Research in Engineering Education Symposium 2011 - rees2009

Universidad Politécnica de Madrid (UPM) Página 852 de 957
Results
Average scores for the four problems that students solved are presented in Table 1.
Average scores separated by problem type are presented in Table 2. On average students
scored significantly higher on problems with few decision points (78%) than problems
with many decision points (56%), t (1, 118) = 4.25, p < .001. A greater number of decision
points was expected to result in more challenging problems because the problem solver
would have to consider a greater number of variables while generating a solution. In
contrast, students scored higher on open-ended problems (75%) compared to closedended
problems (59%), t (1, 118) = 2.98, p < .001.
This was an unexpected finding, as it had been anticipated that students would have lower
scores on the two open-ended problems. The average score for problem 3 was much
higher than the average scores for the other three problems, and, in addition, the variance
for this problem was much lower than that of other problems. The unusually high scores
of students on this problem likely contributed to the unexpectedly higher scores on the
open-ended problems. Qualitative data from the ten students who participated in the think
alouds were examined to gain further insight into this unexpected finding. Although
students scored higher on open-ended problems, students who participated in the think
alouds expressed greater discomfort with these problems due to the ambiguous nature of
the problems. Analysis of the think aloud data from the two open-ended problems resulted
in three themes describing students‘ responses to ambiguity: 1. Students had difficulty
accessing the problems, 2. Students used various processes to deal with ambiguity, and 3.
Students made decisions in various ways in response to ambiguity. Within each of these
themes are subthemes which describe the kinds of difficulties that students had with
accessing the problems, the processes that students used to deal with ambiguity, and the
kinds of decisions that students made in response to ambiguity that they encountered in
the problems.
Proceedings of Research in Engineering Education Symposium 2011
Madrid, 4 th - 7 th October 2011