Scott Daniel | University of Technology Sydney (original) (raw)

Conference Presentations by Scott Daniel

In this paper, we report on attitudinal studies of students, and their teachers, competing in the... more In this paper, we report on attitudinal studies of students, and their teachers, competing in the Victorian Young Physicists' Tournament (VYPT), using the Colorado Learning Attitudes about Science Survey (CLASS). The VYPT is a physics competition for senior high school physics students. Student teams conduct long-term independent investigations into various topics and then on the day of the tournament present and defend their research with other teams. The whole process is intended to be a realistic reflection of science in practice: starting from an interesting observation, studies are conducted to investigate it, and then the results and conclusions are reported to and critiqued by peers. We hypothesised that after participating in the VYPT, students will have a more positive attitude towards scientific enquiry and learning physics in particular. Using the CLASS instrument, we compared students' attitudes towards learning physics before, immediately after, and 6 months after the tournament. We also examined the data to see whether there was any link between students' and teachers' responses. The survey results suggest that the students that compete in the tournament are exceptional, scoring near the top of the scale of 'expert-like' views on all three occasions the survey was administered. This ceiling effect, combined with the low response rate and completion rate, meant that we were unable to draw more meaningful conclusions about the effect of participation in the tournament on attitudes towards physics. Two findings are of interest however. Firstly, from matching up sets of responses from individual students and teachers at different times, we verified the reliability of the survey instrument. Secondly, there was one exception to the general observation that the survey completion rate (the fraction of survey questions that were answered) was relatively stable for both students and teachers across the different times the survey was completed. The survey completion rate for female students on the post-test was markedly lower than that of any other cohort at any other occasion. One possible interpretation is that completion rate is a proxy for confidence, and that for some reason female students were less confident on the post-test.

Traditional instruction remains the norm in most universities. In particular, the “sage on the st... more Traditional instruction remains the norm in most universities. In particular, the “sage on the stage” still characterizes most lectures. This is despite the growing weight of evidence that alternative research-based instructional strategies consistently lead to better student outcomes.
Successful STEM teaching reform must incorporate teachers’ beliefs about teaching. Although many studies have investigated teachers’ beliefs about teaching, beliefs about lecturing have not been studied. This paper addresses this gap by focusing on beliefs about lecturing. Understanding these different ways of experiencing lecturing is a necessary precursor to developing effective pedagogical reforms. They are especially important as the traditional lecture is the strongest bastion against research-based teaching reform.
In this study, thirty Australian faculty, from a range of backgrounds and disciplines, genders and university contexts, were interviewed using a semi-structured phenomenographic interview protocol. Transcripts were analysed iteratively to identify a set of categories of description that captures the critical variation between ways of experiencing lecturing across the collective experiences represented in the whole pool of transcripts. This analysis identified five qualitatively distinct ways of experiencing lecturing:
1. Lecturing as soliloquy
Lecturing is a one-way interaction between the lecturer and the students, where the lecturer both performs and transfers content.

2. Lecturing as connecting meaning
Lecturing is a process where the lecturer uses interaction to help students make connections between the content and their own experiences, interests, and understanding.

3. Lecturing as cultivating individuals
Lecturing is a process tailored to the individual diversity of students, to develop their perspectives and skills, both personal and professional, motivated by a sense of giving back.

4. Lecturing as transformatively co-creating
Lecturing is a co-created experience, driven by and building on students and their interests, experiences, and expertise, for the reflective, moral, and ethical transformation of students.

5. Lecturing as enacting research
Lecturing is a process in which relevant research is enacted and embedded, towards the goal of personal and social transformation.

The characteristics of these different ways of experiencing are described further in the paper, and representative supporting quotes are given from the interview transcripts.
In addition, a lower category of ‘lecturing as reading’ is postulated.
These different ways of experiencing lecturing must be considered in professional development programs for lecturers in order to offer the best hope of successful teaching reform.

