AC 2012-3648: ENGAGING FRESHMAN ENGINEERS USING THE PAULELDER MODEL OF CRITICAL THINKING
Dr. Angela Thompson P.E., University of Louisville
Dr. Patricia A. Ralston, University of Louisville
Dr. Jeffrey Lloyd Hieb, University of Louisville
Jeffrey Hieb is currently an Assistant Professor in the Department of Engineering Fundamentals at the
University of Louisville. His research interests include the use of technology in engineering education,
secure operating systems, and cyber-security for industrial control systems.
c
American
Society for Engineering Education, 2012
Engaging Freshman Engineers Using the
Paul-Elder Framework for Critical Thinking
Abstract
This paper presents an exercise, or series of exercises, developed by the authors for their Introduction to
Engineering course. Two major course components are critical thinking and departmental presentations.
The critical thinking framework includes eight elements of thought: purpose, question at issue,
information, inferences, concepts, assumptions, implications, and point of view. There are seven
different engineering disciplines taught at the school, each in their own department. Each department
gives a class long presentation as part of the course. The developed assignment is given for each
department presentation with the intention of reinforcing elements from the university’s critical thinking
framework and improving student engagement in departmental presentations. Student survey responses
indicated that students found the assignment effective in meeting some of the course goals, such as
improving their critical thinking skills. An analysis of selected students’ work on these assignments
indicate that most students had some success in identifying salient purposes, concepts, and questions at
issue for each engineering discipline for which there was a department presentation. It was also clear
that point of view was an element with which students consistently struggled.
Introduction
The J.B. Speed School of Engineering is a medium-sized, urban, ABET-accredited institution in the
southeast. Since 2006, entering freshman take an “Introduction to Engineering” course, a two credit
hour course that meets the university’s “freshman experience” requirement. The course also gives
freshman engineers an introduction to the engineering profession, engineering design, different
engineering disciplines, and critical thinking. In the fall of 2011, there were 450 students in 12 sections
taught by an instruction team of four faculty and six graduate teaching assistants. Critical Thinking
became an explicit part of the course in response to the University’s Quality Enhancement Plan (QEP),
and the introduction to engineering course is responsible for teaching students the critical thinking
framework adopted by the university. Another significant component of the course is department
presentations. One entire class meeting (2 hours) is devoted to each of the seven degree granting
engineering departments at the school, for a total of seven class meetings out of a total of 28 meetings
for the semester.
When evaluating previous years, the instructional team identified two areas in need of improvement:
engagement by students in the department presentations and reinforcement of the critical thinking
framework. When the course was initially developed, department presentations were incorporated to
introduce the department, its faculty, and research areas to freshman prior to the beginning of the fall
advising schedule; with the emphasis on helping students confirm their choice of intended major. There
were no assignments related to department presentations, and many students appeared to conclude that
presentations by departments other than those they were interested in were unimportant. Furthermore, to
complete all department presentations before fall advising, the presentations took place on consecutive
class meetings for three and one-half weeks, which exacerbated the lack of engagement. Presentation of
the critical thinking framework has been improving each year. This course is one of the few places
students receive explicit instruction on the critical thinking framework; however, familiarity with the
framework and its use are implicitly a part of many other courses. To achieve familiarity with the
framework, students need to explicitly and repeatedly use the framework over the course of the
semester. This paper describes a critical thinking assignment intended to reinforce the critical thinking
framework and increase students’ engagement in department presentations. Section two discusses the
Paul-Elder framework and how it is used in critical thinking instruction in our Introduction to
Engineering course. Section three gives a brief overview of department presentations in Introduction to
Engineering courses. Section four describes the development of an assignment to reinforce critical
thinking, in particular in terms of the Paul-Elder framework, and improve student engagement in
departmental presentations. The results of a survey and faculty impressions are presented in section five
with conclusions about the effectiveness of the exercise and its future use presented in section six.
1. Critical thinking instruction in Introduction to Engineering
The university has adopted the Paul-Elder1 framework for its critical thinking model. By adopting this
framework, faculty throughout the university will use the same language (Paul-Elder is discipline
neutral) and it is hoped students will better recognize the critical thinking aspects that are implicitly a
part of most courses. The Paul-Elder framework is shown in figure 1. The framework includes
standards, elements, and traits. The elements are the elements of thought; they can be used to
decompose any critical thinking into its constituent components: “what are the assumptions?” The
standards are used to evaluate the elements, “Are the assumptions valid?” Traits are used to describe
the characteristics of a good critical thinker, and are the most subtle.
