2025 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Engineering mechanics is known to be a “bottleneck” course required in various engineering disciplines. Previous work by faculty at XXX University teaching “engineering mechanics: statics and dynamics,” investigated factors impacting student performance. These factors included traditional paper-pencil homework problems, Pearson Mastering Engineering software, “adaptive follow-up” modules, McGraw-Hill Connect online homework, ungraded homework with full access to the assignment solutions, frequent quizzes based on homework problems, daily class quizzes, metacognitive exam wrappers, survey questions targeting students’ attitude towards learning addressing study habits, preparation, participation, and engagement, among others. However, results of these distinct approaches suggested that these changes had minimal impact on the overall students’ academic performance.

In a previous work in Progress, the authors proposed the use of self-graded homework, by assigning traditional paper-pencil carefully crafted problems. These selected problems were self-graded by the students during review sessions before the mid-semester and final exams. The results of that one semester study (fall 2023) suggested that this change did not significantly impact students’ exam scores. However, having students grading their own work did foster reflection. Some students found that the problems were too difficult, suggesting that they should be more manageable and preferred them as group assignments. Moreover, they expressed a desire for hints, including partial solutions or final answers to be provided, or the opportunity to go over problems in more detail in class. Overall, the feedback provided insights into the strengths and areas of improvement for the self-graded assignments.

Adjustments in homework difficulty and format, and support for students are currently being implemented in the fall 2024 semester. The efficacy of this study will be based on observation of students’ performance on exams, and a survey of students’ perceptions to be reported in this work. If proven successful, the targeted self-graded problems will be extended to the subsequent course of mechanics of materials.