Contemporary Approaches to Research in Mathematics, Science, Health and Environmental Education

Survey design is beguiling in its apparent simplicity. It can seem so straightforward to investig... more Survey design is beguiling in its apparent simplicity. It can seem so straightforward to investigate some issue by merely writing a few quick questions with the conviction that the analysis of the responses subsequently collected will be unambiguous. Yet, such details as the order of questions and responses, word choice, visual layout, question length, and much more, can have a profound effect upon how participants respond. In this paper I will explore the concept of ‘satisficing’, a decision-making strategy in which the easiest adequate solution is chosen, and how it relates to good survey design.

CONTEXT “Developing students’ conceptual understanding” was ranked highest as the ‘purpose of a... more CONTEXT
“Developing students’ conceptual understanding” was ranked highest as the ‘purpose of a lecture’ in a previous survey of academics from a range of disciplines at Swinburne University of Technology. Traditional transmissive lecturing remains the norm at most institutions, despite the evidence that this mode achieves little in terms of student learning. So why does this teaching mode still persist? What are the perceptions of its effectiveness, and how do these depend on academics’ familiarity with education research?

PURPOSE
In this study we investigated to what extent engineering education researchers perceive that “developing students’ conceptual understanding” is achieved in lectures. What evidence do they use to explain their views? And what are their perceptions of the attitudes of their colleagues?

APPROACH
An online survey was designed to rate the extent that respondents felt “developing students’ conceptual understanding” was achieved in lectures, and why. They were also asked what responses they felt their colleagues (i.e. presumably those not conducting education research) would give, and to provide some demographic information. Respondents were recruited from AAEE 2012 Conference participants.

OUTCOMES
Thirty-seven conference participants responded to the survey. Although there was a wide range of responses, on average respondents felt their colleagues would rate lectures as more effective in developing students’ conceptual understanding (5.9 out of 10) than the respondents did themselves (5.2). This disparity became more marked with more experienced respondents, in particular with increasing education research experience.

CONCLUSIONS
Although respondents from a previous survey identified “developing students’ conceptual understanding” as the main purpose of lectures, respondents in this study did not rate lectures as being very effective at achieving this purpose. Maybe this is not surprising given the weight of evidence that transmissive teaching has little effect on student understanding. So the question remains: why do lectures continue to be so popular?
Perhaps more interestingly, with increasing education research experience, there is a perception of a growing divide between engineering education researchers and their more discipline-focused colleagues about the effectiveness of lectures. Real or not, this divide poses an obstacle to meaningful discussions about education reform and dissemination of education research.

Background Traditional lecture instruction often only leads to minimal improvement in students’ ... more Background
Traditional lecture instruction often only leads to minimal improvement in students’ conceptual understanding. Use of active learning strategies, such as Interactive Lecture Demonstrations (ILDs), can help. ILDs have been used by the authors since 2010 in teaching alternating current (AC) resonance in a large-enrolment introductory electronics course.
Learning improvements after such educational interventions are typically measured using the average normalised gain (g). This is calculated by comparing total scores on the pre-test and post-test to generate a number between 0 (no improvement) and 1 (maximum improvement). It will be argued that this aggregate measure is too general, and that better insights can be gained into students’ conceptual change through analysis of individuals’ responses to sets of questions that ask about a particular concept in different ways (so called ‘expert-equivalent’ questions).

Research question
How can expert-equivalent questions be used to better describe conceptual change in pre- and post-testing?

Method
Learning gains were assessed by testing students’ conceptual understanding (via a multiple-choice pre-test) after 8 hours of traditional instruction but before the ILD intervention, and again after an additional 2 hours of ILD instruction (via an identical post-test). The responses of individual students were matched across the different sessions using anonymous but unique student-generated codes.
Data were collected in 2010, 2011, and 2012. The tests consisted of multiple-choice conceptual questions that did not require quantitative calculations but instead were designed to assess students’ qualitative understanding of various complex concepts associated with resonance in AC circuits. The tests given in each year were slightly different however, in each case, there was a pair of questions that asked about the same concept in two different ways – graphically and in written form. The multiple-choice responses to these pairs of expert-equivalent questions were mapped to one another, and students’ responses examined for consistency.

