The Impact of Group Size and Project Duration on Capstone Design

Griffin, Paul M.; Griffin, Susan; Llewellyn, Donna C.

doi:10.1002/j.2168-9830.2004.tb00805.x

Cited by 35 publications

(38 citation statements)

References 20 publications

(20 reference statements)

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“…Larger group sizes can lead to difficulties such as free-riding (Griffin, Griffin and Llewellyn, 2004), and students may become frustrated working in poorly constructed teams (Holdsworth, Watty and Davies, 2009, p. 12). The data from students was collected through an initial on-line questionnaire which was issued prior to the commencement of the project, in-depth semi-structured interviews conducted as it neared completion, and a final on-line questionnaire which was administered after the submission of the report by the students.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“Deaths in Prison Custody” Capstone Course: Engaging Final-Year Law Students In Service Learning and Public Value

Kilcommins¹,

Spain²

2015

Journal of Criminal Justice Education

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Capstone service learning courses are designed to overcome the negative effects of fractioned knowledge by enabling students to consolidate and apply what they have learned over a program of study. They also promote a scholarship of engagement. This article documents the learning experiences of students on a Deaths in Prison Custody capstone service learning course. Though such a criminal justice course requires significant staff input and involves some loss of educational control, it has many benefits including enhanced learning, meaningful service, public value, and civic engagement. The focus on this article is on student learning experiences. It outlines how the pragmatic focus of such a course made knowledge and student learning relevant and actionable. It also describes how the deliberately unstructured design of the course, together with its emphasis on pubic value, encouraged autonomous and self-directed learning, prompting the students to take greater ownership of their learning.

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Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“Deaths in Prison Custody” Capstone Course: Engaging Final-Year Law Students In Service Learning and Public Value

Kilcommins¹,

Spain²

2015

Journal of Criminal Justice Education

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“…Research indicates this group size is optimal since it is small enough to discourage social loafing yet large enough for representation of multiple perspectives and abilities (Aggarwal & O'Brien, 2008;Griffin, Griffin, & Llewellyn, 2004). Compared to groups with 7-10 members, students report greater satisfaction and better learning outcomes in such smaller-sized groups (Griffin et al, 2004). Each task had 1-2 pages of guidelines that included a directive to view examples of successful tasks from previous semesters posted in an online portal.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Teaching Undergraduate Research in Human Development and Family Studies: Piloting a Collaborative Method

Walsh

Weiser

2015

FSR

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ABSTRACT. Students are often apprehensive about completing an upper-division, introductory research methods course in Human Development and Family Studies. To allay this apprehension, the instructor developed a different method of teaching the course with the intent of lessening their stress in order to facilitate a more positive experience. Students developed and wrote research proposals in collaborative small groups. The purpose of this paper is to describe the educational context and main features of the collaborative research proposal assignment. The authors also provide student feedback on the assignment. The article concludes with a discussion of the limitations and implications of this kind of pedagogy-centered research.

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“…as mentors for faculty-developed projects 24 and both students and sponsors prefer a onesemester course 25 . Studies have shown that multiple types of industry participation and feedback all can provide a positive value to both students and departments.…”

Section: Lessons From Capstone Industry Projectsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Including industry in student engineering design courses requires more faculty time to coordinate projects and poses challenges to identifying appropriate projects. Because of these challenges, some programs chose only to involve industry members Page 26.1412.4as mentors for faculty-developed projects 24 and both students and sponsors prefer a onesemester course 25 . Studies have shown that multiple types of industry participation and feedback all can provide a positive value to both students and departments.…”

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confidence: 99%

Student Communication Improvements during an Industry-Sponsored Civil Engineering Senior Design Course

Fries

Cross

Zhou

et al.

2015 ASEE Annual Conference and Exposition Proceedings

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IntroductionThroughout the engineering profession, an emphasis on requiring strong communication abilities for engineering graduates has been shown in several studies 1,2 . Because of the emphasis on communication in engineering practice, "an ability to communicate effectively" is a core outcome competency within the ABET required program outcomes 3 . In a recent study of engineering graduates, communication skills were ranked with teamwork, data analysis, and problem solving as the four most important ABET outcome competencies 4 .The objective of this study was to identify which aspects of student communication skills were improved by changes to an industry-sponsored capstone senior design course and to what extent they were improved. While previous studies have indicated that industry-sponsored capstone senior design courses improve student understanding of design practice, no study to date has focused on analyzing the extent to which this industry experience improves the communication ability of the students.The civil engineering senior design course at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville (SIUE) places students in unpaid internships with local engineering agencies and companies. Practicing engineers supervising the students have discussed the importance of accurate professional communications with faculty coordinating the course. Students in this course are required to complete communication skills assignments, such as writing memos, reports, and preparing periodic progress presentations of their work. The communication assignments used as the subject of the study in this paper were reviewed by engineering faculty, in consultation with practicing professional engineering sponsors, and the staff at the SIUE Writing Center. Previous WorkOverall lessons from past capstone courses Previous work examining the learning in engineering capstone courses has focused on teambased learning, problem-based learning, and impacts of the learning environment. To improve student teamwork experiences in any course, faculty have an opportunity to apply a wealth of knowledge from fields such as organizational or industrial psychology 5 . Some argue that effective team-based learning in capstone courses require that teams be heterogeneous and have shared goals, meaningful activities, timely internal feedback, and external comparisons and feedback 6 . Thus, for faculty to facilitate an effective team-based learning experience, they must be very deliberate in the planning of team projects, milestones, activities, feedback methods, and timing.Other research has focused on problem-based learning approaches. One study, focusing on a structural engineering capstone course, found that a problem-based learning format required significantly more time due to the additional feedback for students, and that a team-building exercise could strengthen communication between student teams and the instructor 7 . Problembased learning has also been implemented into an entire civil engineering curriculum at the Page 26.1412.2University of Colora...

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The Impact of Group Size and Project Duration on Capstone Design

Cited by 35 publications

References 20 publications

“Deaths in Prison Custody” Capstone Course: Engaging Final-Year Law Students In Service Learning and Public Value

“Deaths in Prison Custody” Capstone Course: Engaging Final-Year Law Students In Service Learning and Public Value

Teaching Undergraduate Research in Human Development and Family Studies: Piloting a Collaborative Method

Student Communication Improvements during an Industry-Sponsored Civil Engineering Senior Design Course

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