Figure 1. The Paul-Elder Framework of critical thinking1.
Various instruction methods have proven effective in encouraging critical thinking in engineering
students. In a review of the educational literature, Cooney et al. found two primary areas for best
practices in critical thinking education: writing for reflection and problem-based learning2. Similarly,
Romkey and Cheng highlighted interdisciplinary problems, open-ended problems and discussion,
reflection, and active learning as effective techniques for critical thinking development3. Despite the
technique applied, several common themes emerge when researching effective development of critical
thinking skills2,3,4:
1. Explicit instruction of critical thinking is important; assessment tools and frameworks can be used as a guide,
2. The instructor should model “good” critical thinking practice,
3. The instructor must provide ample opportunities for the students to practice critical thinking.
In “Introduction to Engineering,” explicit critical thinking instruction uses the Paul-Elder framework
and includes lecture presentations on the eight elements and the standards and reading assignments from
Learning to Think Things Through by Gerald Nosich5. Nosich elucidates the P-E Framework by clearly
distinguishing between analysis and evaluation as it relates to critical thinking. The elements provide a
way for any piece of reasoning to be analyzed or understood and the standards are filters or ways to
evaluate the reasoning, to determine if the reasoning was done well. Figure 2 illustrates the process of
reasoning using the Paul-Elder critical thinking framework. In “Introduction to Engineering,”
differentiating between analysis and evaluation in terms of the elements and standards and the ability of
the elements and standards to guide analysis and thinking is emphasized.
Figure 2. The process of reasoning using the Paul-Elder critical thinking framework5.
The eight elements are best shown as eight equal sectors of a circle Figure 3. Analysis of reasoning is
done by “going around the circle” in order to fully appreciate the impact of each element on the
reasoning, understanding the elements both individually and collectively, or how they contribute to an
integrated whole. The analysis portion of critical thinking answers “How has the thinking been done?”
Once a piece of reasoning is understood or analyzed, it must be evaluated. In order to evaluate any
piece of reasoning, one must “go back around the circle, this time evaluating using the standards”.
Evaluation answers “How well has the thinking been done?” Nosich5 provides an excellent and easily
read exposition on both the process of analyzing and evaluating a piece of reasoning. (pp. 67-68, 155156).
Introduction to Engineering students were required to read the Nosich text as they completed two
critical thinking assignments. In the first assignment, students were given an article to analyze by
identifying the elements of reasoning. They were not required to write detailed or complete sentences,
but simply identify with phrases or short sentences each of the eight elements. After identifying the
elements, which forces one to answer questions about the reasoning itself, it should be possible to
understand the article as fully as possible. In the second assignment, students were to evaluate the same
article by applying the standards to the elements to make judgments about the article’s reasonableness.
These two assignments provided the students with a solid foundation of the P-E framework, and critical
thinking concepts in general.
Figure 3. The eight elements of the Paul-Elder Framework of critical thinking5.
2. Introducing Engineering Disciplines in Introduction to Engineering
A primary goal of most Introduction to Engineering courses is to introduce students to the various
engineering disciplines. To improve engagement, retention, and development of critical thinking, many
engineering schools have looked at alternative methods to introduce the various engineering disciplines
in Introduction to Engineering courses. Several schools have adopted project-based or laboratory-based
approaches to incorporate active learning. For example, the University of Florida converted their
lecture-based Introduction to Engineering course into a series of labs focusing on the various
disciplines. They found that the active learning approach was preferable and saw significant increases in
retention6. Other schools have taken similar approaches by having students participate in both
discipline-specific and multidisciplinary projects7,8,9. At North Carolina State University, student teams
were asked to conduct research about a particular discipline and give short (5-10 minute) presentations
to the rest of the class10. Additionally, students were required to attend at least two informational
seminars put on by the various departments.
Like Introduction to Engineering courses at many engineering schools, our course invites faculty
representatives from each of the different departments to speak to the students about their discipline.