Results
The average normalised gain in test scores for students who participated in all active learning ILD activities was significant. However, the analysis of responses to pairs of expert-equivalent questions revealed a much more complex pattern. Most students answered inconsistently in both the pre- and post-tests, that is, their response to the graphical question did not equate logically to their response to the written question, and vice versa.
Nevertheless there was a general shift towards more students answering at least one, and sometimes both, of the questions correctly, and so aligning their understanding with the expert view.

Conclusions
The comparison of aggregated scores in pre- and post-tests is a coarse assessment instrument that hides some unexpected facets of student learning. In the transition from novice to expert, it seems that learners may understand a complex concept in one context but not in another, even though an expert would consider the two as equivalent. There is not a binary switch from confusion to clarity, but instead an extended intermediate phase of partial or contextualised understanding.

BACKGROUND In the sciences, the content of sequential lectures is often planned under the assump... more BACKGROUND
In the sciences, the content of sequential lectures is often planned under the assumption that the majority of students present in the class have attended the previous sessions. To some extent, students are expected to be able to recall and understand the previously delivered content. During a study into the effectiveness of a novel lecture engagement strategy (Interactive Lecture Demonstrations, or ILDs) in a first-year introductory electronics unit (Mazzolini, Daniel, & Edwards, 2012), student-generated codes were used to anonymously track individual students’ responses to the ILD activities over successive lecture sessions. These codes offered an unintended proxy for attendance, with surprising results.

PURPOSE
To what extent can lecturers assume that the same set of students attend each lecture, and therefore construct a lecture sequence that builds lecture-by-lecture on previous work?

DESIGN/METHOD
To enable anonymous tracking of student responses over multiple lecture sessions, students were prompted with a set of 5 questions to generate an anonymous but unique identifying numerical code at the start of each session. For example, one of the prompt questions used was “what is the last digit of your postcode?”. These codes, along with other student responses, were electronically submitted using audience response devices (i.e. clickers). By comparing which codes were reported in each of
the sessions, patterns of attendance were established. Similar anonymously coded student data were collected from other units.

RESULTS
Over the four lecture sessions for which data were collected in 2011, only six codes were reported in every session, implying that perhaps only six students attended all four sessions. The overall pattern of attendance for the students enrolled in the unit (N=148) can be coarsely approximated by a binomial probability distribution, with the probability of attendance being ~35%. Data collected from several other sources validate this initial coarse approximation.
Analysis of student performance is reported elsewhere (Daniel, Mazzolini, Cadusch, & Edwards, 2012) but, unsurprisingly, students who attended all the instructional sessions showed higher learning gains, as determined by pre- and post-test scores, than students who hadn’t attended any sessions.

CONCLUSIONS
Lecture attendance is surprisingly inconsistent. The approximate fit to a binomial distribution means it
is almost as if each student flips a slightly weighted coin in deciding whether or not to attend each
lecture. It is often assumed that if the number of students attending lectures is approximately constant,
then roughly the same group of students are attending each lecture. This assumption about the same
group of students attending successive lectures underpins the common practice of building on the
understanding of previously presented material in each new lecture. This assumption, and the purpose
and efficacy of the lecture mode more generally, have to be questioned.

There is ample evidence that students have many misconceptions in physics, which are difficult to... more There is ample evidence that students have many misconceptions in physics, which are difficult to correct using traditional teaching methods. Even with this evidence however, many academics still use traditional teaching approaches, and seem to dismiss the evidence-based research supporting the use of active learning approaches. The research question posed in the study reported was “Why do academics teaching physics resist moving toward active learning approaches?” A meta-interpretation method was used to analyse and synthesise multiple previous studies on student learning, student misconceptions and academic teaching. The results indicated that a major factor affecting academic resistance to moving toward active learning approaches is that academics themselves have misconceptions about how effective traditional approaches are in helping students learn. The implication from this is that the same strategies for overcoming student misconceptions in physics can be applied to overcome academic misconceptions also. The paper reports on the design of a professional development program at Swinburne University that has been initiated to respond to addressing these academic misconceptions.

