Evaluating the Effects of Project-based Learning on a Sophomore Mechanics Course.

The primary goal of the undergraduate engineering curriculum is to lay the groundwork for the remainder of the students' educational training, as well as prepare them for work in the engineering industry. Traditionally, the curriculum primarily consists of lecture-based courses, with some hands-on work, mostly through demonstration. In recent years, the curriculum has started using more project-based courses. In these updated courses, the theory covered via lecture is merged with hands-on project work. This integrated approach is designed to not only give the students a foundation of the course theory, but to expand on that and give them practical, handson applications of that theory. Additionally, it gives the opportunity to learn skills in design, manufacturing, electronics, controls, and prototyping. This study looks at a mechanics of materials course project that has the students build a tensiletesting device from course-supplied kit to evaluate mechanical properties of a chosen material. Traditionally, this course was mainly taught using a problem-based pedagogy with the addition of a few basic labs and one project in the last few weeks of the course. The project detailed in this paper is an updated version of projects used in previous iterations of this experimental course. Despite the changes, all of these projects share a commonality of requiring the students to combine knowledge from multiple engineering disciplines, including circuits, controls, and mechanics of materials. The effect of this experimental course on the students was analyzed a pre- and post-course selfefficacy survey that looks at how the students' self-perception of their engineering abilities and skills were affected by the application of the project-based course. To study the change in students' self-efficacy, the following hypothesis has been derived: Hypothesis: Students who participate in the experimental project will demonstrate an increased engineering self-efficacy when compared to the onset of the course. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]