Evaluating Student and Faculty Outcomes for a Real-WorldCapstone Project with Sustainability Considerations

M. Scott Stanford, M.ASCE1; Lisa C. Benson2; Priyanka Alluri3; William D. Martin, S.M.ASCE4;Leidy E. Klotz, M.ASCE5; Jennifer H. Ogle6; Nigel Kaye, M.ASCE7; Wayne Sarasua8; and Scott Schiff9

Abstract: The purpose of this study was to determine how a real-world, sustainability-focused engineering capstone course affectedstudents’ critical thinking skills, student knowledge of sustainability, and student and faculty workloads. The research also investigatedthe effectiveness of a classwide jigsaw team approach. A combination of qualitative and quantitative assessment tools, including surveys,journals, interviews, and timecards, was employed to investigate the research questions. Results revealed that a real-world project with a focuson sustainability positively impacted students’ critical thinking skills and led to increased knowledge of sustainability, but it also correlatedwith a high workload for students and faculty. Additionally, the jigsaw organization structure proved successful and yielded a positive team-building experience for the students. These results suggest open-ended problems with real project constraints can yield a uniquely beneficiallearning experience without sacrificing the quality of student design or project deliverables. DOI: 10.1061/(ASCE)EI.1943-5541.0000141.© 2013 American Society of Civil Engineers.

CE Database subject headings: Sustainable development; Students; Engineering education; Undergraduate study.

Author keywords: Capstone; Sustainability; Real-world project; Critical thinking; Integrative thinking; Student workload; Facultyworkload; Jigsaw team; Community-based project; Undergraduate engineering education.

Introduction

Studies of engineering capstone courses across the country high-light the pivotal role capstone courses play in undergraduateengineering education and how they serve as a defining learningexperience for future engineers (Dutson et al. 1997; Howe andWilbarger 2006; Todd et al. 1995). These studies reveal much varia-tion in terms of course duration, project source, project funding,faculty involvement, and team assignments. Despite such variety,

at least four trends are well established in engineering capstonecourses over the past two decades. First, capstone program objec-tives are influenced primarily by the ABET criteria and industryinput (Dutson et al. 1997). Second, capstone courses are a signifi-cant element of incorporating design into departmental curricula inan attempt to provide an authentic engineering design experiencefor engineering graduates (Downey and Lucena 2003; Dutson et al.1997; Farr et al. 2001; Saad 2007). Third, teaching professionalskills such as communication, engineering ethics, project manage-ment, and engineering economics are fundamental to the capstoneexperience (Butkus and Kelly 2004; Farr et al. 2001; Howe andWilbarger 2006; Paretti 2008). Fourth, capstone projects aregenerally designed to foster teamwork and are largely organizedfor team execution, with teams usually comprised of students in thesame major (Dutson et al. 1997; Todd et al. 1995; Howe andWilbarger 2006).

In addition to these well-established trends, four emergingtrends are prominent in capstone-related literature over the last de-cade. Such trends are indicative of change occurring throughoutthe engineering curriculum, but given the prominent role ofcapstone courses in most engineering departments, these trendsare often manifested and even originate within capstone coursesin particular. In some cases, all four trends appear in the samecapstone program.

First, technology has recently played a greater role in thecapstone experience as engineering departments integrate technol-ogy into course administration, instructional methods, industrysponsorship and integration, and course evaluations (Butler et al.2010; Dougherty and Parfitt 2009; Schmidt et al. 2010). Second,capstone courses have incorporated more service-learning andcommunity-based projects, with engineering departments attempt-ing to provide real-world experiences to their students whilesimultaneously providing a benefit to society (Bielefeldt 2010).Project sources range from the local campus and community(e.g., Hayden et al. 2010; Padmanabhan and Katti 2002) to

1Instructor, Dept. of Civil and Environmental Engineering, U.S. AirForce Academy, 2354 Fairchild Dr., Suite 6J-159, USAFA, CO 80840(corresponding author). E-mail: matthew.stanford@usafa.edu

2Associate Professor, Dept. of Engineering and Science Education,M-12 Holtzendorff Hall, Clemson Univ., Clemson, SC 29634. E-mail:lbenson@clemson.edu

3Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Lehman Center for TransportationResearch, Florida International Univ., 10555 W. Flagler St., EC 3680,Miami, FL 33174. E-mail: palluri@fiu.edu

4Ph.D. Student, Glenn Dept. of Civil Engineering, 109 Lowry Hall,Clemson Univ., Clemson, SC 29634. E-mail: wmartin@g.clemson.edu

5Associate Professor, Glenn Dept. of Civil Engineering, 208 LowryHall, Clemson Univ., Clemson, SC 29634. E-mail: leidyk@clemson.edu

6Associate Professor, Glenn Dept. of Civil Engineering, 212 LowryHall, Clemson Univ., Clemson, SC 29634. E-mail: ogle@clemson.edu