BACKGROUND To facilitate a cost-effective approach to Learning and Teaching (L&T) quality assura... more BACKGROUND
To facilitate a cost-effective approach to Learning and Teaching (L&T) quality assurance for units or subjects offered, some universities have replaced, or are moving towards replacing, their paper-based, ‘in-class’ Student Feedback Surveys (SFS) with ‘out-of-class’ on-line surveys. Swinburne University moved to on-line surveys several years ago; in the Faculty of Engineering and Industrial Sciences (FEIS) at Swinburne, response rates in these on-line SFS surveys are very low (typically around 10% of students enrolled) and consequently some staff reasonably contest the validity of these surveys as a measure of the L&T quality in their units. This study investigates whether the ‘out-of-class’ on-line SFS surveys (with their low response rates) correlate well with the equivalent ‘in-class’ surveys (which typically had higher response rates of around 50%). The study will provide some research-based evidence that will assist university administrators in making an informed choice on whether to continue with on-line SFS surveys or whether to explore cost-effective options for ‘in-class’ SFS surveys, including the use of electronic audience polling devices (clickers).

PURPOSE
Are there any significant differences between student feedback survey responses solicited by an ‘out-of-class’ on-line survey and the responses solicited via electronic audience polling devices (clickers) from students participating in a lecture class?

DESIGN/METHOD
The preliminary phase of this study, which is reported here, analyses data obtained from voluntary and anonymous on-line and ‘in-class’ SFS results for 6 FEIS units of study (semester 1 of 2011) that cover the introductory, intermediate and senior levels in engineering and science fields. The ‘in-class’ surveys were solicited via electronic audience polling of students who agreed to participate and were attending the lecture class in the last week of semester, and the equivalent on-line results were obtained from official university surveys, where students voluntarily participated out-of-class over a 5-week period (4 weeks before the end of semester until the beginning of the examination period).

RESULTS
This preliminary study suggests that there are some clear differences in average SFS responses between students who participated on-line (N=148) and students who participated in-class (N=325), at least for the 6 units under investigation. For the 8 questions common to both surveys, the students who participated in the on-line survey responded considerably more positively than the students who participated in the ‘in-class’ survey in the last week of semester.

CONCLUSIONS
Six unit conveners volunteered to have their unit SFS (on-line and in-class) analysed for this study, and the results of the comparison were surprising. The authors of this paper expected that students
who go on-line to complete SFS surveys would be a small and non-representative sample who may be highly dissatisfied with some aspect of their teaching experience, but the results suggests that the opposite is true, and that students who are motivated to do on-line SFSs often report a more positive teaching experience than those students who complete the SFS in class. The study has reported a significant difference between on-line and in-class SFS results, at least for the 6 FEIS units investigated. This difference suggests that the university needs to consider ways of increasing participation rates in their on-line student feedback surveys or alternatively needs to develop an efficient and cost-effective ‘clicker-based’ in-class survey instrument.

Interactive Lecture Demonstrations, using a ‘Predict, Observe, Discuss, Synthesise’ learning cycl... more Interactive Lecture Demonstrations, using a ‘Predict, Observe, Discuss, Synthesise’ learning cycle and audience response devices (i.e. clickers), have been used to improve students’ conceptual understanding of phasors and AC resonance in an introductory electronics course.

Books by Scott Daniel

Papers by Scott Daniel

European Journal of Engineering Education, 2023

ChatGPT, a sophisticated online chatbot, sent shockwaves through many sectors once reports filt... more ChatGPT, a sophisticated online chatbot, sent shockwaves through many sectors once reports filtered through that it could pass exams. In higher education, it has raised many questions about the authenticity of assessment and challenges in detecting plagiarism. Amongst the resulting frenetic hubbub, hints of potential opportunities in how ChatGPT could support learning and the development of critical thinking have also emerged. In this paper, we examine how ChatGPT may affect assessment in engineering education by exploring ChatGPT responses to existing assessment prompts from ten subjects across seven Australian universities. We explore the strengths and weaknesses of current assessment practice and discuss opportunities on how ChatGPT can be used to facilitate learning. As artificial intelligence is rapidly improving, this analysis sets a benchmark for ChatGPT's performance as of early 2023 in responding to engineering education assessment prompts. ChatGPT did pass some subjects and excelled with some assessment types. Findings suggest that changes in current practice are needed, as typically with little modification to the input prompts, ChatGPT could generate passable responses to many of the assessments, and it is only going to get better as future versions are trained on larger data sets.

