As part of an ongoing NSF-funded effort, materials have been developed for teaching civil engineering infrastructure topics to undergraduate students. These materials are currently being adopted by members of the Center for Infrastructure Transformation and Education (CIT-E) community of practice. CIT-E is a group of faculty from 25 universities in the U.S. and Canada seeking to improve infrastructure education.
To assess how the teaching materials impact student learning, two assessment instruments have been developed:
1. A concept map instrument that assesses student understanding of infrastructure and the systems aspects of infrastructure, and
2. An “Infrastructures Views Survey” (IVS) that seeks to determine students’
a. Understanding of the importance of infrastructure to society,
b. Appreciation of the infrastructure problems in the US,
c. Understanding of the potential solutions to infrastructure problems, and
d. Interest in infrastructure challenges and solutions, including the pertinence of infrastructure management to their future careers.
This paper provides background on the assessment instruments, describes how they were developed, and presents data from their use in two different classes using the CIT-E materials.
Dr. Roberts has been teaching structural engineering topics for 14 years. He recently joined the faculty in the Engineering and Technology department at Southern Utah University.
Dr. Carol Haden is a Principal Evaluator at Magnolia Consulting, LLC. She has served as evaluator for STEM education projects sponsored by the National Science Foundation, NASA, the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, and the Arizona Department of Education, among others. Areas of expertise include evaluations of engineering education curricula and programs, informal education and outreach programs, STEM teacher development, and climate change education programs.
Are you a researcher? Would you like to cite this paper? Visit the ASEE document repository at peer.asee.org for more tools and easy citations.