A Test to Assess Students' Conceptual Understanding of Engineering Metallurgy Subject

Abstract

Engineering students have misconceptions that need to be addressed to improve their understanding of the subject especially in courses that involve several interlinked concepts. While approaches such as concept inventories and concept maps have been used in the past, the present study addresses the importance of learning assessment design with a clear understanding of the conceptual difficulties faced by students. This paper describes a series of diagnostic assessments conducted to understand the most common misconceptions encountered by the Engineering Metallurgy subject students in the 3rd semester of a B.Tech. program in Mechanical Engineering. The goal of this exploratory study was to ascertain whether this diagnostic approach could help the instructor guide the students towards correct responses through multiple interventions. The primary learning interventions included live classroom lectures, asynchronous assignments, blended mode group discussion and supplementary video lectures while secondary learning interventions included periodic postassessment reviews used for some topics. Multiplechoice questions were used for assessment and student responses were classified as correct, misconceptions or 'no basis' responses. The proposed diagnostic approach provides a framework for educators to identify best interventions suitable for specific topics and forms the basis for Outcome- Based Education. The study revealed that for 12 of the 14 topics considered in this tracking approach, a target percentage of correct responses was reached by the students while the number of 'no basis' responses were reduced significantly. The results from this study provide a basis for choosing topics where alternate learning designs could be implemented in the future.