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Freehand sketching equips engineers to rapidly represent ideas in the design process, but most engineering curriculums fall short of equipping students with adequate sketching skills. This paper is focused on methods to improve engineers' sketching skill through type of instruction, length of instruction, and delivery of and feedback for assignments using Sketchtivity, an intelligent sketch-tutoring software. We answer several key questions for providing better sketching education for engineers. Does perspective training improve freehand drawing ability? Can an intelligent tutoring software improve education outcomes? And how much sketching instruction is necessary for engineers? Analyzing the changes in sketching skill from pre- to post-sketching instruction between different instruction types (n = 116), we found that perspective sketching instruction significantly improved freehand sketching ability compared to traditional engineering sketching methods. When comparing pre to post sketching skill of students using Sketchtivity (n = 135), there was no significant difference in improvement between students using the intelligent tutoring software and those that exclusively practiced on paper - both groups improved equally. However, completing sketching tasks on tablets did not hinder students' skill development even when measured on paper. Future work will more directly explore the influence of Sketchtivity on sketching skill development. Additionally, we found that five weeks of sketching instruction greatly improves sketching skill compared to only three weeks of instruction (n = 108), but both approaches significantly improve sketching self-efficacy. These outcomes support more extensive sketching instruction in engineering classrooms, and changes in instruction type to promote more freehand sketching skills. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]