Engineering Education Lab
Development of engineering students' technical and professional competencies
Research Streams
Teaching and Learning Mechanisms
We explore technologies and pedagogies that enhance students’ acquisition of technical knowledge and problem solving skills.
Ill-structured problem solving process
Hybrid instruction and online videos
Cooperative learning
The acquisition of technical knowledge and skills are critical for engineering students, for which various pedagogies and technologies can be utilized in the classroom. Our work in this research stream includes students’ learning behaviors and attitudes towards online videos and cooperative learning pedagogy in large undergraduate classes.
We also investigate how groups of students, faculty, and practicing engineers solve ill-structured problems (i.e., those with multiple unknowns, vaguely defined goals, and multiple solutions) and which factors influence their problem-solving abilities.
Relevant publications
Investigating problem-solving processes of students, faculty, and practicing engineers in civil engineering, by S. Akinci-Ceylan, K. Cetin, B. Ahn, A. Surovek, and B. Cetin, Journal of Civil Engineering Education, vol. 148, no. 1, 2022.
Student interactions with online videos in a large hybrid mechanics of materials course, by B. Ahn and D. Bir, Advances in Engineering Education, vol. 6, no. 3, 2018.
Assessment of the effects of using the cooperative learning pedagogy in a hybrid mechanics of materials course, by B. Ahn and M. Nelson, International Journal of Mechanical Engineering Education. 2018.