2022 IEEE IFEES World Engineering Education Forum - Global Engineering Deans Council (WEEF-GEDC), Nov 27, 2022

There is both a compelling business case and social justice case for diversity in engineering (an... more There is both a compelling business case and social justice case for diversity in engineering (and other professions). Diverse teams make better decisions, and cohorts should be representative of the communities from which they are drawn (otherwise some groups are being excluded). However, in Australia the engineering profession continues to suffer from a significant lack of diversity. In this paper, we describe one attempt to address this in three Australian university contexts by seeking to create an inclusive learning environment and to cultivate students' inclusion competencies.

9th Research in Engineering Education Symposium (REES 2021) and 32nd Australasian Association for Engineering Education Conference (REES AAEE 2021), 2022

The Australasian Journal of Engineering Education (AJEE) is the peak research journal in our regi... more The Australasian Journal of Engineering Education (AJEE) is the peak research journal in our region. The journal is offered as a means of exchanging current work and ideas, predominantly from Australasian engineering education faculties and as a resource for Continuing Professional Development for our community. The journal is open to members and non-members of Engineers Australia. WORKSHOP MODE Hybrid mode during Perth business hours OVERVIEW OF WORKSHOP In this workshop, the Editorial Board Team of the AJEE will review the journal's Aim and Scope, the submission and review process, and facilitate discussions on publishing. ACTIVITIES In this interactive session, participants will be led in a discussion about the AJEE, the review process, and how to write for publication, including responding to reviewers' comments. Participants will have the opportunity for Q&A with the AJEE Editorial Board. TARGET AUDIENCE Researchers in engineering education who are considering publishing in AJEE. OUTCOMES Participants will have a better understanding of the scope of AJEE and be better equipped to submit successful manuscripts and revisions for publication.

Sustainability, May 11, 2023

This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative... more This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY

Australasian. Journal of Engineering Education, May 27, 2023

European Journal of Engineering Education, Sep 15, 2020

Empirical research on practicing engineers can inform engineering education as it provides eviden... more Empirical research on practicing engineers can inform engineering education as it provides evidence for what engineering students ought to learn. Whilst there has been a growing interest and scholarship in this area, there has not been any systematic attempt to map the empirical research on practicing engineers and develop an agenda for research on engineering practice. To address this gap, we conducted a mapping review of empirical research studies of practicing engineers. We limited our search to studies published in peer-reviewed journal articles since 2000 and identified 187 papers. We used inductive content analysis to categorise the papers intofive research themes: 1) learning in the workplace, 2) competencies and attributes needed for practice, 3) activities undertaken by engineers, 4) diversity, and 5) engineers' identity. For each theme, we report common findings and gaps that can inform future research.

CONTEXT A transformational change in engineering education culture is required to address ongoing... more CONTEXT A transformational change in engineering education culture is required to address ongoing issues such as declining interest and a lack of diversity in the student cohorts and profession. This change must go beyond transforming educational pedagogies; organisational cultural change is necessary to shape perceptions about engineering and engineering in society. The creation of the Engineering Practice Academy at Swinburne University of Technology provides the opportunity to intentionally construct a culture guided by a set of espoused values that can be used to define and guide the emergent culture, and inform decisions made in the development of the Engineering Practice Academy.

Although the research favouring active learning strategies over traditional instruction is compel... more Although the research favouring active learning strategies over traditional instruction is compelling, many conference presentations nevertheless take a very didactic approach. Indeed, much of the research presented at AAEE Conferences describes different modifications we have made to students’ traditional learning experiences to make them more engaging and effective. Inspired by the session of the same name held at this year’s American Society for Engineering Education (ASEE) Conference, in this workshop we will explore different strategies for implementing active learning approaches in our conference presentations. Additionally, we will workshop suggestions for alternative presentation formats for future AAEE conferences. OVERVIEW OF WORKSHOP In this workshop, we will brainstorm, share, and discuss different techniques for making our AAEE presentations more engaging and audience-focused. These will then be compiled and subsequently shared with the AAEE community. ACTIVITIES In bot...

