The use of student question-posing in reactor design to encourage an open-ended approach to learning

ABSTRACT

A concern in engineering education is students adopting a ‘recognise and reproduce’ approach to problem solving. In this study, an assignment was conceived and analysed through Legitimation Code Theory – which allows for visualisation of students’ thinking, and to illuminate how students construct knowledge in open-ended problem solving. The assignment was based on students posing their own exam-style questions. Evidence for its subjective effect on the students was generated through students’ responses to a questionnaire. Most (72%) students found the assignment assisted their understanding and context of the work, while 75% believed the open-ended nature of the assignment would make them better engineers. About 52% said they would change the way they study based on the insights and self-reflection from the assignment. While several students discuss an approach focussed on repetition, recognition, and algorithmic learning, the assignment showed students using an open-ended approach.

KEYWORDS:

• Student question posing
• assignment
• LCT
• reactor design
• algorithmic learning

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Robert W. M. Pott

Robert W. M. Pott completed a first-class Honours in Chemical Engineering at the University of Cape Town in 2008 and then read for his PhD at Trinity Hall, University of Cambridge, UK, in Chemical Engineering. He graduated from Cambridge in May 2014 before returning to South Africa to take up a Claude Leon Postdoctoral Research Fellowship at the University of Cape Town, in the Centre for Bioprocess Engineering Research. In June 2015, he took up a permanent academic position at Stellenbosch University, in the Department of Process Engineering.

Sunel Nortjé

Sunel Nortjé completed her Bachelor of Engineering at Stellenbosch University in 2008. She worked as a carbon advisor at Promethium Carbon, consulting for the mining and process industries from 2009 until the end of 2010. At the start of 2011, she was appointed in a similar position at Deloitte, consulting on carbon credit and energy efficiency projects. She returned to Stellenbosch University in the middle of 2012 to enrol for a Master of Engineering while continuing to do independent consulting work in her field of expertise. She was appointed as a temporary lecturer at Stellenbosch University at the start of 2013 and in July 2014, she took up a permanent academic position at Stellenbosch University, in the Department of Process Engineering.