Assessing students' integrative learning in biomedical engineering from the perspectives of structure, behavior, and function

Abstract

Learning in biomedical engineering is highly interdisciplinary: students need to integrate concepts between engineering and life sciences, and be able to design and develop technologies with physiological considerations. In this study, biomedical engineering students' artifacts were analyzed in detail according to the structure-behavior-framework (SBF) framework. The SBF framework has been investigated by educational researchers and learning scientists; in particular, the behavioral and functional dimensions were proved to be related to a sophisticated level of understanding of complex systems. Existing research results also indicate that experts (or expert-like learners) show a deeper understanding of the behavioral and functional aspects of systems. In the current study, a 5-level scale comprising structural, behavioral, and functional dimensions of integrated learning was constructed to assess student learning in a biomedical engineering project course. Our results indicate that high achievers and low achievers were different in the behavioral and functional dimensions. The results also indicate significant relationships between behavioral and functional dimensions of learning and students' final course performance. These findings align with existing results in cognitive science and learning sciences on expert-novice differences, which help connecting engineering educational inquiries to the rich body of literature and findings in human learning.

Crossing Boundaries: Steps Toward Measuring Undergraduates’ Interdisciplinary Science Understanding

“…Within this category, more than half of our participants identified writing assignments through essays and papers as the preferred method of assessment (51%). This finding is consistent with a wealth of literature that suggests students must be given the opportunity to problem solve and think critically through writing when addressing the complexities involved in ID science (Boix-Mansilla et al, 2009;Chan et al 2010;Balgopal et al, 2012Balgopal et al, , 2017Gouvea et al, 2013;Cooper and Stowe, 2018;Tripp and Shortlidge, 2019). Thus, we support that instructors use writing-intensive activities as a mechanism to measure ID science understanding in an undergraduate setting.…”

“…Several studies have developed assessment tools to score writing activities in specific environments, but these instruments were either targeted for one particular course without additional validation studies from separate populations (Balgopal et al, 2012(Balgopal et al, , 2017 or focused on integrated learning within one discipline (Besterfield-Sacre et al, 2004;Chan et al, 2010). However, writing activities may be a plausible assessment strategy when tasking students to connect similarities and differences in jargon, methods/methodologies, and concepts and ideas across multiple disciplines (Boix Mansilla et al, 2009).…”

Collaborative Inquiry into Foundation Knowledge in Computer Engineering: A Case Study in Hong Kong

“…Inquiry-based learning (IBL) is a kind constructivist pedagogy in which learners formulate hypotheses and problem-solving strategies by their own, and learn through inquiries into ill-structured problem situation 3,4,5 . It is especially suitable for computer education in 21 st century, as well as engineering education in general because of the complexity in the knowledge domain which often involves multiple disciplines 6,7,8 . This paper describes the design and implementation of IBL lessons in a refreshment course offered by an engineering department at a university in Hong Kong in September to December 2010.…”