Matching Items (38)
Description
This dissertation details an action research study designed to teach engineering students enrolled in a First Year Composition course understand and learn to use effective conventions of written communication. Over the course of one semester, students participated in an intervention that included embodied and constructive pedagogical practices within a rhetorical framework. The theoretical perspectives include Martha Kolln’s rhetorical grammar framework, embodied cognition, and Chi’s ICAP hypothesis. The study was conducted using an explanatory multi-methodological approach. The majority of students demonstrated that in their post-intervention writing samples, their ability to use effective conventions had improved. Over the course of the study, students’ attitudes about writing improved as did their self-efficacy about their writing ability.
ContributorsEllsworth, Allison Jane Troe (Author) / Fischman, Gustavo E (Thesis advisor) / Wolf, Leigh (Committee member) / Brumberger, Eva (Committee member) / Kellam, Nadia (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2020
Description
The Vortex-lattice method has been utilized throughout history to both design and analyze the aerodynamic performance characteristics of flight vehicles. There are numerous different programs utilizing this method, each of which has its own set of assumptions and performance limitations. This thesis highlights VORLAX, one such solver, and details its historic and modernized performance characteristics through a series of code improvements and optimizations. With VORLAX, rapid synthesis and verification of aircraft performance data related to wing pressure distributions, stability and control, and Federal Regulation compliance can be quickly and accurately obtained. As such, VORLAX represents a class of efficient yet largely forgotten computational techniques that allow users to explore numerous design solutions in a fraction of the time that would be needed to use more complex, full-fledged engineering tools. In the age of modern computers, one hypothesis is that VORLAX and similar “lean” computational fluid dynamics (CFD) solvers have preferential performance characteristics relative to expensive, volume grid CFD suites, such as ANSYS Fluent. By utilizing these types of programs, tasks such as pre- and post-processing become trivially simple with basic scripting languages such as Visual Basic for Applications or Python. Thus, lean engineering programs and methodologies deserve their place in modern engineering, despite their wrongfully decreasing prevalence.
ContributorsSouders, Tyler Jeffery (Author) / Takahashi, Timothy T. (Thesis advisor) / Herrmann, Marcus (Thesis advisor) / Dahm, Werner J.A. (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2021
Engineering – The Social Experiment: An Analysis of Engineering Curriculum and Industry Expectations
Description
The engineers of the future are currently in the process of earning their degrees and certifications from engineering programs guided by ABET accreditations. ABET, the Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology, is the voice of reason for the development of engineering programs. Aspiring engineers desire institutions that follow ABET Standards to ensure that their education meets the expectations of industry partners and researchers. However, these standards have not been drastically altered in years to reflect the changing needs of industry. With the advancement of technology in the last two decades, old school engineering and its application is becoming less common.
Science policy and curriculum go hand in. The future engineers are taught hand calculations, lab testing for field work parallels, and methodologies based on the written policies set forth decades ago. Technology today is rapidly changing, and engineering education is struggling to make changes to keep up with these technology advancements. In today’s world, technology drives invention and innovation, whereas some argue it is thought and curiosity. Engineering programs are taking a toll regardless of the point of view. Education is not made to keep up with current societal needs.
This paper a provides an overview of the history of engineering, curriculum standards for engineering programs, an analysis of engineering programs at top universities and large universities alongside student experiences available to engineers. The ideas offered are no means the exact solution; rather policymakers and STEM education stakeholder may find the ideas shared helpful and use them as a catalyst for change.
Science policy and curriculum go hand in. The future engineers are taught hand calculations, lab testing for field work parallels, and methodologies based on the written policies set forth decades ago. Technology today is rapidly changing, and engineering education is struggling to make changes to keep up with these technology advancements. In today’s world, technology drives invention and innovation, whereas some argue it is thought and curiosity. Engineering programs are taking a toll regardless of the point of view. Education is not made to keep up with current societal needs.
This paper a provides an overview of the history of engineering, curriculum standards for engineering programs, an analysis of engineering programs at top universities and large universities alongside student experiences available to engineers. The ideas offered are no means the exact solution; rather policymakers and STEM education stakeholder may find the ideas shared helpful and use them as a catalyst for change.
ContributorsMinutello, Amanda Gabrielle (Author) / Loughman, Joshua (Thesis director) / Huerta, Mark (Committee member) / Civil, Environmental and Sustainable Eng Program (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2019-12
Description
Educational institutions are in a unique position to take advantage of computers and software in new, innovative ways. The Mechanics Project at Arizona State University has done an exceptional job integrating many new ways of engaging students and providing resources that can help them learn course material in a way that they can understand. However, there is still very little research on how to best compose multimedia content for student use.
This project aims to determine what students struggle with in these courses and develop multimedia content to support their education in Dynamics specifically.
