2024 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

IDEAL Creative Biomechanics Project and the Impact on Students’ Engagement (Phase III)

Presented at Biomedical Engineering Division (BED) Technical Session 1

Purpose: Gamification has been shown to improve students’ learning and improve their motivation. We previously implemented Phases I & II of the Interactive Digital Experience as an Alternative Lab (IDEAL) to simulate a real-world scenario. IDEAL uses a gamified structure to automate student-led evidence collection as the lead detective in a fictional storyline. The implementation of IDEAL resulted in students’ creative participation and improved the performance on their final reports. Over the past 2 years, we have improved the storyline by including day-before videos, images of the crime scene, as well as audio files of the witness interviews (to supplement the video files). We have also included more hints and feedback on user input throughout the investigation process. In Phase III, we tested the hypothesis that there would be improved learning of the core course concepts through increased engagement with the challenge.

Methods: We evaluated students’ engagement with the forensic biomechanics challenge through thematic coding of their investigation reports. We classified blurbs from students’ reports based on Fredricks conceptual frameworks of engagement into 3 categories: emotional, behavioral, and cognitive engagement. The engagement score, obtained through coding, for each student was then compared to their grades on this challenge problem.

Results: There is a strong correlation between students’ engagement and their grades, with cognitive engagement showing the most significant correlation. Overall higher engagement translated into higher grades on his particular activity. The use of the thematically coded reports as means of assessing students’ engagement with the activity was verified by investigating students’ actual behavior while working on this problem (progress codes and Kaltura metadata). A strong correlation was observed between emotional and behavioural engagement data from the coded reports as well as their access pattern.

Conclusion: The results of this project continue to show that the forensic biomechanics challenge problem using the IDEAL framework improves students’ learning through increased engagement.

Authors

Dr. Michele J. Grimm State University of New York at Albany [biography]

Michele J. Grimm, PhD, became Dean of the College of Nanotechnology, Science, and Engineering at the University at Albany (SUNY) in August 2022. She previously held an endowed professorship in mechanical engineering at Michigan State University (2019-2022), was a program director at the National Science Foundation (2016-2019), and spent 25 years on the faculty of Wayne State University (1994-2019). While at Wayne State, she established the Department of Biomedical Engineering along with both undergraduate programs in BME. She served as associate dean for academic affairs in the College of Engineering for 7 years. In addition, Michele has served an ABET Evaluator since 2008, was a member of the Engineering Accreditation Commission from 2015-2020, and currently serves on the ABET Board of Delegates. In 2019, the Biomedical Engineering Division of ASEE recognized Michele with the Theo C. Pilkington Outstanding Educator Award. Michele earned her BS in Biomedical Engineering and Engineering Mechanics from The Johns Hopkins University and her MS and PhD in Bioengineering from the University of Pennsylvania.
Dr. Roza Vaez Ghaemi University of British Columbia, Vancouver [biography]

Rosa and her BSC in Biomedical Engineering from Amirkabir University of Technology (Tehran Polytechnic) and earned a MSC in Biomedical Engineering from University of Tehran. she then earned a MASC and her PhD in Biomedical Engineering from the University of British Columbia. she is currently a postdoctoral research associate at Michigan State University way to focus on engineering education research and gamification to enhance students learning and engagement.
Dr. Elizabeth Mays University of Michigan [biography]

BSE- Biomedical Engineering, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI
MSE- Biomedical Engineering, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI
PhD- Biomedical Engineering, Wayne State University, Detroit, MI
Post-Doc for Engineering Education at Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI
Currently Lecturer III at University of Michigan, Department of Biomedical Engineering

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