5. Lecturing as enacting research
Lecturing is a process in which relevant research is enacted and embedded, towards the goal of personal and social transformation.

Contemporary Approaches to Research in Mathematics, Science, Health and Environmental Education

Research question
How can expert-equivalent questions be used to better describe conceptual change in pre- and post-testing?

PURPOSE
To what extent can lecturers assume that the same set of students attend each lecture, and therefore construct a lecture sequence that builds lecture-by-lecture on previous work?

European Journal of Engineering Education, 2023

2022 IEEE IFEES World Engineering Education Forum - Global Engineering Deans Council (WEEF-GEDC), Nov 27, 2022

9th Research in Engineering Education Symposium (REES 2021) and 32nd Australasian Association for Engineering Education Conference (REES AAEE 2021), 2022

Sustainability, May 11, 2023

Australasian. Journal of Engineering Education, May 27, 2023

European Journal of Engineering Education, Sep 15, 2020

At the University of Technology Sydney (UTS), first and second-year students in engineering and I... more At the University of Technology Sydney (UTS), first and second-year students in engineering and IT develop professional practice skills through project-based work with significant group work components in large, 500+ student cohort subjects. Some students find group work challenging and do not appreciate its importance to their professional practice. In looking to improve the transition of our students into and through university, and then into professional practice, we are revising our subject activities. This paper looks at teamwork through the lens of building students’ capacity for relational agency.

International Journal of Innovation in Science and Mathematics Education, 2021

Advances in technology offer new opportunities for teaching. Many students engage with online vid... more Advances in technology offer new opportunities for teaching. Many students engage with online videos that enable them to watch, and re-watch these support materials flexibly and at their own pace. In our large-enrolment introductory first-year physics unit, many students find the content very challenging. To support their learning, we have developed short videos of 4-7 minutes explaining concepts and providing demonstrations of the problem-solving process. Our study was originally designed to evaluate and compare the effect on conceptual understanding and self-efficacy of students engaging with two different types of videos: screencasts (e.g. Khan Academy style) and lightboard videos, where the teacher presents direct to the camera on a writable transparent board (the image is then inverted to be the right way round). Then COVID struck, and all our learning was moved online. Thus, in the second semester of the study, we only used screencasts, and focused our research on exploring th...

2018 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition Proceedings

in Melbourne. He has worked in 10 countries on 5 continents, and as a consultant and facilitator ... more in Melbourne. He has worked in 10 countries on 5 continents, and as a consultant and facilitator with UNESCO, Australian Volunteers International, Engineers without Borders, Scope Global, World Vision, and the Victorian Curriculum and Assessment Authority. He also has a regular radio segment as "Dr Scott", answering listeners' questions about science. Dr. Nick John Brown, Engineers Without Borders Australia Nick Brown leads the research interests and activities of Engineers Without Borders Australia. Nick is responsible for the development and delivery of an innovative education and research program that creates, builds and disseminates new knowledge in Humanitarian Engineering. This program engages academics and students from Australia's leading universities to develop innovative solutions to humanitarian problems faced by communities both within Australia and overseas. These projects cover a range of topics, including designing prosthetic hands for less than $5, researching low cost building materials in Cambodia and developing ways to provide cooking fuel and stoves to refugees all around the world.