This project aims to determine what students struggle with in these courses and develop multimedia content to support their education in Dynamics specifically.
ContributorsBadahdah, Adam Salim (Author) / Hjelmstad, Keith (Thesis director) / Chatziefstratiou, Efthalia (Committee member) / Civil, Environmental and Sustainable Eng Program (Contributor) / School of Geographical Sciences and Urban Planning (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2019-05
Description
Engineering has historically been dominated by White men. However, in modern history, engineering is becoming more diverse as the opportunity to pursue engineering has become accessible to people of all races and genders. Yet, college ready high school students from nontraditional backgrounds—women, ethnic minorities, first-generation-to-college students, and those with financial need—often lack exposure to engineering, thus reducing their likelihood to pursue a career in this field. To create engineering learning experiences that can be expanded to a traditional high school science classroom, the Young Engineers Shape the World program at Arizona State University was consulted. The Young Engineers Shape the World program encourages women, notably the most underrepresented group in the engineering field, as well as other students of diverse backgrounds, to pursue engineering. The goal of this effort was to create a 3-contact hour chemical engineering based learning experience to help students in grades 10-11 learn about an application of chemical engineering. Using knowledge of chemical engineering, a soil pH testing activity was created, simulating a typical high school chemistry science experiment. In addition to measuring pH, students were asked to build a modern garden that contained a physical barrier that could protect the garden from acid rain while still allowing sunlight to reach the plant. Student feedback was collected in the form of an experience evaluation survey after each experience. Students found that the soil-moisture quality testing and design of a protective barrier was engaging. However, an iterative curriculum redesign-implement-evaluate effort is needed to arrive at a robust chemical engineering based design learning experience.
ContributorsOtis, Timothy Kevin (Author) / Ganesh, Tirupalavanam (Thesis director) / Schoepf, Jared (Committee member) / Chemical Engineering Program (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2019-05
Description
This study was conducted to look for ways to improve engineering school in order to maximize student benefit. The results of the survey showed that additional communication and professional interaction lessons as well as more emphasis on software and programming languages would help prepare engineers for their careers. There was unanimous support of communication materials from survey respondents, with constructive confrontation and career path discussion receiving the most positive feedback. Due to the unanimous support of communications material, and the fact that short communications lessons could drive home key points without adding too much work to engineering students’ already busy schedules, two short lesson outlines for constructive confrontation and career path discussion were produced for this study.
ContributorsWolin, Nathan Maxwell (Author) / Taylor, David (Thesis director) / Holloway, Julianne (Committee member) / Chemical Engineering Program (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2020-12
Description
This dissertation features three pieces of scholarship which showcase and demonstrate an ethic of queerness for engineering education research (EER). The concept of an ethic of queerness is introduced and constructed in Chapter 1 using tenets from the philosophy of pragmatism, systems thinking, critical theory, and the personal and collective experiences of queered communities immersed in normative spaces, such as engineering and engineering education. Chapter 2 is a scoping literature review on the state of research on the LGBTQIA+ engineering student experience compared to other relevant fields, revealing that EER is still nascent on the topic. Chapter 3 leverages arts-based qualitative inquiry to explore the opportunities and limitations of mixed-initiative creative interfaces (MICIs) when used as a tool for self care by queer(ed) subjects. Chapter 4 connects Patricia Hill Collins’ insider/outsider paradox framework to recent engineering education research through collaborative autoethnographies, illuminating the ways in which normative, oppressive social discourses are embedded within the EER system. Although Chapters 2-4 feature their own unique methodology and topic of inquiry, they are united through a motivation to deconstruct and re-imagine sociotechnical systems throughout engineering and EER through the lens of radical queerness. Chapter 5 summarizes how each of the prior chapters aligns with queerness as an ethic and explores avenues of future work from this dissertation. More specifically, each chapter represents a way of queering engineering education research methodology through the embrace of ambiguity and ephemerality, particularly with regard to the ways in which the author’s subjectivity and relationality to the roles of researcher, student, engineer, and engineering education researcher emerged throughout their doctoral education.
ContributorsJennings, Madeleine (Author) / Kellam, Nadia (Thesis advisor) / Jayasuriya, Suren (Thesis advisor) / Roscoe, Rod (Committee member) / Brunhaver, Samantha (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2023
Description
Engineering, and more specifically, electrical engineering can be a difficult topic to explain through spoken communication. Along with taking years of education to learn and understand necessary topics, the field is riddled with jargon and items that may take lectures to explain. However, this type of education may not be feasible for a younger or inexperienced audience. Therefore, engineers must find new ways to explain such difficult topics, especially in an attempt to garner interest in children, for example, through art.
ContributorsHedges, Madison (Author) / Aukes, Daniel (Thesis director) / Weeks, Eric (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / Engineering Programs (Contributor) / School of Earth and Space Exploration (Contributor)
Created2023-12