Thursday, May 7, 2009

Evaluation of Issues and Need for Research on Teaching

Respondents were asked to give ratings (1-5 scale using words) on the following questions:

  • Evaluate the importance of the following issues to your school
  • Evaluate the importance of the following issues to AE programs nationally
  • Evaluate the importance of research related to teaching AE Design in the following areas

The detailed results are available on this Google-Docs spreadsheet.

Summary of Results

Issues for Schools

Considerable Importance

  • Integration of all three ABET components of AE - Structure; MEP; Construction Management (3.9/5)
  • Sustainability Design (3.5/5)

Non-Significant Evaluations

  • All the others were not rejected from the null-hypothesis of "average" significance.

Issues Nationally

Considerable Importance

  • Integration of all three ABET components of AE - Structure; MEP; Construction Management (3.6/5)
  • Sustainability Design (3.7/5)

Some Significance

  • BIM (Building Information Modeling)  (3.4/5)
  • Lean/Economic Design (3.3/5)

Non-Significant Evaluations

  • All the others were not rejected from the null-hypothesis of "average" significance.

Teaching Research

Considerable Importance

  • Correlating industry needs with AED curricula  (3.8/5)
  • Identifying the most effective teaching strategies for different aspects of AED. (3.5/5)
  • Incorporating distance-learning into the curriculum (2.5/5) - [negative importance]

Some Significance

  • Incorporating computer-based instruction into the curriculum  (3.4/5)
  • Addressing different student learning styles (3.4/5)

Non-Significant Evaluations

  • All the others were not rejected from the null-hypothesis of "average" significance.

Note on Statistical Significance of Results

Almost all the results showed a statistically significant difference from a null-hypothesis model centered on the middle term (3.0) of the 5-Likert values using a goodness-of-fit chi-squared analysis.  Those that weren't significant are shaded gray. 

Note, as always, that a significant result does not mean a big difference.  That is a matter of individual judgement, which is the reason the actual counts are shown.