Developing KSAs in Engineering Capstone Students (WIP)

Field: Engineering (Physical Sciences)

Abstract This work-in-progress research analyzes undergraduate outcomes after participation in an engineering design capstone course. In this context, knowledge, skills, and abilities (KSAs) are integrated within a competency-based educational (CBE; see Malhotra et al., 2023) model with an emphasis on formative assessment and feedback throughout the semester. Indicative of the transition from university to industry, the course also incorporates elements of new-product design (e.g., pre-work, definition, iterations; Cooper, 2019). The course provides authentic learning through community and industry partnerships for teams of mixed-major engineering students (e.g., electrical, mechanical), exemplifying integrated learning experiences (e.g., Jones & Voorhees, 2002) in pursuit of authentic engineering competencies. These theories become practice through a sequence of real-world tasks in the capstone course. Design teams work through team formation, client briefings, and a series of budget and design reviews with their professors and clients before presenting a prototype and closing out projects. Presenters of this session participated in the process as clients, consulting with the design team as they created a prototype for middle school students connected to a university outreach program. In the client role, the presenters witnessed a student design team grow throughout the process of interfacing with industry partners. This work-in-progress research would expand on reflective feedback that is already incorporated in the course by adding an additional quantitative and qualitative component. Participants are students in a senior-level engineering capstone course (n ≈ 50) at a private university in a southwestern state. Existing data includes self- and team member-ratings of KSAs and effective collaboration (CATME; Loughry et al., 2014), alongside open-ended personal reflections assessing their own performance on the team and in their roles. The next stage includes a concurrent mixed-methods design (Creswell and Plano Clark, 2018) with an explanatory sequential component post-semester. Inspired by the client interfacing process, we identified four specific skills and abilities that we observed as a focus for this study: communication, collaboration, critical thinking, and creativity. Concurrent with the course's existing instruments, we intend to include a survey that takes place before, halfway, and at the end of the course that measures these four constructs (Kelley et al., 2019). Post-semester, we will interview participants who displayed the most growth throughout the semester as indicated by their quantitative and qualitative (reflective) responses, adding further explanation to their perceptions of growth in skills and abilities throughout the semester. This research will center around one primary question: "How do students perceive their growth in communication, collaboration, critical thinking, and creativity as defined by P21 (2009) throughout an engineering design capstone course?" Quantitative analysis is expected to include regression and paired samples t-tests, and qualitative analysis will include inductive coding, pattern matching, and thematic analysis. Together, these data provide triangulation for trustworthy conclusions about students' growth throughout the course of a capstone project, adding to the body of literature in the field. More directly, the results of this study provide deeper understanding of students' perspectives surrounding this university's course, which further informs the innovative instruction happening in the culminating course of the program.