Promoting Critical Thinking Skills in Non-Calculus Ready First Year Engineering Students

Attrition tends to be high among first year engineering students that are not calculus ready. These students tend to migrate out of engineering at a higher rate in comparison with calculus ready students or leave college without finishing a degree. Most institutional efforts and resources are allocated to engineering students that are calculus ready.

In order to fill this gap, it has become necessary to develop a course that serves multiple purposes. First, it must introduce the students to engineering, the engineering design process, and critical thinking skills. Second, the course must be able to combine engineering and critical thinking skills with mathematics in order to prepare the students for higher level courses.

A course of this nature has been implemented for the at West Virginia University as of Fall 2015. Thus far, 17 students have participated in the class, with approximately 65 students enrolled in the Fall 2016 semester. Engineering projects, assessments, lectures, and in class activities have all been designed in order to promote critical thinking and in order to teach the Conceive, Design, Implement, and Operate (CDIO) Educational Framework. In addition, a laboratory portion has been added to the class in order to further develop math skills as they relate to engineering. Preliminary math and CAT critical thinking tests are administered in order to collect baseline data. At the completion of the course, the work done by the students is analyzed and a second math and CAT critical thinking test is administered in order to determine the success of the course in improving students’ critical thinking skills. This paper summarizes the implementation of the course and presents the course material developed to promote critical thinking skills in participants in the study.

Author(s):

Anika Coolbaugh    
Fundamentals of Engineering Program
West Virginia University
United States

Sai Sadhika Veeramachaneni    
Fundamentals of Engineering Program
West Virginia University
United States

Lizzie Santiago    
Fundamentals of Engineering Program
West Virginia University
United States