Research in Engineering Education Symposium 2011 - rees2009

Universidad Politécnica de Madrid (UPM) Página 700 de 957
Understanding Feedback in an Authentic, Ill-Structured Project through Discourse
Analysis: Interaction between Student and Instructor Objectives
Context
Debra Gilbuena 1, Ben Sherrett 1, Edith Gummer 2, and Milo D. Koretsky 1
milo.koretsky@oregonstate.edu
1. Oregon State University, Corvallis, Oregon
2. Education Northwest, Portland, Oregon
United States of America
Abstract: This paper presents a case study of feedback in an authentic
engineering project in which the primary objectives of the students and the
instructor are different but complementary. Students focus on completion of the
authentic task. The instructors’ intent is to promote knowledge integration of
core engineering science concepts. These perspectives are bridged by the
project’s authentic, situated context. Using an episodes framework to examine a
feedback session, we investigate how the student objectives, the instructor
objectives, and project contextualization are addressed and how these three
elements interact. They are found to be interwoven generally initiating with
student objective focused discussion, incorporating instructor objectives, as
appropriate, as tools to help students achieve their objectives. Project
contextualization reinforces the authenticity and contributes to validating the
utility of core content and concepts.
Feedback has been shown to be one of the most important tools used by instructors to
help students close the gap between actual and desired performance. According to a metaanalysis
by Hattie and Timperely (2007) the effect size of feedback is among the highest of
all educational factors, weighted heavier than such factors as students’ prior cognitive
ability, socioeconomic status, and reduction in class size. While feedback has been shown
to strongly influence student performance and learning, explicit research on the effect of
feedback in engineering education is sparse. Findings from studies of first-year
engineering students (Bjorklund, Parente, & Sathianathan, 2002; Moreno, Reisslein, &
Ozogul, 2009) show that feedback is positively related to learning gains. These results are
consistent with studies in other disciplines (Kuh & Hu, 2001). However, there is no general
agreement on what characterizes “effective” feedback. Additionally authentic, situated
environments are believed to benefit student learning. Studies of feedback in authentic
projects are uncommon and needed. This study extends our group's use of episodes as a
discourse analysis framework to investigate feedback in the industrially situated Virtual
Chemical Vapor Deposition (CVD) Laboratory Project.
Over the last seven years, we have developed, implemented, and been assessing the
authentic, industrially situated Virtual CVD Laboratory Project (Koretsky, Amatore,
Barnes, & Kimura, 2008). This project provides opportunities for student teams to develop
and refine solutions to an authentic engineering task through experimentation, analysis,
and iteration. While the phrase “student objectives” can be interpreted in many ways, in
this study the student objectives encompass the explicit project objectives: develop an
Proceedings of Research in Engineering Education Symposium 2011
Madrid, 4 th - 7 th October 2011