Departments have retained autonomy in developing their presentations, so there is no pre-determined
format. To improve engagement, it was suggested that the time be broken up into segments with
“hands-on” activities and time for students to interact in small groups with some of the department’s
students and faculty. Five of seven departments followed this recommendation, one presented using
only a lecture format, and one conducted lab tours in place of a hands-on activity. In addition, this fall
the presentations were spread throughout the 14 week semester, starting with week four and continuing
roughly once a week for the next six weeks. This schedule appeared to work much better than in
previous years and there were no ramifications with the fall advising schedule. Students who ended up
needing another advising appointment due to changing majors were accommodated without incident.
3. An exercise for critical thinking reinforcement and department presentation engagement
The faculty team created an “Analyze the Discipline” exercise based on Nosich’s “Logic of a
discipline”5 exercise for each departmental presentation. The exercise requires students to analyze each
departmental discipline, based largely on the department’s presentation, by identifying the elements of
thought as they relate to that discipline. The assignment is a one page list of prompts (built directly from
the elements of thought), and is customized for each discipline. The prompts for Chemical Engineering
are shown in Table 1. The students are given a hard copy of the assignment just before the presentation.
The assignment requires students to identify and explain each of the eight elements of thought as applied
to the particular discipline. It was intended that this would make students more engaged in presentations
and appreciate their usefulness even if they did not plan to major in that discipline. Students were
reminded that at many points in their career, they may be part of multi-disciplinary teams and should be
informed about all the engineering disciplines regardless of their intended major.
While similar to Nosich’s exercise, the “Analyze the Discipline” exercise is simpler. Nosich develops
the concept of the “Logic of a Discipline” in more detail and depth, emphasizing the need to find the
inter-relationships and inter-dependence of the eight elements on one another within a discipline in order
to see the synergies within a discipline and to truly understand the “logic” of a discipline that constitutes
how those within that discipline reason. Students may not achieve this level of synthesis with the
“Analyze the Discipline” exercises, but the exercises should serve to reinforce the elements of thought
of the Paul-Elder framework and help students better understand the various engineering disciplines.
Table 1. Sample list of prompts given to students for the Analyze the Discipline exercise.
Analyze the Discipline: Chemical Engineering
The main purpose of Chemical Engineering is:
The main question at issue in chemical engineering is:
Chemical Engineering takes place within the context of:
The information Chemical Engineers use is:
Some implications and consequences of Chemical Engineering are:
The key assumptions Chemical Engineers make are:
The point of view of Chemical Engineering is:
The main concepts in Chemical Engineering include:
Departments were given the “Analyze the Discipline” exercise in advance and informed that students
might ask questions related to the assignment. No rubric was made for grading this exercise, nor were
examples of good responses provided to students or the department faculty. For the contribution to
course grade, TAs scored these as participation points only; they were not graded thoroughly.
4.
Results
For this paper, samples from all twelve sections were reviewed randomly by the instructional facultyto
get an overall understanding of the quality of student responses. Four of the eight elements of the PaulElder framework were analyzed in detail to gauge the effectiveness of the assignment. Purpose and
implications/consequences of the discipline were examined to gauge the students’ general understanding
and impressions of the disciplines. Assumptions and point of view were examined because the
instructors felt these were the more difficult elements to grasp. Additionally, for 27 select students,
assignments for each of the seven disciplines were reviewed closely. This was done to assess whether
the students’ understanding of the critical thinking framework improved over repeated use of the
elements. The teaching assistant (TA) for those sections selected some students in the following
categories: 1.) consistent high achievers, 2.) consistent low achievers, and 3.) improvers. All seven
assignments for these students were read by faculty and compared. Students were also given an IRB
approved survey at the end of the semester with two specific questions about all the critical thinking
exercises. Only 404 students took the survey since some students had dropped by this point and some
did not participate since the survey was optional.
Survey Results
Two questions on an end-of-semester survey related to effectiveness of the critical thinking instruction
and exercises. The results from the survey are shown in figures 4 and 5.
Question 1: As a result of the critical thinking assignment and the “analyze the discipline” exercises for
each department presentation, my critical thinking skills are:
Figure 4. Survey responses to Question 1.
Question 2: The goals of this course include improving students’: a) use of tablet pcs; b) critical thinking
and decision-making skills; c) team building/communication skills; d) understanding of
diversity/harassment; e) knowledge about engineering professionalism/ethics; f) understanding of
engineering design and practice; g) knowledge of departments/engineering disciplines at SpeedSchool;
h) ability to use the software tools Excel, Maple, Matlab. As you read through the following list of
course activities, think about whether each activity was effective or not effective in achieving one or
more the goals.
