响。可以预期，帮助工程学学生提出好问题将有助于学生在工程课程方面的学术成功，并支持整个工程职业的终身学习。该项目将将培训材料和干预措施组织到工具包中，这些工具包可以很容易地被其他学生和教师使用。干预小组中的学生将接受培训和练习，以编写高质量的问题，以解决自己在工程statics课程中的困惑。定量，定性和混合方法将用于探索这种干预对内容知识和元认知知识的影响，以及提高的问题质量与这些学习成果之间的关系。该项目将有助于证明如何在工程课程中有效地教授问题，并了解学生提出更好问题的可衡量学习成果。通过确定对STEM教育者关注的学习结果的影响，该干预措施应该对许多其他STEM教师有用。此外，为了简单地向教职员工分发，干预措施将被包装到旨在扩展和适应性的工具包中，以便在其他工程课程和其他学科中可行地实施干预措施。该工具包将包括来自教育文献的背景信息，用于评级质量的培训材料以及进行培训课程的指南。该项目得到了NSF改善本科STEM教育计划的支持：教育和人力资源，该计划支持研发项目，以提高所有学生STEM教育的有效性。该项目处于敬业的学生学习轨道上，IUSE：EHR计划支持了有希望的实践和工具的创建，探索和实施。该奖项反映了NSF的法定任务，并通过使用基金会的知识分子优点和更广泛的影响标准来评估NSF的法定任务。