Assessment of Engineering Mechanics Instructional Multimedia in a Variety of Instructional Settings

Students from Ten Schools, Representing Seven Countries, Used Interactive Multimedia as a Part of their Engineering Statics Classes. the Software Consisted of Four Modules, Which Focused On: Mohr\u27s Circle; Centroid and Moment of Inertia; Stress Transformation; and Structural Analysis. the Students Completed On-Line Surveys About their Experience with the Software. Analysis of the Results Indicated that Students Rated their Knowledge of the Subject Matter Covered in the Software as Increasing Significantly as a Consequence of using the Software. However, This Increase Was Substantially More Pronounced for Students in U.S. Schools. Students Rated the Software as Significantly More Effective Than their Class Textbooks, And, Again, This Effect Was Substantially Stronger for Students in the U.S. the Analyses Also Indicated that the Software Differed Little in its Impact on Males Versus Females. Ratings on a Number of Additional Outcomes Were Consistently Positive with Respect to Student Opinions of the Software

Assessing data analysis performance in research contexts: An experiment on accuracy, efficiency, productivity and researchers' satisfaction

[EN] Any knowledge generation process involves raw data comprehension, evaluation and inferential reasoning. These practices, common to different disciplines, are known as data analysis, and represent the most important set of activities in research contexts. Researchers use data analysis software methods and tools for generating new knowledge in their daily data analysis. In recent years, data analysis software has been incorporating explicit references in modelling of cognitive processes, in order to improve the assistance offered in data analysis tasks. However, data analysis software commercial suites are still resisting this inclusion, and there is little empirical work done in knowing more about how cognitive aspects inclusion in software helps researchers in analyzing data. In this paper, we evaluate the impact produced by the explicit inclusion of cognitive processes in the assistance logic of software tools design and development. We conducted an empirical experiment comparing data analysis performance using traditional software versus data analysis performance using software-assistance tools which incorporate cognitive processes in their design. The experiment is designed in terms of accuracy, efficiency, productivity and user satisfaction during the data analysis made by researchers. It allowed us to find some clear benefits of the cognitive inclusion in the software designed for research contexts, with statistically significant differences in terms of accuracy, productivity and researcher's satisfaction in support of this explicit inclusion, although some efficiency weaknesses are detected. We also discuss the implications of these results for the priority of cognitive inclusion in the software tools design for research contexts data analysis.This paper has the support of Generalitat Valenciana through project IDEO (PROMETEOII/2014/039) and Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation through project DataME (ref: TIN2016-80811-P).Martín-Rodilla, P.; Panach Navarrete, JI.; González-Pérez, CA.; Pastor López, O. (2018). Assessing data analysis performance in research contexts: An experiment on accuracy, efficiency, productivity and researchers' satisfaction. Data & Knowledge Engineering. 116:177-204. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.datak.2018.06.003S17720411

Closing the gap between software engineering education and industrial needs

According to different reports, many recent software engineering graduates often face difficulties when beginning their professional careers, due to misalignment of the skills learnt in their university education with what is needed in industry. To address that need, many studies have been conducted to align software engineering education with industry needs. To synthesize that body of knowledge, we present in this paper a systematic literature review (SLR) which summarizes the findings of 33 studies in this area. By doing a meta-analysis of all those studies and using data from 12 countries and over 4,000 data points, this study will enable educators and hiring managers to adapt their education / hiring efforts to best prepare the software engineering workforce

Culture dimensions in software development industry: The effects of mentoring

Software development is a human centric and sociotechnical activity and like all human activities is influenced by cultural factors. However, software engineering is being further affected because of the globalization in software development. As a result, cultural diversity is influencing software development and its outcomes. The software engineering industry, a very intensive industry regarding human capital, is facing a new era in which software development personnel must adapt to multicultural work environments. Today, many organizations present a multicultural workforce which needs to be managed. This paper analyzes the influence of culture on mentoring relationships within the software engineering industry. Two interesting findings can be concluded from our study: (1) cultural differences affect both formal and informal mentoring, and (2) technical competences are not improved when implementing mentoring relationships

Design: One, but in different forms

This overview paper defends an augmented cognitively oriented generic-design hypothesis: there are both significant similarities between the design activities implemented in different situations and crucial differences between these and other cognitive activities; yet, characteristics of a design situation (related to the design process, the designers, and the artefact) introduce specificities in the corresponding cognitive activities and structures that are used, and in the resulting designs. We thus augment the classical generic-design hypothesis with that of different forms of designing. We review the data available in the cognitive design research literature and propose a series of candidates underlying such forms of design, outlining a number of directions requiring further elaboration

Game-Based Learning in Engineering Education

The new generation of undergraduates entering UK higher education have grown up with computer games of ever increasing sophistication. In this educational project a race game, Racing Academy, was developed to investigate how game technology and gaming communities could enhance undergraduate engineering education. The computer game embodied the principles of engineering dynamics to simulate and display in real time a car drag race in which students ‘designed’ their car by selecting an engine, tyres and gearbox from a set menu. The aim was to complete a set course in the minimum time and graphically display the dynamic performance in order to better understand the engineering system. The students and staff involved in this project provided extensive feedback on the exercise and identified the visual nature of game-based learning software as a positive feature that helped illustrate engineering dynamics. Game-based learning communities, organised around tutor groups, were seen as an excellent way of encouraging an element of competition in a small non-threatening environment while discussion forums based around Moodle provided efficient support for the large group of 160 students. Finally, learning through ‘doing’ in a game environment was proven to be a successful method of illustrating physical phenomena