Engineering is widely accepted as a creative discipline. However, research focused on assessment of student creativity in engineering studies is lacking. Creativity by definition encompasses both novelty and value and has been approached through investigations of person, product, process and environment. Contemporary socio-cultural theories of creativity recognize the subjective nature of creativity in terms of a person, domain, and field. Domain specific viewpoints recognize the necessity of specialized skills and knowledge beyond the scope of general creativity to attain advanced levels of creative achievement within a given domain. Given the breadth of these theoretical perspectives, the overarching goal of this research was to initiate a foundational understanding of student creativity through a sustainable energy themed engineering design project developed specifically for an introductory engineering course at Virginia Tech. This embedded mixed-methods study approached creativity through assessment as well as significance of correlations between students' creative thinking abilities, their creative performance and their perceptions of the design experience in terms of known creativity factors on the 8-week long open-ended engineering design project. The study is comprised of two research themes; the investigation begins in theme one with a focus on individual creativity leading to investigation of team creativity in theme two with data collected over two successive semesters (i.e., spring â 07 and fall â 07). Creativity assessment measures included a test of creative thinking abilities, the Abbreviated Torrance Test for Adults (ATTA) as well as application of the Consensual Assessment Technique (CAT), a widely used creativity measurement technique, with graduate student judges assessing creativity of student's brainstorming ideas and final designs. Student surveys were administered for each theme to assess students' perceptions of the design project. Results reveal a significant correlation (p < 0.05) between students' ATTA scores and perceptions of the project as open-ended and interesting. Additional factors significantly correlated (p < 0.05) with students' perceptions of the design experience as creative included finding the project meaningful, interesting, exciting, enjoyable and surprising. Results of inter-rater reliability analysis followed by a two-way ANOVA illustrated difficulties in establishing consistency of judges' assessment of technical brainstorming ideas and final designs. Theme one findings with students repeatedly discussing the importance of their team in the creative process on the design project were further substantiated in theme two, bringing fresh insights concerning the role of collaboration in student creativity in the introductory engineering course. Implications for future research begin with the necessity for establishing reliable judging criteria and training as well as determining appropriate judges used in the assessment of students' creative performance on the design project. This research provides an essential starting point for researchers interested in developing engineering design curriculum to foster creativity. / Ph. D.

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Student interactions in learning environments are vital for learning development. The growth of online learning in higher education has led stakeholders to question how to identify student interactions with course material and increase the quality and value of the learning experience. This research focused on leveraging existing learning analytics from the Canvas Learning Management System (LMS) to identify course interactions and make data-informed course design decisions. Learning analytics were collected from 113 students in three course sections of an online construction management course. Three surveys were also distributed to each course section to gather the students' perceptions of the learning methods and their interactions for assistance. An exploratory graphical analysis visually depicted student interactions in the online course through the students' hourly and weekly interaction levels, page visits, and discussion board activity. A paired t-test was used to statistically compare the survey responses on the students' perceptions of the learning methods. The learning analytics results showed the students' interaction levels peaked in the afternoon and evening hours, and their weekly interactions and page visits lessened after the midterm exam. Additionally, based on Pearson's correlation test, the discussion board interactions significantly correlated with student performance. Lastly, the surveys showed that students found watching the lecture videos and reading the lecture slides to be the most helpful methods when learning the course material. These results have important implications for online stakeholders as learning analytics and student perceptions can inform online course design to facilitate student, instructor, and content interactions. / Master of Science / In an online course, students click on lecture pages to watch lecture videos, they use discussion boards to post and reply to their peers, and they visit their courses at whatever time suits them. These interactions are difficult for an instructor to identify. Therefore, making it harder for them to engage with the students, determine which students are at-risk for failing, or develop their courses based on the students' interactions. This research study leverages learning analytics to identify student interactions in an online construction management course to improve academic decision-making and course design. Learning analytics are interaction data collected from a course that includes every student's interaction with the course material (e.g., page clicks, discussion posts and replies). Additionally, surveys were distributed to each of the three online construction management course sections used in this study to gather the students' thoughts about the available learning methods (e.g., video lectures, lecture slides). The learning analytics results showed that student interaction fluctuates by the hour and lessens after the midterm exam. The survey results found watching the lecture videos and reading the lecture slides were the most helpful learning methods. The capabilities of learning analytics must be addressed by online stakeholders when developing future online courses. The growth of online learning is inevitable, and the results of this paper suggest that learning analytics can identify unnoticed student interaction patterns and influence future online course design.

