Collaborative Research: Novel neurocognitive assessment of engineering education interventions applied to systems thinking

The challenges facing society today and in the near future are inherently complex systems problems. For example, improving transportation in cities or managing the growth of an international company both involve complex systems. The ability to recognize interactions and optimize connections between components in a system is called systems thinking. This type of thinking is vital for innovation and necessary for humanity's longer-term survival. However, systems thinking is not intuitive for many people, and it can require significant mental effort. Most engineers benefit from the formal instruction provided in their undergraduate program. There are numerous methods to teach students about systems thinking but, unfortunately, assessing the effectiveness of these methods is a challenge. Assessment typically focuses on what students are able to produce rather than the mental effort required to produce it. Measuring mental effort is important because if mental effort can be measured and minimized, systems thinking is more likely to be adopted by students when they experience a real-world context. This research will test an approach to help students--more quickly and with less mental effort--solve complex systems problems using systems thinking. The research tests the effectiveness of priming students to think about the connections and interactions between components in a system using concept maps, a type of conceptual diagram to depict relationships within a system. This project tests the effects of concept maps to help students solve complex problems in engineering. The project will not only evaluate student solutions but measure their mental effort using a brain imaging technique. The expectation is that concept mapping makes complex systems problems mentally easier to solve, and this is measured via patterns of activation in their brain. Priming students for systems thinking with concept maps holds the potential for adoption across many college programs because of the minimal adjustments needed in teaching and the possibility of widespread application of concept maps in engineering.

The project will use concept maps to prime students to think about the complex and dynamic relationships in engineering problems. Measurement of students' brain activation will provide new data about the effects of this approach to help aid engineering students to solve complex engineering problems. Three cohorts of undergraduate engineering students will receive either multiple, single, or no concept map priming intervention. Assessment of students' solutions to subsequent engineering systems problems will be correlated with patterns of brain activation. Brain activation will be measured using a non-intrusive technique called functional near infrared spectroscopy. Students will repeat the experiment to measure the effects of priming over time. The proposed research will extend current knowledge by measuring how changes in brain function persist, and how repeated educational priming interventions affect students' ability to solve complex engineering problems. The results will offer a new type of evidentiary support for cognitive load theory in engineering education by demonstrating how priming students in ways that use specific regions and patterns of activation in their brain reduces subsequent cognitive effort to solve complex engineering problems. The research findings will be translated into short research briefs for college instructors to implement in their classroom. The project will also offer annual training in the brain imaging technique used in this project at engineering education conference workshops and a summer program for faculty and students.

This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.