TY - JOUR
T1 - Assessing problem-solving strategy use by engineering undergraduates
AU - Taraban, Roman
AU - Anderson, Edward E.
AU - Schumacher, John Richard
AU - Dulli, Hani
AU - Lamp, David
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© American Society for Engineering Education, 2019
Copyright:
Copyright 2020 Elsevier B.V., All rights reserved.
PY - 2019/6/15
Y1 - 2019/6/15
N2 - Problem-solving strategies are the deliberate mental steps that a person takes to proceed in specific ways at various points during problem solution in order to analyze, solve, and reflect on a problem. Engineering undergraduates enrolled in physics and thermodynamics reported the frequency of use of problem-solving strategies, confidence in their ability to solve problems, and answered demographic questions. Measures of performance included course grades. Factor-analytic methods that were applied to students' reports of strategy use identified three types of strategies, which were labeled Execution, Planning and Looking Back, and Low Confidence in Ability. The three factors were significant predictors of course performance, based on correlation and regression methods that were applied to the data. The study provides evidence that using problem-solving strategies improves course performance and that low confidence is a hindrance to successful performance. Differences in the roles of problem-solving strategies for engineering students in physics compared to thermodynamics suggest that students use these strategies differently in those courses.
AB - Problem-solving strategies are the deliberate mental steps that a person takes to proceed in specific ways at various points during problem solution in order to analyze, solve, and reflect on a problem. Engineering undergraduates enrolled in physics and thermodynamics reported the frequency of use of problem-solving strategies, confidence in their ability to solve problems, and answered demographic questions. Measures of performance included course grades. Factor-analytic methods that were applied to students' reports of strategy use identified three types of strategies, which were labeled Execution, Planning and Looking Back, and Low Confidence in Ability. The three factors were significant predictors of course performance, based on correlation and regression methods that were applied to the data. The study provides evidence that using problem-solving strategies improves course performance and that low confidence is a hindrance to successful performance. Differences in the roles of problem-solving strategies for engineering students in physics compared to thermodynamics suggest that students use these strategies differently in those courses.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85078735330&partnerID=8YFLogxK
M3 - Conference article
AN - SCOPUS:85078735330
JO - ASEE Annual Conference and Exposition, Conference Proceedings
JF - ASEE Annual Conference and Exposition, Conference Proceedings
SN - 2153-5965
Y2 - 15 June 2019 through 19 June 2019
ER -