Personalized problems and student discourse in thermal fluid transport courses

Abstract

Many undergraduate engineering courses rely heavily on highly idealized textbook problems, which are often difficult for students to view as connected to the world outside the classroom and as productive contexts for making meaning of technical concepts. The goal of this study was to explore one potential approach to reforming the problems assigned in thermal fluid courses: developing open-ended design problems that specifically address the self-identified personal interests of the students in the course. We studied the influence of problem personalization on students’ peer-to-peer discussion of thermal fluid transport concepts. The data set included eleven small-group conversations recorded as students worked collaboratively to solve one personalized problem and one non-personalized problem within a homework session lasting approximately one hour. Our analysis of student discourse revealed that students exhibited more instances of positive engagement and drew more connections between thermal fluid concepts and the world around them when discussing personalized problems as compared to when discussing non-personalized problems. These discourse differences occurred despite the fact that problems of both types were ill-structured, design-focused, and based on real-life scenarios. We found no influence of problem personalization on the frequency of knowledge construction and task production discourse by students, nor on the balance of participation by different group members. We discuss implications for future research on learning outcomes related to problem personalization and for instructional practice in thermal fluid transport courses.