2026 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

This work-in-progress paper describes the use of an evidence-based practice to develop high-quality educational research for learning and instruction. Signals and Systems is a mandatory course in the electrical engineering undergraduate curriculum. Not only does it apply past concepts from the curriculum, but also introduces new foundational topics to students that are important in subsequent courses. Therefore, it is important that students think critically about all the new abstract concepts and applications they learn. One aspect of assessing student learning that is important to understanding both how, and how much students learn in a course, is to measure the students’ conceptual understanding beyond mathematical formula manipulation. We seek to evaluate student learning in the signals and systems course using a validated concept inventory as a way of understanding students’ conceptual learning. This idea is grounded in constructivist learning theory.
For this study we conducted a pre-test at the start of the semester using the Signal & Systems Concept Inventory developed by Kathleen Wage and John Buck, and we plan to conduct a post test in the same two classes at the end of the semester. By assessing conceptual understanding before and after instruction, the Signals & Systems Concept Inventory enables identification of conceptual change and persistent misconceptions. This aligns with formative assessment principles, by using evidence of learning to inform instruction and promote reflective teaching practices.
We have given the 25 multiple choice question concept inventory to two classes of mostly third year engineering students at a later, public university. A total of 208 students took the pre-test at the beginning of the Fall 2025 semester. We will administer the post test at the end of the same semester. It is expected that the post-test will show a measurable improvement indicating growth in the students’ conceptual understanding of Signals & Systems. However, certain misconceptions may persist despite instruction revealing areas where current teaching methods require reinforcement. The two classes are taught by different instructors, which will provide some insight into instructor-dependent phenomena, as we are also interviewing the instructors on their approaches to teaching each concept.
The outcome of the student will be dependent on how many students complete the post test, as it is completely voluntary. We also recognize that instructional techniques may vary slightly at the discretion of pedagogical preferences of each professor. Moreover, student performance on the pre-test was dependent upon their experience in pre-requisite classes, however, because pre and post tests will be matched by student, bias should be minimized.