2024 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Engineers who learn to sketch develop many essential skills, such as spatial visualization, design idea representation and fluency, and communication. However, most engineering programs focus on digital design tools and no longer teach freehand sketching. In addition, large engineering classrooms make it challenging for instructors to provide personalized teaching and immediate feedback on sketching assignments. We developed an intelligent tutoring system for teaching 2D and 3D sketching fundamentals in perspective. The system has been deployed at three universities for 4 years in undergraduate and graduate mechanical engineering and design graphics courses. It has also been used by undergraduate instructors outside of engineering. While our research has demonstrated the impact of classroom instruction with the software on student learning, self-efficacy, sketching skills, and design ideation, there has been little research into instructors’ experiences teaching freehand sketching with the system.

This study evaluates how instructors implemented an intelligent tutoring system for sketching in their classrooms. We hypothesize that course level, subject area, and class size can be sources of variety in instructors’ teaching approaches. Our research is guided by the following question: In what ways do engineering and design instructors teach freehand perspective sketching with an intelligent tutoring software?
This study follows a qualitative research methodology that included interviews to capture details on instructors’ use of the intelligent sketching tutoring software. Three instructors who implemented the system in their mechanical engineering and design visualization courses at both undergraduate and graduate levels, one instructor of first-year engineering, and one industrial design instructor were purposefully recruited. Three instructors taught with the software for multiple semesters. We follow a semi-structured interview protocol asking how instructors introduce the software into their course, how student work with the software is incorporated into the course learning objectives, what benefits instructors saw with using the software to their own instruction and to students’ learning, and what difficulties and areas for improvement they identified at the end of each semester. Thematic analysis was performed on the interview responses by two researchers using a qualitative data analysis tool namely MAXQDA.

Our results will examine each instructor’s practices in detail. We will report the degree to which the intelligent tutoring software was integrated with lessons and assignments and the ways that instructors scaffold student use of the software. We will also identify key design strengths and weaknesses of the system which helped or hindered its use. We will discuss instructors’ opinions on the software’s support in reaching each course’s learning objectives and compare experiences by level (undergraduate or graduate), subject area (engineering, design, or integrated), and class size. These findings will pinpoint future design features and functions for the software, and generate wider recommended best practices for sketching instruction in engineering and design courses when using intelligent systems.