Mikel Garmendia

First-Year Engineering Students' Difficulties in Visualization and Drawing Tasks.

Visualizing parts, meaning interpreting the views of an object which has been represented in a drawing, is a fundamental skill in engineering. However, learning deficiencies and difficulties have been observed among engineering undergraduates, and there is a high failure rate in drawing courses. In order to determine the origin of these deficiencies, a qualitative design has been developed based on personal interviews. A group of students was interviewed to analyse the solution process they applied to three visualization problems with increasing difficulty. The steps they took were structured and categorized along with the difficulties and deficiencies which were detected. Most of the students affirmed that they did not possess methodology to solve these problems and relied on trial and error and intuition. The results seem to indicate that there are specific difficulties and that it is possible to define a set of skills which guide students through the process of visualizing parts.

Estimate of students' workload and the impact of the evaluation system on students' dedication to studying a subject in first-year engineering courses

In order to adapt current subjects to the ECTS credits system, it is necessary to estimate how much time a student has to invest in learning a subject. The Polytechnic Engineering School of the University of the Basque Country has made an initial study to investigate this matter in several subjects. A weekly questionnaire design was used for all the students in the class, supplemented, when necessary, by an individual interview, with student collaboration. The results indicate that the study rhythm and the number of hours are strongly conditioned by the evaluation system.

Exercises are problems too: implications for teaching problem-solving in introductory physics courses

Frequently, in university-level general physics courses, after explaining the theory, exercises are set based on examples that illustrate the application of concepts and laws. Traditionally formulated numerical exercises are usually solved by the teacher and students through direct replacement of data in formulae. It is our contention that such strategies can lead to the superficial and erroneous resolution of such exercises. In this paper, we provide an example that illustrates that students tend to solve problems in a superficial manner, without applying fundamental problem-solving strategies such as qualitative analysis, hypothesis-forming and analysis of results, which prevents them from arriving at a correct solution. We provide evidence of the complexity of an a priori simple exercise in physics, although the theory involved may seem elementary at first sight. Our aim is to stimulate reflection among instructors to follow these results when using examples and solving exercises with students.

Resolver ejercicios no es fácil. El papel de la metodología científica en la resolución de problemas de física

Frecuentemente en los cursos de fisica general en la Universidad los problemas se resuelven como aplicacion directa de la teoria, como si fueran ejercicios. En este articulo se muestran evidencias de que los estudiantes tienden a resolver ejercicios y problemas de manera superficial, sin aplicar estrategias de resolucion fundamentales como el analisis cualitativo o la emision de hipotesis, que impiden llegar a una solucion correcta. Utilizando como referencia la resolucion de un problema que suele ser considerado como ejercicio, se proponen algunas lineas de actuacion que pueden guiar la resolucion de problemas en la ensenanza de la fisica, y estimular en los estudiantes la reflexion para encontrar soluciones, asi como la utilizacion de procedimientos cientificos.