2023 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

This complete research paper explores first-year engineering students’ self-reported feedback needs in an “Art in Engineering” class, specifically how those self-reported feedback needs change or show consistency over time as students gain knowledge of feedback and its many purposes and forms as a part of in-class discussions and activities throughout the semester. Feedback is an important tool to any learning experience and should function to form a communication loop between the learner and expert such that the expert can communicate misconceptions or incorrect performance in a way that allows the learner to then correctively act to achieve improved learning or performance. Research on the impact of feedback on student learning achievements is expansive, but research on feedback in engineering courses is comparatively very sparse. Specifically feedback in instances such as design-based projects and courses where there is no final ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ answer. The study described in this paper explores engineering students' self-reported feedback needs throughout one semester in an Art in Engineering class through the use of ‘exit tickets’ (short-answer surveys before students leave class each day) that ask students what type of feedback they would like to receive from instructors, teaching assistants, and peers on their creative work assignments to improve their learning and performance. This exploration of students’ self-reported feedback needs will explore their specified forms of feedback with regards to four distinct characteristics of the feedback: the source (such as who it comes from), the timeliness (how soon they get it), the mode (how the feedback gets to them, etc.) and the content of the feedback (what they want the feedback to say). These ‘exit ticket’ surveys related to feedback were given to students at week 5, week 10, and week 15 of the semester. The results of this paper present the characteristics of students self-reported feedback needs at each point in the semester and 1) compare in what ways the characteristics may have changed or remained consistent following in-class discussions about feedback and its forms and purposes as well as 2) how the characteristics reflect best-practices related to feedback and student learning. Our data indicate that first-year engineering students don’t have a strong understanding of the breadth of feedback characteristics, as when they were first asked to identify their feedback needs their answers were not descriptive. However, as the course continued and students participated in in-class discussions around feedback they were able to further expand upon their own feedback needs and preferences in the later class surveys, revealing more insights into the self-reported feedback preferences of engineering students.