2025 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Learning outcomes in undergraduate capstone, design, and laboratory courses are typically centered around hands-on experience, providing students with the technical skills necessary within their engineering discipline. However, leaders in engineering education suggest that these hands-on courses should encompass a broader set of learning outcomes in order to train students to “think like an engineer”. Critical thinking, experimental design, and technical communication skills have been increasingly prioritized in engineering programs, but implementing curriculum that both addresses these skills and integrates them with essential technical content has proved challenging. In this work, we present a framework for incorporating research and communication learning outcomes into the materials science and engineering undergraduate curriculum. Through this framework, we explore how course design and the use of continuous self-assessment influence student metacognition and self-perception.

In 2020, our Nanomaterials Laboratory course was redesigned as the introductory laboratory for materials science and engineering undergraduates. The broader goal was to train students to propose their own scientific investigations and build their identity as materials engineers before actually stepping foot in the lab. Four new learning outcomes were established to support this goal: preparing students to (1) summarize the important objectives, methods, findings, and conclusions of a scientific report; (2) perform a literature search to identify a research gap; (3) critique and evaluate an experimental plan; and (4) design their own set of experiments to answer a specific set of scientific questions. To achieve these learning outcomes, laboratory sessions were replaced with weekly writing assessments and discussion sections, allowing students to individually and collaboratively build important research and communication skills. Each writing assessment included 4-5 short answer responses that introduced experimental design and scientific communication concepts. In discussion, students collaboratively worked through case studies and example problems to practice each of the learning outcomes and reflect on their written responses. After taking our Nanomaterials course, students would further develop these skills in subsequent laboratory courses and other hands-on experiences.

To measure student metacognition and self-perception, students completed weekly self-assessments that asked them to self-identify (a) any skills they gained or improved upon, (b) any topics that were challenging, (c) which learning outcomes were practiced, and (d) their ability to achieve the learning outcomes. Over three iterations of the course, students collectively reported a 25% improvement in their ability to achieve the four new learning outcomes compared to their initial responses. Students self-reported a wide range of new skills developed, but most identified consistent challenges related to acquiring and synthesizing new information. Additionally, students indicated that all four learning outcomes were addressed throughout the course components and their perceptions closely matched our intended timeline. Overall, our results demonstrate that that critical thinking, experimental design, and technical communication learning outcomes can be integrated effectively into an undergraduate materials science and engineering curriculum and have a positive impact on student metacognition and self-perception. Furthermore, this framework allows us to further investigate long-term student outcomes and determine if our approach equitably prepares students with transferrable skills that extend beyond the classroom.