Critical Thinking Presentations and Assignments
Department Analyze the Discipline Exercises
Figure 5. Survey responses to Question 2.
Sixty-seven percent of student respondents thought their critical thinking skills were somewhat better,
better, or significantly better. This result is in line with student answers for most of the classroom
activities questioned on the survey. Roughly 70% of the students seemed to appreciate faculty attempts
to achieve the goals of the course. The critical thinking presentations and assignments were found to be
effective in achieving course goals by 59.1% of the students while 10.4% had no opinion. The “Analyze
the Discipline” exercises were judged effective by 71.5% with 10.9% having no opinion. Again, these
results were consistent with most of the responses for other presentations, assignments and outcomes.
Responses about the effectiveness of the 16 class activities varied from 52% to 89% with the average
69%.
Overview of Student Responses on Analyze the Discipline Exercises
Table 2 shows a sample of student responses from three of the seven department presentations on the
Analyze the Discipline assignment. In general, student responses to the questions of purpose and
implications suggest that students had a sufficient understanding of the various engineering disciplines.
In some cases, the student responses to purpose exhibited a simplistic or limited view of the discipline.
For example, a majority of students described the purpose of civil engineering to “build bridges and
structures.” This is likely a reflection of the presentation by the Civil Engineering Department which
focused primarily on bridge failure and design. Student responses to implications/consequences were
often focused on “life or death” issues. For example, many responses on the civil engineering
assignment mentioned bridge failures leading to death. Responses on the bioengineering assignment
frequently contrasted benefits to human health and life with the possibility for fatal mistakes. Even
some responses on the computer engineering assignment mentioned the possibility of death due to
engineering errors.
Assumptions and point of view seemed to be less understood by the majority of students. Many
responses to the question of assumptions described assumptions people make about engineers in that
particular discipline. For example, “civil engineers wear hard hats” or “computer engineers work on
computers all day.” The most common responses for point of view described subspecialties of the
discipline in question.
Analysis of Selected Students’ Performance
Faculty impressions of individual student results for all seven assignments are shown in Table 3. The
categories are high achievers (HA), low achievers (LA), and improvers (I) as identified by the teaching
assistants. Shown also is the course grade the students received. Department abbreviations are
Bioengineering (BE), Civil and Environmental Engineering (CEE), Chemical Engineering (CHE),
Computer Engineering and Computer Science (CECS), Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE),
Mechanical Engineering (ME), Industrial Engineering (IE). The comment column gives faculty
impressions after studying the responses in the order they were completed by students. The TAs gave
participation points for these assignments; they were not graded as a separate written assignment, which
might account for some students not taking them as seriously as desired by faculty.
5. Discussion of Results
The survey results appeared to confirm that students appreciate the activities that faculty are providing
to meet the course goals. Responses concerning the critical thinking activities and “Analyze the
Discipline” exercises received what amounted to average ratings from the class.
After reviewing the work of the selected students (Tables 2 and 3), and referring back to both Nosich
and exemplars of analysis of engineering disciplines provide by Paul et al.1, these observations are
made:
1. The elements point of view and assumptions are hard to grasp. It is clear that faculty need to discuss
the elements more thoroughly during the lecture about the Paul-Elder framework. More interactive
small group activities to reinforce this would be beneficial. Many student answers took the view of
“what do people assume ABOUT …engineers”, despite the assignment asking specifically for
assumptions engineers make. One faculty presenter actually mentioned something like “everyone
assumes CEEs wear hard hats”. Several students took that as the answer to what they were supposed
to answer and then they kept that same context for the following assignments! Some of the
presenters even seemed to struggle with exactly how to answer questions related to point of view.
This remains a challenge as to how to work with faculty from other departments.
Table 2. Sample of student responses on “analyze the discipline” assignments.
