2026 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

This Work in Progress Paper presents a three-year assessment of ENGR/PHYS 217 Experimental Physics and Engineering Lab III - Electricity and Magnetism, a first-year engineering physics course at Texas A&M University that integrates lectures and laboratory experiences related to electricity and magnetism. Using instructor surveys, student course evaluation data, and course assessment committee reflections, this paper proposes a method for assessing a course with respect to curricular goals, strengths, challenges, and opportunities for improvement, and discusses the implications for first-year engineering education, particularly for programs balancing disciplinary content, experiential learning, and scalability.

First-year engineering programs aim to prepare students for disciplinary study by providing foundational knowledge and transferable skills. At Texas A&M University, ENGR/PHYS 217 is the second in a two-course physics sequence within the First Year Engineering Program. The course blends weekly lectures and bi-weekly laboratories in electricity and magnetism, with additional emphasis on ethics, project management, and applied engineering. Given the scale of enrollment (1,000+ students per year) and the diversity of student preparation, the course faces challenges typical of large gateway engineering courses. This paper reports on a systematic course assessment conducted between 2024 and 2026, with the goal of identifying areas for improvement and sharing lessons applicable to other first-year engineering contexts.

In conducting this study, the course assessment committee employed three complementary approaches: 1) a survey of ENGR/PHYS 217 instructors that included Likert-scale and narrative feedback questions addressing course content, laboratory experiments, student assessment, and course outcomes, 2) an evaluation of trends in student evaluation data from 2021 to 2023 on course outcomes, critical thinking, organization, and diverse perspectives, and 3) reflections by course assessment committee members on the current strengths and areas for improvement with the course. These approaches can be readily adapted to other courses and programs that face challenges similar to those faced by ENGR/PHYS 217.

Feedback provided by seven ENGR/PHYS 217 instructors included observations of curriculum overload and overlap with prerequisite physics courses, inconsistent laboratory grading practices, and limited classroom time for active learning. Restructuring the course around projects integrating engineering design, circuits, and engineering ethics was also suggested. The mean of instructor ordinal responses to Likert-scale questions, with a scale from 1 – Strongly Disagree to 5 – Strongly Agree, showed that instructors agree (4.125) that the ENGR/PHYS 217 current laboratory experiments are in line with the stated course outcomes and also agree (4.125) that current weekly formative assessments help students and instructors track student achievement the course outcomes, while instructors are more neutral (3.375) on whether the current form of the Final Exam adequately assesses student achievement of course outcomes.

Despite these challenges, longitudinal student evaluation data from 2021–2023 showed steady improvement in perceived learning outcomes and course organization, and comparable scores with other first-year engineering program courses by 2023. From 2021 to 2023, comparison of student ratings of ENGR/PHYS 217 in key outcome measures to student ratings in these same outcome measures for two other courses offered by the first-year engineering program improved from meaningfully lower for all ENGR/PHYS 217 measures compared to measures for both other courses, to meaningfully lower for some ENGR/PHYS 217 measures compared to measures for only one course and no meaningful difference for other ENGR/PHYS 217 measures compared to measures for both other courses.

Findings so far highlight a tension between breadth and depth in first-year engineering physics courses. While bridging theoretical physics with applied engineering is important, and integrative content (ethics, project management) is valuable, disconnected implementation reduced coherence. Additionally, the reliance on peer teachers is effective for scaling but requires stronger training and accountability. The progressive improvement in student evaluations suggests recent delivery adjustments are having impact, yet systemic redesign is necessary for sustained outcomes.

The paper discusses recommendations including short-term adjustments (e.g., topic streamlining, enhanced peer-teacher training, and appointment of a course coordinator) as well as longer-term reforms (e.g., expansion of weekly class time, adoption of sequential project-based learning, and restructured laboratory experiment design). Continuing work on this project includes revising and refining the instructor course assessment survey questions, increasing the response rate of instructors to the course assessment survey, soliciting recurring feedback from instructors of their observations and insights throughout the time they are teaching, and adding student evaluation from 2024 and 2025 calendar years. This course assessment demonstrates how multi-year data collection and reflection can drive meaningful curricular change in first-year engineering courses. Lessons learned from ENGR/PHYS 217 are broadly relevant to programs facing large enrollments, diverse student preparation, and the challenge of balancing technical rigor with experiential learning.