Classroom tests are a common and default form of assessments in concept-heavy, fundamental engineering courses. Tests have benefits to learning, such as the testing effect that helps with the retrieval of knowledge, but there are also disadvantages, like discouraging deep learning approaches and decreasing motivation to learn, that warrant examining and questioning why tests are common, which engineering education literature lacks. Furthermore, the advancement of assessment research has led to alternative assessments that can diversify types of assessments and promote intentionality in test usage in these courses, supporting the need for scholarship on understanding test usage. My research began to address this by studying fundamental engineering course instructors' test beliefs and behaviors because engineering instructors have shown to have autonomy in making course decisions and barriers to adopting scholarship-based assessment practices among these engineering instructors persist.
This dissertation study, grounded in the Situated Expectancy Value Theory (SEVT), explored, uncovered, and articulated seven fundamental engineering course instructors' test beliefs and behaviors from mechanical engineering and engineering science departments in a public, land-grant, Research 1 institution. Leveraging the case study research methodology from a pragmatic perspective, my multi-case study, with each participant being defined as a case, answered an overarching research question and five sub-research questions that yielded findings on five test aspects: test usage, design, administration, cheating, and fairness. Eight collected data sources in the form of qualitative interviews, course, department, and institution documents became the database to answer the questions. Analyses of these data involved coding and content analysis, and subsequent thematic analysis. The outcome of these analyses shaped the individual case profiles for cross-case analysis to understand belief and behavior patterns at a higher level.
My research has found three groups of test usage beliefs. These are enthusiastic test users, default test users, and skeptical test users. All participants featured tests heavily in their courses and justified with learning outcomes and some non-course-content factors like large class sizes for grading conveniences. However, those in default and skeptical test user groups also acknowledged some non-course-content factors, like inertia and peer pressure, that influenced their test usage beliefs and behaviors. All participants acknowledged some disadvantages with tests, but those who are skeptical with test usage presented stronger beliefs about test disadvantages, arguing for the need to move away from tests when necessary. Some participants also presented conflicting beliefs and behaviors regarding their test usage. My study has also found all participants using problem-solving questions, emphasizing the need to curb cheating especially during the Covid-19 pandemic, preferring in-person test administration, and defining test fairness with reasonable completion time and adequate content coverage. These findings contribute to addressing identified research gaps in the literature and have implications for future research on tests with assessment philosophies, classroom practices on diversifying assessments and intentional test usage, and future research on possible assessment roles in addressing systemic inequity in engineering. / Doctor of Philosophy / Tests or exams like quizzes, midterms, and finals are common for measuring student learning in foundational engineering courses that focus on teaching the core engineering concepts for problem-solving. There are benefits to tests, like helping students remember the concepts for future use. However, tests also have problems like getting to students focus more on memorizing and matching patterns, provoking student test anxiety, and demotivating students from learning. Engineering education research, surprisingly, does not explore much on why tests are common, considering said problems. My dissertation tackled this issue by studying the test usage beliefs and behaviors of seven foundational course instructors from mechanical engineering and engineering science departments. The focus was on the instructors because engineering instructors tend to have autonomy in making course decisions and many instructors are resistant to changing their teaching practices. Understanding their beliefs and behaviors can help with research and efforts to promote better practices, like diversifying the types of assessment used and being more intentional when using tests. My results show three groups separating the participants on their beliefs about using tests. One participant was very enthusiastic about using tests and believed that tests were the only good way to assess learning. Four participants were default test users as they acknowledged some problems with using tests but still justified strongly for using tests because of the test benefits to learning. Two participants were skeptical test users as they had stronger beliefs than others on the problems and would prefer not to use too many tests. However, all participants used tests heavily in their courses. All participants also emphasized curbing cheating as very important and had very similar beliefs about what a fair test was. Overall, my findings highlight the need to continue working on test research and practice to promote better assessment approaches in engineering.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:VTETD/oai:vtechworks.lib.vt.edu:10919/111611 |
| Date | 23 August 2022 |
| Creators | Chew, Kai Jun |
| Contributors | Engineering Education, Matusovich, Holly M., Sheppard, Sheri D., Lee, Walter C., Pitterson, Nicole, Katz, Andrew Scott |
| Publisher | Virginia Tech |
| Source Sets | Virginia Tech Theses and Dissertation |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Dissertation |
| Format | ETD, application/pdf, application/pdf |
| Rights | In Copyright, http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/ |
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