2024 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Teaching Online Engineering: A Systematic Literature Review

Presented at Educational Research and Methods Division (ERM) Technical Session 28

Globally, online education is becoming more and more popular because of its flexibility, scalability, and accessibility. Despite these benefits, compared to in-person classes, online education has a comparatively higher dropout rate among students. The literature has documented several factors that affect students' decision to continue with online courses, including a diminished sense of community, support from peers and family, communication with the instructor, and effective time management, among others. Additionally, the students enrolled in online courses/programs are non-traditional students including veterans, first-generation students, underrepresented minorities, working part-time or full-time, married, have kids, etc. Several research studies have focused on investigating the factors for student retention in online courses and most of the literature documents the students’ perspectives on this. Also, there is a significant difference in teaching face-to-face and online courses.

This research paper focuses on the research on teaching online engineering courses. By understanding the approaches online teachers use to teach, design courses, and challenges faced, we hope to maximize the benefits of learning from online engineering courses. Through exploring teachers' experiences and perspectives, we aim to shed light on the possibilities of online engineering education and its potential to enhance the online engineering education experience. This study aims at answering the following research question ‘What are the predominant themes that arise from the research on teaching online engineering asynchronously?’. In this study a systematic literature review on teaching online engineering courses is presented.

A total of 1463 articles were retrieved from seven databases including Web of Science, Google Scholar, IEEE Xplore Library, Science Direct, Engineering Village, EBSCO, and Wiley online library. The following search terms was used to retrieve articles: teaching online engineering, teaching online engineering + challenges, online engineering pedagogy, online teaching practices + engineering, online course design + engineering, online course delivery + engineering, online course assessment + engineering, and instructional design + online engineering. These articles were then screened by abstracts following the nine exclusion criteria and 226 articles made it to the next phase. These 226 articles were then screened by full text and only six articles made it to the final inclusion phase. The themes that emerged from the synthesis of the six articles are improvement of conceptual learning and critical thinking, use of technology for inclusive teaching practices, and enhancement of student interactions and engagement. The findings of this study are timely and relevant as ABET is increasingly accrediting online engineering programs in the United States.

Authors

Youla Ali University of Oklahoma [biography]

Youla Ali, a Junior majoring in Computer Science at the University of Oklahoma, currently serves as a Research Assistant in the Engineering Pathways program under the mentorship of Dr. Javeed Kittur for the academic years 2023-2024. Her research focuses on online engineering education, driven by her desire to understand the challenges that instructors face when transitioning course components, such as experiments and labs, to remote formats. As an engineering student herself, Youla aims to offer valuable insights into effective online teaching strategies. She wishes for her contributions to enhance course interaction and ensure student perseverance in asynchronous engineering education for peers who rely on online learning options.

In summer 2023, Youla was awarded a fellowship by The Office of Undergraduate Research and Creative Activity (UReCA) at the University of Oklahoma. This fellowship enabled her to complete a Systematic Literature Review on asynchronous online engineering education under the title "Teaching Online Engineering: A Systematic Literature Review". Her research has contributed to identifying emerging themes in six finalist scholarly papers on asynchronous online engineering education and has offered significant Research and Practice Implications for these themes.
Dr. Javeed Kittur http://orcid.org/0000-0001-6132-7304 University of Oklahoma [biography]

Dr. Kittur is an Assistant Professor in the Gallogly College of Engineering at The University of Oklahoma. He completed his Ph.D. in Engineering Education Systems and Design program from Arizona State University, 2022. He received a bachelor’s degree in Electrical and Electronics Engineering and a Master’s in Power Systems from India in 2011 and 2014, respectively. He has worked with Tata Consultancy Services as an Assistant Systems Engineer from 2011–2012 in India. He has worked as an Assistant Professor (2014–2018) in the department of Electrical and Electronics Engineering, KLE Technological University, India. He is a certified IUCEE International Engineering Educator. He was awarded the ’Ing.Paed.IGIP’ title at ICTIEE, 2018. He is serving as an Associate Editor of the Journal of Engineering Education Transformations (JEET).

He is interested in conducting engineering education research, and his interests include student retention in online and in-person engineering courses/programs, data mining and learning analytics in engineering education, broadening student participation in engineering, faculty preparedness in cognitive, affective, and psychomotor domains of learning, and faculty experiences in teaching online courses. He has published papers at several engineering education research conferences and journals. Particularly, his work is published in the International Conference on Transformations in Engineering Education (ICTIEE), American Society for Engineering Education (ASEE), Computer Applications in Engineering Education (CAEE), International Journal of Engineering Education (IJEE), Journal of Engineering Education Transformations (JEET), and IEEE Transactions on Education. He is also serving as a reviewer for a number of conferences and journals focused on engineering education research.

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