Sophomore Engineering Curricula	Introduction	Conservation and Accounting Framework	Curriculum Structure: Texas A&M four-course structure	Curriculum Structure: Texas A&M Five-Course Structure
	Curriculum Structure: Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology Sophomore Engineering Curriculum	Example Problems	Student Performance/Faculty Reactions	Conclusions

Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology Sophomore Engineering Curriculum

Assessment of the sophomore engineering curriculum at Rose-Hulman has focused on the mechanics portion of new sophomore curriculum at RHIT because most mechanical engineering majors were taking a more traditional dynamics course while the electrical and computer engineering majors were taking the sophomore engineering curriculum.  Having both sets of students take a similar final exam at the end of the dynamics course (ME majors) and at the end of ES204 (electrical and computer engineering majors) allowed a direct comparison of their performance.  During the 1996-97 and 1997-98 academic years (the second and third years that the new curriculum was offered) a similar final was given to students taking ES204 and students taking the traditional dynamics course.  There were approximately 125 dynamics students and 90 SEC students. Both finals consisted of 20 multiple-choice problems (40% of the total points) and 3 workout problems (60% of the total points).  This format for the final has been used for many years because it is felt that this is the best way to make the final comprehensive. During 1996-97, sixteen of the multiple-choice problems and one of the workout problems were identical for the two finals. It was not possible to give identical finals since some of the faculty members had strong objections.  During 1997-98, the two finals were identical.

Figure xx compares the performance on the multiple-choice problems.  To reduce the influence of a particular professor the numbers for Tables 1 and 2 were obtained by averaging the results from five dynamics sections (three professors) and from four ES204 sections (three professors).  In 1996-97, performance on four multiple-choice questions is not shown because these questions were not common between the two classes.  As can be seen from Figure xx, the students in the SEC did better than the students taking the traditional dynamics course on a majority of the multiple-choice problems.  It is important to note, however, that the percentage difference is quite minor for a number of problems and that they did significantly worse on some problems.  For example, problem number 19 was most easily solved using rotation axis, a topic that was not covered in ES204.

Table 7 compares the percentage of students with correct answers for the workout problems.  Again, to reduce the influence of a particular professor the numbers for Tables 1 and 2 were obtained by averaging the results from five dynamics sections (three professors) and from four ES204 sections (three professors).  Differences for the workout problems are more dramatic than the differences for the multiple-choice questions.  Workout problems were designed to be longer, more difficult and required multiple steps and concepts.  The students in the new curriculum did significantly better than those taking the traditional dynamics course. Based on these assessment data, it is clear that the new curriculum does not hurt the students and in fact it appears to help them in mastering the mechanics material.

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