Journal of Engineering Education, 2020

BackgroundHumanitarian engineering (HE) is rapidly emerging in universities and professional work... more BackgroundHumanitarian engineering (HE) is rapidly emerging in universities and professional workplaces worldwide. In HE, socio‐technical thinking is fundamental as HE projects exist at the intersection of engineering and sustainable community development. However, the literature still lacks an understanding of the key features of socio‐technical thinking.Purpose/HypothesisThe purpose of this article is to investigate the key characteristics that distinguish the socio‐technical thinking of an expert from a novice in the context of HE projects.Design/MethodWe distributed the Energy Conversion Playground (ECP) design task to students starting their engineering degree (n = 26) and practitioners (n = 16). We iteratively and inductively analyzed the responses to develop a rubric characterizing the key features of expert socio‐technical thinking. We then scored participants' responses and compared them to identify differences between students and practitioners.ResultsThe analysis show...

9th Research in Engineering Education Symposium (REES 2021) and 32nd Australasian Association for Engineering Education Conference (REES AAEE 2021), 2022

When international students relocate overseas to pursue higher education, they undergo transition... more When international students relocate overseas to pursue higher education, they undergo transitions in social culture, educational approaches and professional practice. These transitions shape various aspects of their identity (e.g., personal, professional), engineering identity being one of them. Engineering identity is a complex, contested construct that informs how engineering is perceived, how education curricula are developed, and which student it attracts. Due to stereotypes about engineering, white middle-class males continue to dominate the profession. However, there is a need for a more diverse engineering workforce that better represents the society. With female international students' varied journeys and intersectional identities, a closer look at this population will shed light on ways to attract and retain diverse individuals within engineering. PURPOSE OR GOAL As a first step in a larger study about understanding the identities and experiences of female international students, in this paper we ask the following research question: What research has been conducted on female international students in engineering? APPROACH OR METHODOLOGY/METHODS As a starting point, the following keywords (and their synonyms) are searched on Scopus and targeted journals: 'international student', 'wom*n', 'engineer*'. After the abstracts are screened based on their relevance to the research question, the remaining abstracts are analysed to determine an appropriate scope for this review, and the inclusion and exclusion criteria are refined. References from the included papers are screened and analysed using the same process. ACTUAL OR ANTICIPATED OUTCOMES Based on the search strategy as well as inclusion and exclusion criteria, 6 papers were identified as relevant to the research question, and the findings were qualitatively analysed based on two categories: university and family/society. Discussion on university focussed on female international students' interactions in the social and academic context, while discussion on family/society focussed on the impact of societal perceptions of engineering and gender roles on female international students.

Background Traditional lecture instruction often only leads to minimal improvement in students’ c... more Background Traditional lecture instruction often only leads to minimal improvement in students’ conceptual understanding. Use of active learning strategies, such as Interactive Lecture Demonstrations (ILDs), can help. ILDs have been used by the authors since 2010 in teaching alternating current (AC) resonance in a large-enrolment introductory electronics course. Learning improvements after such educational interventions are typically measured using the average normalised gain (g). This is calculated by comparing total scores on the pre-test and post-test to generate a number between 0 (no improvement) and 1 (maximum improvement). It will be argued that this aggregate measure is too general, and that better insights can be gained into students’ conceptual change through analysis of individuals’ responses to sets of questions that ask about a particular concept in different ways (so called ‘expert-equivalent’ questions). Research question How can expert-equivalent questions be used to better describe conceptual change in pre- and post-testing? Method Learning gains were assessed by testing students’ conceptual understanding (via a multiple-choice pre-test) after 8 hours of traditional instruction but before the ILD intervention, and again after an additional 2 hours of ILD instruction (via an identical post-test). The responses of individual students were matched across the different sessions using anonymous but unique student-generated codes. Data were collected in 2010, 2011, and 2012. The tests consisted of multiple-choice conceptual questions that did not require quantitative calculations but instead were designed to assess students’ qualitative understanding of various complex concepts associated with resonance in AC circuits. The tests given in each year were slightly different however, in each case, there was a pair of questions that asked about the same concept in two different ways – graphically and in written form. The multiple-choice responses to these pairs of expert-equivalent questions were mapped to one another, and students’ responses examined for consistency. Results The average normalised gain in test scores for students who participated in all active learning ILD activities was significant. However, the analysis of responses to pairs of expert-equivalent questions revealed a much more complex pattern. Most students answered inconsistently in both the pre- and post-tests, that is, their response to the graphical question did not equate logically to their response to the written question, and vice versa. Nevertheless there was a general shift towards more students answering at least one, and sometimes both, of the questions correctly, and so aligning their understanding with the expert view. Conclusions The comparison of aggregated scores in pre- and post-tests is a coarse assessment instrument that hides some unexpected facets of student learning. In the transition from novice to expert, it seems that learners may understand a complex concept in one context but not in another, even though an expert would consider the two as equivalent. There is not a binary switch from confusion to clarity, but instead an extended intermediate phase of partial or contextualised understanding.

