2025 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

An Evaluation of Student Responses to a Fluid Mechanics Concept Inventory

Presented at ME Division 8: Measuring What Matters: Concept Inventories, FE Exam, and Learning Skills

A concept inventory is a valuable tool to assess a student's grasp of specific concepts within a course. In this study, we utilized the Fluid Mechanics Concept Inventory (FMCI) in a mandatory Fluid Mechanics course at a large southeastern university offering an undergraduate Mechanical Engineering program. The FMCI comprised 30 multiple-choice questions, each with three to five options. To gather data, we administered the inventory on campus for 60 minutes in a 75-minute class period during the penultimate week of the semester, with 216 participating students across the Fall 2022, Spring 2023, and Fall 2023 semesters. Our analysis focused on various parameters, including item difficulty, item discrimination, reliability, alpha with items deleted, item response theory, and subscale alpha. The calculated Cronbach's alpha as a measure of reliability was found to be 0.73, and the correlation between the concept inventory and the final exam score was weak. We identified several questions that appeared to warrant removal based on different criteria. Seven questions were suggested for removal when considering the combination of accepted ranges of difficulty (0.3 to 0.9) and discrimination indices (≥0.2), while according to the item-response-theory-analysis criterion, only four questions warranted removal. To ensure comparability with other studies using the same inventory, we used all questions despite the identification of potential removal candidates. We could not perform exploratory or confirmatory factor analysis or diagnostic classification modeling due to the design of the questions, which addressed distinct concepts by fewer than three questions converging on a single concept. This limitation highlights the need for a revised concept inventory to enhance student learning in this area and ensure the effectiveness of our teaching methods.

Authors

Ozge Uyanik University of South Florida [biography]

Ozge Uyanik is a PhD candidate in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at the University of South Florida, where she researches engineering education and develops microfluidic systems and surface acoustic wave-based devices using 3D printing and advanced microfabrication techniques. She holds a B.S. from Istanbul Technical University (Turkey), having completed a double major in mechanical engineering and meteorological engineering.
Ozge was awarded the 2024 Student Research Award by USF Research & Innovation and the Florida High Tech Corridor for her exceptional research accomplishments. This honor highlights her significant contributions to advancing the high-tech industry and fostering innovation.
Since 2021, Ozge has served as a teaching assistant for various undergraduate and graduate courses. Additionally, she is engaged in NSF-supported research and scholarship focused on metacognition support and assessment within a flipped and blended Fluid Mechanics course.
Ozge is affiliated with the Tau Beta Pi Engineering Honor Society and has held roles as professional chair and sub-lead Engineering Expo chair in the Florida Gamma Chapter. She is also an active member of the Society of Women Engineers (SWE) and currently co-chairs the graduate section of SWE at the University of South Florida. She has judged the SWE Recognition Program, emphasizing Diversity, Equity, Inclusion & Belonging. Recognizing her leadership potential, she has been selected for SWE's Collegiate Leadership Institute (CLI) Program and the SWE Leadership Development Program (LDP).
Prof. Autar Kaw http://orcid.org/0000-0002-3976-6375 University of South Florida [biography]

Autar Kaw is a mechanical engineering professor at the University of South Florida. Recognized with the 2012 U.S. Professor of the Year Award (doctoral and research universities) from the Council for Advancement and Support of Education and the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, Kaw's scholarly pursuits include engineering education research, adaptive, blended, and flipped learning, open courseware development, composite materials mechanics, and examining the future of higher education. His research has received funding from the National Science Foundation, Air Force Office of Scientific Research, Florida Department of Transportation, and Wright Patterson Air Force Base. Supported by the National Science Foundation, Kaw has led a national collaboration to develop, implement, refine, and assess online resources for open courseware in Numerical Methods (http://nm.MathForCollege.com). These resources gather over 1 million page views annually and 1.6 million YouTube lecture views, attracting more than 90,000 visitors to the "numerical methods guy" blog. This work also evaluates how flipped, blended, and adaptive environments effectively help engineering students learn content, hone group-working skills, and perceive their learning contexts. Kaw has published more than 130 peer-reviewed technical papers, and his opinion pieces have been featured in the Tampa Bay Times, the Tampa Tribune, and the Chronicle of Higher Education.
Dr. Rasim Guldiken University of South Florida [biography]

Dr. Rasim Guldiken is the Associate Dean for Academic Affairs of the College of Engineering and a Professor of the Mechanical Engineering Department at the University of South Florida (USF). Dr. Guldiken has been recognized with multiple awards and honors, including the 2022 ASME Fellow, 2022 USF Faculty Outstanding Research Achievement Award, 2022 USF Academic Excellence Award, 2019 and 2012 USF University-Wide Outstanding Undergraduate Teaching Awards, 2018 USF Outstanding Graduate Faculty Mentor Honorable Mention and 2014 Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE) Ralph Teetor Educational Award.

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The full paper will be available to logged in and registered conference attendees once the conference starts on June 22, 2025, and to all visitors after the conference ends on June 25, 2025

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