O que se desejou investigar é se o curso de Engenharia Civil da Escola Politécnica da Universidade de São Paulo mostra-se adequado principalmente na perspectiva do aluno. Pretendeu-se descobrir o que ainda deve ser mudado e o que não deve ser mudado, avaliando-se as ações implementadas na Escola com base nas percepções apontadas e divulgadas principalmente à época do seu Centenário, em 1993. O presente trabalho visa avaliar o que foi implementado nesses doze anos. Como a formação gradual do engenheiro desta Escola privilegia a formação básica e o maior número de queixas registradas era com relação às disciplinas do Ciclo Básico, focalizou-se com mais ênfase a satisfação dos alunos do primeiro e segundo ano. Esta tese apresenta sugestões de novas ações para conduzir ao aprimoramento de um curso de Engenharia. / The aim of this study is an evaluation of whether the Civil Engineering course of Escola Politécnica da Universidade de São Paulo is adequate from the point of the students. Great effort has been spent on finding what had to be changed, as well as on highlighting what should not be changed, through an evaluation of the group decisions implemented at this School as a result of the staff cooperation in producing a new course structure in conjunction with the commemorations of the First Centennial of the School\'s foundation. This resulted in continued action in the last 12 years, which is evaluated in this study. Because the School emphasizes the basic education of its engineering students and because most students\' complaints were related to the first two years of the course, called Ciclo Básico (\"Basic Cycle\"), these opinions were highlighted as an important result. This study also includes a set of suggestions aimed at the improvement of any engineering course.

O que se desejou investigar é se o curso de Engenharia Civil da Escola Politécnica da Universidade de São Paulo mostra-se adequado principalmente na perspectiva do aluno. Pretendeu-se descobrir o que ainda deve ser mudado e o que não deve ser mudado, avaliando-se as ações implementadas na Escola com base nas percepções apontadas e divulgadas principalmente à época do seu Centenário, em 1993. O presente trabalho visa avaliar o que foi implementado nesses doze anos. Como a formação gradual do engenheiro desta Escola privilegia a formação básica e o maior número de queixas registradas era com relação às disciplinas do Ciclo Básico, focalizou-se com mais ênfase a satisfação dos alunos do primeiro e segundo ano. Esta tese apresenta sugestões de novas ações para conduzir ao aprimoramento de um curso de Engenharia. / The aim of this study is an evaluation of whether the Civil Engineering course of Escola Politécnica da Universidade de São Paulo is adequate from the point of the students. Great effort has been spent on finding what had to be changed, as well as on highlighting what should not be changed, through an evaluation of the group decisions implemented at this School as a result of the staff cooperation in producing a new course structure in conjunction with the commemorations of the First Centennial of the School\'s foundation. This resulted in continued action in the last 12 years, which is evaluated in this study. Because the School emphasizes the basic education of its engineering students and because most students\' complaints were related to the first two years of the course, called Ciclo Básico (\"Basic Cycle\"), these opinions were highlighted as an important result. This study also includes a set of suggestions aimed at the improvement of any engineering course.

Increasing enrollment of students and declining availability of qualified and experienced faculty are leading to increased assessment loads of the existing faculty. Moreover, the assessment techniques are changing drastically due to the ever-increasing demand of new knowledge and abilities from the students. The tools offered by information technology can now be effectively used in enhancing the productivity of a teacher. This thesis proposes a mechanism for creating both summative and formative assessment instruments for a course in an engineering program. The assessment instruments will vary widely in nature depending on the subject. With increasing prevalence of digital devices in all walks of life a first level knowledge of digital systems is considered necessary for all engineers especially under electrical and computer engineering curricula. The first level course ‘Basics of Digital Systems’ is chosen for developing a framework of computer assisted evaluation. Creation of assessment instruments is best done in the context of an instructional system design (ISD) model. ADDIE, a generic model is chosen for the study. Bloom’s classification of levels of cognition, Vincenti’s categorization of engineering knowledge, and ‘Gronlund 2-level’ method for writing the learning objectives are integrated to create a ‘Bloom-Vincenti–Gronlund’(BVG)framework for preparing the learning objectives/assessment instruments. Developing tools for evaluation of performance of students in the assessment tests requires consideration of many issues: analysis of problems and their solution methods, errors normally committed by students, grading preferences of the instructor and feedback to students. A set of tools are developed that are able to evaluate the truth tables, state tables, excitation tables, timing diagram and VHDL codes. The developed tools are validated. The submission of the assignment and the integration of all the tools for evaluation will be more effective if they can be integrated in a learning management system (LMS). ‘MOODLE’, an open source LMS, is identified for the integration of the tools. The developed tools execute the files submitted by the students, evaluate them, and provide feedback to the students. In summary, the thesis addressed some key issues related to “assessment and evaluation of students’ performance” and proposed an integrated computer assisted system for the evaluation of students’ performance in the course ‘Basics of Digital Systems’.