2023 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

This poster shares the research design and initial findings of the early stage of a 3-year research funded by the National Science Foundation. The major aim of the project is to advance engineering and mathematics (EM) education theory and practice related to students’ self-regulation of cognition and motivation skills during problem-solving activities. The self-regulation includes students’ metacognitive knowledge about task (MKT) and self-regulation of cognition (SRC). The motivational component of self-regulation (SRM) includes self-control of the motivation needed to maintain the level of engagement and deliberate practice necessary for scientific thinking and reasoning. To be effective problem-solvers, students must understand the relationship between the MKT, SRC and SRM throughout the problem-solving activities.

Four research questions guide the research: (1) How do students perceive their self-regulation of cognition (SRC) and motivation (SRM) skills for generic problem-solving activities in EM courses; (2) How does students’ metacognitive knowledge about problem-solving tasks (MKT) inform their Task interpretation?; (3) How do students’ SRC and SRM dynamically evolve?; and (4) How do students’ SRC and SRM reflect their perceptions of self-regulation of cognition and motivation for generic EM problem-solving activities?

A sequential mixed-methods research design involving quantitative and qualitative methods are used to develop complementary coarse- and fine-grained understandings of undergraduate students’ SRC and SRM during academic problem-solving activities. Two 2nd year EM courses: Engineering Statics, and Ordinary Differential Equations were purposefully selected for the contexts of the study. There were 142 students from both courses were participated in quantitative data collection using two validated surveys during spring 2022. One-hundred-twenty-one students were male and 20 students were females. Later in the semester, qualitative data will be generated with twenty students in both courses through one-on-one interviews with students and course instructors, think-aloud protocols with students, and classroom observations.

Our data analysis efforts have not yet completed. Coarse-grained understandings of students’ SRC and SRM are currently developed through analysis of quantitative data collected using self-report surveys: Brief Regulation of Motivation Scale (BRoMS), and the Physics Metacognitive Inventory (PMI). Fine-grained understandings of students’ SRC and SRM will be developed through analysis of qualitative data gathered via one-on-one interviews, think-aloud protocols, classroom observations, and course artifacts gathered as students engage in EM problem-solving activities.

The initial analysis of our quantitative data collected from the both self-report surveys show that there is (1) a significant relationship between students’ strategies to self-regulate their cognition and motivation during problem-solving activities; (2) no significant difference between male and female’s self-regulation of cognition (SRC) and self-regulation of motivation (SRM) during Engineering Statics and Ordinary Differential Equation problem solving; (3) no significant difference of SRM between students who engaged in Engineering Statics and Ordinary Differential Equation problem-solving activities; and (4) a significant difference of reported strategies in interpreting problem and developing plans between those who engaged in Engineering Statics and Ordinary Differential Equation problem-solving activities.