Discipline
Purpose
Civil and Environmental
Engineering


Implications



They design and build the nation’s
transportation, supply and energy
systems and solve problems of
today’s society such as water
supply, urban congestion, waste
disposal, and conservation
Build bridges,
structures/infrastructure
Death from structural failures,
damage to environment
Fresh water to 3rd world countries
Create many structures that make
our daily lives convenient
Bioengineering





Assumptions 



Point of
View



Assume drivers behave a certain
way on the bridge
They have to assume how much
what they build will be used in the
future
Civil engineers only do bridges,
It is just like architecture

Structural, environmental, water
resources, transportation
Usefulness to the public, durability,
aesthetics
Many civil engineers are willing to
give up a percentage of salary vs
other disciplines for the opportunity
to do work that has society benefits






Computer Engineering and Computer
Science
Develop health related products and
techniques to improve quality of life
Apply engineering to medicine and
biology

If something were to go wrong with a
device or medicine…the consequence
could be fatal
In the realm of ethics and human
conscience, any process or product
meant to repair biological processes in
humans must be rigorously tested,
because they can mean the difference
between life and death of a patient
New technology makes surgery safer
with a shorter recovery time
Design product that causes least harm.
People want to heal as fast as possible
Their main interest is helping/serving the
patient
Always be a way to make life better for
patients
Assume people typically follow the
same health patterns
Different fields (prosthetics, research,
medical techniques, etc)
Bioinformatics, bioinstrumentation,
biomaterials, imaging, rehabilitation
The human body is a complex system
that we must strive to understand so that
we may improve its systems












Focuses on programming languages, data
and information representation, storage and
processing, and algorithms and computability
Design and develop hardware and software
systems
Because of CECS we are able to
study/research bioinformatics, medical
informatics, numerical analysis,
computational chemistry, and simulation and
modeling.
Faster computers, better quality of life
A consequence of CECS could be a
broken/faulty code in the software that runs a
chemotherapy machine that causes it to
release too much radiation which could kill a
person.
A computer will compute flawlessly. Errors
are usually user based. Modeling with a
computer is more efficient than by hand
They work on computers all day
That a computer program can accurately
represent a real-world event
There are some problems a computer cannot
solve
Computer languages, how a computer/device
interprets input, need to think in terms of a
consumer/user to make the devices more
appealing/affordable
Every problem can be modeled
Security, programmers, artificial intelligence,
statistics, algorithms
They look at things analytically. They also
look at how to improve and progress
technology
Table 3. Faculty impressions of student responses on Analyze the Discipline exercises.
Course
Student Category
Faculty Impressions of the Analyze the Discipline Exercise
Grade
1
HA
A
2
HA
A
3
HA
A
4
HA
A
5
HA
A
6
HA
A
7
HA
A
8
HA
A
9
HA
A
10
HA
A
11
HA
A
12
I
A
13
I
A
14
I
A
15
I
B
16
17
18
I
I
I
B
A
A
19
I
A
20
LA
B
21
LA
B
22
LA
A
23
LA
B
24
LA
C
25
LA
D
26
LA
D
27
LA
D
good - thoughtful throughout, more trouble with points of view and assumptions - but
got better!
missed the central questions, some improvement with points of view, missed
assumptions throughout;
clear that student was engaged and listened to presentation; had trouble with points of
view and assumptions;
clear that student was engaged and listened; also had trouble with points of view and
assumptions;
assumptions - ones made about engineers, not assumptions THEY make; but
IMPROVED drastically by end - very good through ECE; overall very good effort on
all of these - proficient with elements
struggled with points of view for BE onward, but good on first two; actually got worse seemed to take less seriously as progressed
had trouble with point of view and assumptions - but went in right direction - just weak
- and continued with this answer (assumed that their data comes from reliable sources wrote this for all of them!) On both of these, took a simplistic idea and used each time.
problems with assumptions and points of view; answers got weaker with progression.
same issue with points of view and assumptions; effort seemed to decrease - answers
improved in some areas, worse in others with progression
some improvement in point of view and assumptions - clearly most challenging
Probably best effort but still it is clear that more discussion is needed on point of view
especially more; excellent work throughout on other elements
good on purpose and questions; same trouble with points of view and assumptions on
some, not all; poor on CEE - least effort appears to be put in; all others thoughtfully
done; especially good with ME;
CECS one best I have seen - even for assumptions and points of view; poor CEE ( I
think the speaker made a joke about assumptions people made about CEEs - wear
hardhats- and kids started answering the question about assumptions from that
perspective) ; pretty good on points of view and assumptions
struggled with assumptions and points of view; consistent effort, but missed point on
most of elements only purpose and central question were very good
both CEE students thought implications were all dire - death, flooding, etc.; weak
assumptions and points of view; effort appeared consistent
problems with assumptions and points of view; answers got shorter with progression
same issues with points of view and assumptions; answers worse with progression
only 4 assignments; similar issues with point of view and assumptions
effort and work seemed to decline with progression; took comments of presenter at
strict face value; unable to integrate the entire content of the presentation;
some fairly thoughtful answers, just left a lot of them blank; missing 3 assignments
misunderstanding of points of view and assumptions(made about the career itself - good
job, etc); missing 3 assignments; didn't take it seriously
clearly did not understand assumptions or points of view, and wrote nonsense in places,
general low effort - some fair answers
frequently left assumptions and points of view blank; answers indicated some
engagement but limited; some improvement with progression
only three items, some brief, but fair answers, some off base, some good
only two items, could barely read this - couldn't read most answers - Tas shouldn't have
given credit for this work.
