Big data is driving decision making in many industries, and similar, quantitative assessments can be applied to engineering education when appropriate tools are deployed. In this study, a fully interactive online textbook, Material and Energy Balances zyBook, has been used to quantify reading and homework scores. In total, three cohorts of data representing over 280 students and almost 300,000 reading interactions are aggregated in this work. Recently presented results found median reading rates as high as 99% for over 1,300 interactions per student. However, all previously reported reading data was taken when reading assignments were due throughout the semester. New reading data taken at the conclusion of the semester found that many students completed reading without the incentive of earning a course grade. Both 1st quartile (capturing 75% of the class) reading rates and the fraction of the class completing 100% of the reading participation increased significantly after the due date. Additional reading after the due date encompassed 30 to 50 clicks by median and over 400 interactions for some students.
Matthew W. Liberatore is a Professor in the Department of Chemical Engineering at the University of Toledo. He earned a B.S. degree from the University of Illinois at Chicago and M.S. and Ph.D. degrees from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, all in chemical engineering. From 2005 to 2015, he served on the faculty at the Colorado School of Mines. In 2018, he served as an Erskine Fellow at the University of Canterbury in New Zealand. His research involves the rheology of complex fluids, especially traditional and renewable energy fluids and materials, polymers, and colloids. His educational interests include developing problems from YouTube videos, active learning, learning analytics, and interactive textbooks. His interactive textbooks for Material and Energy Balances, Spreadsheets, and Thermodynamics are available from zyBooks.com. His website is: https://www.utoledo.edu/engineering/chemical-engineering/liberatore/
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