Resumen de Reducing Students’ Conceptual Misunderstanding in Engineering Dynamics Through Enhanced Hands-on Experimentation
Conceptual understanding is critical for students’ learning of many subject matters in science and engineering. This paperdescribes an educational intervention called enhanced hands-on experimentation (EHE). The goal is to reduce students’conceptual misunderstanding in engineering dynamics, a foundational second-year course that undergraduates in manyengineering programs are required to take. Two case studies were conducted to compare the effectiveness of EHE inreducing students’ conceptual misunderstanding with that of traditional textbook instruction (TTI). Pre- and post-testswere administered on EHE and TTI student groups in both case studies. A think-aloud approach was employed to collectqualitative verbal data generated by 48 students with 1,248 student responses. By quantifying qualitative verbal datacollected, enhanced hands-on experimentation was found to be more effective than traditional textbook instruction inreducing students’ conceptual misunderstanding in engineering dynamics.
