Author(s):
Free-Body Diagram Mobile Application Boosts Student Learning and Women’s Self-EfficacyFree-body diagrams are a key skill used by many of the 600,000 students who begin an undergraduate engineering program in the United States each year. To better support students as they build their capability to draw complete and accurate free-body diagrams (FBDs), new tools are necessary that provide carefully designed scaffolding and immediate feedback-things which traditional homework is lacking. As part of our research, we have developed one such tool, a mobile-based application that helps students learn FBDs. This application has three mini-games that provide opportunities to practice isolating a body, identifying support reactions, and constructing a complete FBD. These mini-games offer different forms of immediate feedback; in the case of the FBD construction mini-game, several levels of hints. Taken together, the carefully structured tasks and immediate feedback create an environment arranged around Vygotsky’s concept of proximal development and designed to maintain a learner’s interest, break a complex process into smaller, more manageable tasks with opportunities for feedback, and emphasize aspects of the solution. In this environment, students can practice and immediately gauge their level of performance.We hypothesize that this type of learning environment will (1) help all students learn, but particularly (2) help women build self-efficacy. Because women may feel less confident regarding spatial tasks and less comfortable in undergraduate engineering programs in general, deployment of the application should boost retention of women in mechanical engineering as it helps them practice a critical skill and makes their learning visible.Using a preliminary version of the application, we have collected data from engineering undergraduates at Bucknell University and Worcester Polytechnic Institute via the SALG (Student Assessment of their Learning Gains) and other classroom assessments. Our findings show that students find the application environment engaging and the immediate feedback it provides helpful. Statistical analysis demonstrates that the application fosters student learning. Moreover, additional analysis shows that using the FBD application shrinks the gap in self-efficacy between men and women in introductory statics classes.Thus, the application provides a robust, additional avenue to foster FBD learning that is highly cost-effective to faculty and which provides meaningful benefits to students above and beyond those provided by lecture, class discussion, homework, and projects. It is also a tool that can help women to feel more confident in their abilities as developing mechanical engineers.
Coauthors
Sarah Wodin-Schwartz, Worcester Polytechnic Institute, Worcester, MA; Kimberly LeChasseur, Worcester Polytechnic Institute, Worcester, MA; Gillian Smith, Worcester Polytechnic Institute, Worcester, MA