Only 3 assignments; very poor effort, but some answers pretty good - even for
assumptions and points of view
only 4 assignments; similar issues with point of view and assumptions
2. There is a clear need for more and better feedback. This is difficult for any explicit critical thinking
assignment, and is made more difficult by the large class size. One difficulty in giving a “solution”
after collecting the assignment is that it can confuse students since their answers might be different
but still accurate. It is therefore important to indicate to students, in the form of feedback, aspects of
their response that meet a standard as defined by the instructors in advance. An approach being
considered for next year is training of the TAs to score all the critical thinking assignments using a
critical thinking rubric. In many cases, the overall quality of work actually declined from Analyze
the Discipline exercises one to seven because the students didn’t feel the assignment was valued.
Some of the very high achieving students did extremely well throughout, but in general that was not
the case; and some even commented that they didn’t think anyone would ever read their assignment.
Also, many errors of understanding the elements were made consistently across many of the
assignments, punctuating the need to give more and better feedback. Finding an efficient way to
provide feedback is a high priority for next year.
3. The elements of purpose, concepts, question at issue, and implications were well understood by all
of the students, a very encouraging outcome which demonstrated their understanding of these
elements of thought. These good responses also showed students learned something about the
engineering disciplines, and they listened well enough to write it down for their assignment. It
seems reasonable to assume they were engaged well enough to get more information from the
presentation than they would already possess in most cases.
6.
Conclusions and Future Directions
To summarize, based on the analysis of student responses to these exercises and the survey information,
the authors found three primary conclusions: 1) it is imperative that students get informative feedback as
quickly as possible, 2) the “Analyze the Discipline” exercises were useful for reinforcing critical
thinking and the P-E framework, and 3) the “Analyze the Discipline” exercises were effective for
improving engagement of students during department presentations. Additionally, from review of our
analysis of these exercises, there is also evidence that students gained an understanding and appreciation
of all seven engineering disciplines offered at this university, as opposed to listening closely only to
their department of interest. Of those selected students and also those from the larger sample, most
could identify the purpose, concepts, and question at issue elements for all seven disciplines which
demonstrates basic understanding of the disciplines. In future semesters, faculty will consider checking
for a correlation between the student responses to the “Analyze the Discipline” exercises and the choice
of major.
Since these exercises were useful in achieving the desired outcomes of reinforcing critical thinking and
P-E framework and better engaging students in department presentations, similar activities will be
continued in the future. However, the issue of better and more rapid feedback must be addressed as
must the fact that most students struggled with the elements assumptions and point of view. This will
inform how the instruction of the P-E framework is taught in the future. In lecture presentations and
group activities, more concrete examples of identifying elements and “going around the wheel” to
analyze an article and a discipline (not necessarily engineering) will be done. The feedback issue is not
new; all faculty know rapid, informative feedback is critical for student learning. However, in large
classes, scoring written work in a timely manner is a challenge. These authors are challenged to find the
best way to use these or similar exercises, but to give more rapid feedback. Part of our future work in
this area includes determining the best approach for improvement of feedback, critical thinking
instruction and student engagement. Some possibilities include focusing exercises on a smaller number
of elements for each assignment, varying the element asked each time; developing some of these as team
exercises; and working with the departments to make sure their presentations provide at least some
information that gives students an understanding of most of the elements. By providing the students with
quicker, more meaningful feedback, the authors feel that future “Analyze the Discipline” assignments
can serve the dual purpose of further encouraging development of students’ critical thinking skills while
enhancing the knowledge gained about various engineering disciplines.
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