2024 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Many freshmen engineering students often face a lack of motivation while studying calculus due to different factors that can affect their performance in this course and their overall university experience. A limited mathematical background coupled with the abstract nature of calculus may cause some students to feel overwhelmed and demotivated [1]. Furthermore, most first-year engineering students aim to solve real-world problems in their first days of class; however, they find themselves loaded with theoretical courses that seem distant from engineering applications. Various approaches have been proposed for mitigating this problem. Among these, we are interested in the use of digital badges as a possible strategy to enhance students’ motivation and develop long-lasting enthusiasm for mastering calculus.
According to [2], digital badges are virtual artifacts granted to individuals as micro-credentials to record events such as achievements or mastery of skills, which could involve completing a course or a training program. Digital badges are similar to physical medals as they offer visual recognition of a person's accomplishments. In recent years, different digital badge architectures have been introduced in the context of education as a valuable tool for motivating students to engage actively with the course content, assignments, and strive for exceptional grades [3]. Thus, the incorporation of digital badges in education offers an opportunity to intrinsically motivate students and enhance their learning experience.
Based on the Framework for Successful Badge Program Implementation (FSBPI) presented in [4], we introduce a digital badge architecture for an introductory engineering calculus course. The FSBPI provides recommendations in three categories: instructional design, badge system platform, and program implementation. The main objective of this study is to present all details on the design, implementation, and validation of the proposed badge architecture and how the FSBPI led us to obtain the desired results.
The badge instructional design category of the FSBPI suggests that badges must be tied directly to learning objectives. In our course, those objectives were categorized into three areas: theoretical aspects, operational skills, and applications. Consequently, we introduced a badge for each of these categories within differential and integral calculus. Grades from the course examinations were used as measurable evidence of accomplishment. It is worth mentioning that these badges are associated with the names of renowned mathematicians who shaped calculus, thus paying tribute to their intellectual legacy and inspiring students by linking their achievements to those of acclaimed mathematicians. In addition, we also introduced a set of badges to acknowledge and reward perseverance throughout the course. This aspect is especially important for courses with a significant workload, such as ours, which includes 28 worksheets. Granting badges at various milestones recognizes the student’s continuous effort, thus making the long journey more manageable.
Finally, to improve the manageability and sustainability of our badge architecture, we integrated it into our LMS, thereby reducing faculty workload and enhancing student access. We conclude by discussing strategies for introducing the badge architecture to students and faculty and assessing its effectiveness using the guidelines in the FSBPI's last category.

References:
[1] R. Portillo, C. Andersson, A. Alvarado, G. Kroisandt and D. Logofatu, "Guatemala vs. Germany-A cross-cultural study of students motivation in basic mathematics courses," 2022 IEEE World Engineering Education Conference (EDUNINE), Santos, Brazil, 2022, pp. 1 - 6, doi: 10.1109/EDUNINE53672.2022.9782378.
[2] H. E. Parker, “Digital Badges to Assess Bloom's Affective Domain”, The National Teaching & Learning Forum, 24: 9 - 11, 2015. https://doi.org/10.1002/ntlf.30031.
[3] R. Rughinis and S. Matei, “Badge Architectures as Tools for Sense-Making and Motivation in Engineering Education”, International Journal of Engineering Pedagogy (iJEP), 5(4), pp. 55–63, 2015. https://doi.org/10.3991/ijep.v5i4.4957.
[4] J. Stefaniak and K. Carey, “Instilling purpose and value in the implementation of digital badges in higher education”, International Journal of Educational Technology in Higher Education 16, 44, 2019. https://doi.org/10.1186/s41239-019-0175-9