Challenge-based instruction promotes students’ development of transferable frameworks and confidence for engineering problem solving

ABSTRACT

Challenge-based teaching facilitates students’ simultaneous development of content mastery and strategies for applying technical knowledge innovatively. The University of Texas at Austin Department of Biomedical Engineering has offered a challenge-based course on biotransport as an accelerated study-abroad learning experience in Cambridge, England. We used a mixed methods approach to characterize students’ learning trajectory, to include technical prowess, problem-solving self-efficacy, and engineering identity throughout the entirety of this course. Students developed problem solving strategies and confidence over the semester and readily transferred their acquired solution framework to technical domains outside of the course subject of biotransport. Students identified challenge-based pedagogies as their preferred methods of classroom instruction, became familiar with corresponding assessments, and identified strongly as practitioners within the engineering field. We believe this illustrative case study provides significant evidence for the effectiveness of challenge-based instruction and can serve as a model for pedagogy-sensitive classroom assessment in engineering.

KEYWORDS:

• Challenge-based instruction
• transfer
• self-efficacy
• student engagement
• engineering identity

Acknowledgements

Many thanks to all of the students who willingly and enthusiastically participated in this study, who motivate us all to be better teachers and researchers each day. Special thanks to Elissa Barone (UT Austin) for her support of this project, and statistical consulting provided by the UT Austin Statistical Consulting Group in the Department of Statistics and Data Sciences.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributors

John R. Clegg is a Ph.D. candidate and NSF Graduate Research Fellow in the Department of Biomedical Engineering at the University of Texas at Austin. He received his B.S. with honors, in Biomedical Engineering, from the University of South Carolina in 2014. He received his M.S.E in Biomedical engineering and M.A. in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics Education from the University of Texas at Austin in 2016 and 2018, respectively. His dissertation research involves the development of synthetic and natural-synthetic hybrid biomaterials for protein sensing and targeted drug delivery applications. Additionally, John is interested in the development of new instructional methods tools to teach Biomedical Engineering and assess the efficacy of such strategies.

Kenneth R. Diller is a Professor of Biomedical and Mechanical Engineering and the Robert M. and Prudie Leibrock Professor in Engineering at the University of Texas at Austin. Professor Diller is a graduate of Ohio State University (BME with honors, 1966; MSc, 1967) and MIT (ScD, 1972). He was the founding Chairman of the Department of Biomedical Engineering at UT Austin, UT MD Anderson Cancer Center, and UT HSC Houston, and is also a former Chairman of the Department of Mechanical Engineering. Dr. Diller is an internationally recognised authority in heat and temperature related processes in living tissues and how they may be applied in the design of therapeutic devices. He has published more than 280 refereed papers and book chapters and written or edited seventeen books.

Additional information

Funding

The authors would like to acknowledge financial support from the Cockrell School of Engineering, International Office, and Department of Biomedical Engineering at the University of Texas at Austin, as well as the Leibrook Professorship and Cockrell Family Regents Chair in Engineering (UT Austin). JRC is supported by an NSF Graduate Research Fellowship (DGE-1610403).