education for chemical engineers 4 (2009) 29–41 Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Education for Chemical Engineers journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/ece A preliminary study on the effectiveness of inquiry-based activities for addressing misconceptions of undergraduate engineering students Michael J. Prince a,* , Margot A.S. Vigeant a , Katharyn Nottis b a Department of Chemical Engineering, Bucknell University, Lewisburg, PA 17837, United States b Department of Education, Bucknell University, Lewisburg, PA 17837, United States abstract This paper presents results from a preliminary study of the effectiveness of using inquiry-based activities to address misconceptions held by undergraduate engineering students in heat transfer and thermodynamics. These targeted misconception areas were identified previously as both important and difficult for students to master by a panel of engineering educators. Five separate inquiry-based activities (two physical experiments and three computer simulations) were developed and tested for their effectiveness at producing conceptual change during a 4-year study. Students’ conceptual change was assessed with concept inventories used in a pre-test–post-test design. The research examined students’ ability to answer conceptual questions both directly coupled with the developed activity and questions that required students to apply the targeted concept in new contexts. These assessments were done both immediately after the activity and 10 weeks later. Students’ per- formance generally improved in all areas, suggesting that the activities were effective for promoting conceptual change. © 2009 The Institution of Chemical Engineers. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. Keywords: Misconceptions; Heat transfer; Thermodynamics 1. Introduction There is a growing recognition that students frequently enter our classrooms with preconceptions that may act as filters for new learning and thereby interfere with their ability to master critical engineering concepts (Smith et al., 1993). The importance of engaging student preconceptions has gained significant recognition and features prominently in such works as the National Research Council’s study on how peo- ple learn (Bransford et al., 2000), which also emphasizes the importance of students understanding facts and ideas in the context of a conceptual framework. There is clearly broad recognition that meaningful learning in engineering requires that students master fundamental concepts rather than sim- ply memorizing facts and formulas (Lightman and Sadler, 1993; Novak, 1977). At the same time, there is a growing appre- ciation that traditional instructional methods are frequently ineffective at providing “...the experiential basis for complex ∗ Corresponding author. E-mail address: prince@bucknell.edu (M.J. Prince). Received 26 March 2009; Received in revised form 2 July 2009; Accepted 6 July 2009 and gradual processes of conceptual change” (Smith et al., 1993; Suping, 2003). Despite growing awareness of this problem, many teachers may still be surprised to learn the extent to which students in their courses, even those who do well on exams, can fail to grasp important concepts (Lightman and Sadler, 1993; Novak, 1987; Streveler et al., 2008). An extensive literature shows that traditional educational methods are frequently ineffective for addressing fundamental student misconceptions (Lightman and Sadler, 1993; Streveler et al., 2008; Hake, 1998; Laws et al., 1999; Reinders, 2008; Chi, 2005; Reiner et al., 2000), and that in some cases traditional instruction actually results in a decreased understanding of concepts that have been taught (Lightman and Sadler, 1993). Addressing this problem requires a paradigm shift in teach- ing methods, from a paradigm of “teaching by telling” to one that more directly engages students at a conceptual level and lets them actively construct new meanings. This paper draws 1749-7728/$ – see front matter © 2009 The Institution of Chemical Engineers. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.ece.2009.07.002