Interactive Lecture Demonstrations (ILDs) have been used across introductory university physics a... more Interactive Lecture Demonstrations (ILDs) have been used across introductory university physics as a successful active learning (AL) strategy to improve students’ conceptual understanding. We have developed ILDs for more complex topics in our first-year electronics course. In 2006 we began developing ILDs to improve students’ conceptual understanding of Operational Amplifiers (OAs) and negative feedback in amplification circuits. The ILDs were used after traditional lecture instruction to help students consolidate their understanding. We developed a diagnostic test, to be administered to students both before and after the ILDs, as a measure of how effective the ILDs were in improving students’ understanding. We argue that an on-going critical analysis of student performance (using education research principles) is essential for improving education practice. Our analysis of student surveys, pre- and post-tests, ILD activities and final examinations, have yielded valuable feedback on how well we have designed and delivered our OA ILD interventions. During the period 2006-2013, we have found that: (a) many hours of traditional lectures do little to improve students’ conceptual understanding. (b) a few additional hours of ILDs significantly improves students’ conceptual understanding. (c) few students attend lectures consistently (either traditional or ILDs). (d) students find the concepts relating to OAs difficult, but students achieved much better scores on the OA examination question after the introduction of ILDs. (e) students recognise the learning benefits of the ILDs. Our on-going education research has driven improvements in our active learning strategy, including: (1) recognising the importance of the facilitator role in active learning. (2) using a lesson plan that is consistent with an active learning pedagogy. (3) reviewing assessment tools and learning activities so that they improve student learning. (4) redesigning ILD equipment and activities to make them simpler and clearer to understand. (5) reviewing lesson plans to make them focused on simple key concepts. The implications of using on-going education research results to refine the effectiveness of our L&T approach are clear. If we had implemented our initial ILD approach back in 2006 and continued on without the critical review that came from our own education research, we may have assumed that what we were doing was an effective AL approach. Instead, our education research results are an on-going trigger for review of, and self-reflection on, our teaching practices. Our education research gives us a quantitative measure of the success (or otherwise) of the interventions that we try in our teaching.

Summary (35 words) Interactive Lecture Demonstrations, using a ‘Predict, Observe, Discuss, Synthe... more Summary (35 words) Interactive Lecture Demonstrations, using a ‘Predict, Observe, Discuss, Synthesise’ learning cycle and audience response devices (i.e. clickers), have been used to improve students’ conceptual understanding of phasors and AC resonance in an introductory electronics course. Keywordsmisconceptions, Interactive Lecture Demonstrations, clickers, electronics

Tom Gordon interviews international STEM superstar Scott Daniel. Thanks so much to Scott for chat... more Tom Gordon interviews international STEM superstar Scott Daniel. Thanks so much to Scott for chatting with us. Scott has been involved in Science communication and education for over a decade and has been doing it all over the world. Scott has a regular science spot on ABC Gippsland, and has developed a huge range of resources and research into science education and communication.

Ever since starting this podcast, I've wanted to interview people like Scott. I hop you enjoy this as much as I did talking with Scott!

In this interview we talked about Teaching, Outreach, Teachers, PhD's, STEM Communication, Science Circus, International science education, and more.

Orbost Primary School Science Fair

Blog post on The Thesis Whisperer

Volcanoes in Reunion Island

UNESCO Active Learning in Optics and Photonics teacher-training in Mauritius

What's the best way to demist a fogged car windscreen?

Why do the colours red, yellow and orange mean danger in nature?

Engineers without Borders in Cambodia