7Assistant Professor, Glenn Dept. of Civil Engineering, 114 LowryHall, Clemson Univ., Clemson, SC 29634. E-mail: nbkaye@clemson.edu

8Associate Professor, Glenn Dept. of Civil Engineering, 310B LowryHall, Clemson Univ., Clemson, SC 29634. E-mail: sarasua@clemson.edu

9Professor, Glenn Dept. of Civil Engineering, 210 Lowry Hall, ClemsonUniv., Clemson, SC 29634. E-mail: schiffs@clemson.edu

Note. This manuscript was submitted on May 10, 2012; approved onOctober 1, 2012; published online on October 3, 2012. Discussion periodopen until September 1, 2013; separate discussions must be submitted forindividual papers. This paper is part of the Journal of Professional Issuesin Engineering Education & Practice, Vol. 139, No. 2, April 1, 2013.© ASCE, ISSN 1052-3928/2013/2-123-133/$25.00.

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developing countries (e.g., Dinehart and Gross 2010; Patersonet al. 2010). Third, recent literature reflects the growth of multidis-ciplinary projects, where student design teams are assembled fromdifferent majors or from different emphasis areas within a major(e.g., Braun et al. 2007; Desjardins et al. 2010; Jiji 2010; Yostand Lane 2007). Fourth, engineering programs have increasinglyincorporated principles of sustainability into the capstone project,often in conjunction with community-based and service-learningprojects (e.g., Burian 2010; Desjardins et al. 2010; Hayden et al.2010).

In addition to the foregoing trends, the literature reflects thegrowing importance of assessment in engineering capstonecourses. Olds et al. (2005) summarized and classified a range ofassessment tools available to engineering educators, most of whichhave been documented in various capstone courses. McKenzie et al.(2004) conducted a survey of 119 institutions, comparing capstoneassessment methods to ABET criteria for accrediting engineeringprograms. The results revealed that most of ABET Criterion 3 (a–k)could be readily assessed in a capstone course, and a variety ofassessment tools have been used to assess this criterion. Oralpresentations, written reports, and peer/self-assessments were themost common tools for course assessment. Other common assess-ments used in capstone courses include feedback and ratings fromindustry sponsors (Brackin and Gibson 2002; Sobek and Jain2004), design quality rubrics (Nassersharif and Rousseau 2010;Sobek and Jain 2004), reflection through journals and designnotebooks to assess students’ design skills (Adams et al. 2003;Svarovsky and Shaffer 2006), and concept maps (Eggermontet al. 2010).

The comprehensive and dynamic nature of capstone coursesmakes them a logical place to use multiple types of formativeand summative assessments. The Transferable Integrated DesignEngineering Education (TIDEE) consortium has published acomprehensive and detailed series of formative and summative

assessments for use throughout the duration of a capstone project(Davis et al. 2007). En route to developing these assessments,Davis et al. (2003) evaluated the relationships between ABETcriteria, profiles of top-quality engineers, and capstone courseoutcomes. Likewise, Adams et al. (2002) demonstrated the useof triangulation, or using multiple methods to assess the samecriteria, in an engineering capstone course. These studies reflectthe importance of assessing the capstone experience and the bene-fits of using several assessment tools throughout a course.

Sustainable Infrastructure Modeling CapstoneDesign Experience

In light of these trends in capstone course structure and assessment,the department of civil engineering at a southern land-grant univer-sity aimed to capitalize on best practices found in the capstoneliterature when redeveloping its 3-semester-hour course in 2010–2011. The department also wanted to investigate areas not fullyaddressed in earlier capstone literature, such as the impact ofreal-world, community-based projects on student and faculty work-loads, the impact of such projects on students’ critical thinkingskills, and the impact of a sustainability-focused capstone projecton student knowledge of sustainability. The resulting new versionof the department’s capstone design course offered a community-based project to redesign a prominent state highway runningadjacent to campus and the surrounding city using sustainabledesign principles. Key course descriptors from the syllabus areshown in Fig. 1.

To evaluate the new course and identify differences with tradi-tional course offerings, the following research questions wereposed:1. How effective is applying a classwide “jigsaw” team design at

helping students meet project objectives? (RQ1)

Fig. 1. Sustainable infrastructure modeling (SIM) capstone course description, goal, and objectives

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2. How effective is applying a community-based project in acapstone experience at developing students’ critical thinkingskills? (RQ2)

3. How does integrating sustainability into a capstone projectaffect student knowledge of sustainability? (RQ3)

4. How does implementing a “real-world” capstone project affectfaculty and student workloads? (RQ4)

As with previous offerings of the course, teams were assembledusing a jigsaw approach (Clark 1994). Traditionally, one memberfrom each team would self-select to concentrate in one of thefollowing areas: hydrology, construction engineering and manage-ment, structural design, or transportation. Unlike previous offeringsof the course at our institution, the entire class of 19 studentsworked collectively on a single project, as opposed to four- orfive-person teams each working independently on the same theo-retical building design problem. Whereas traditional capstoneteams assign one member to each of the four specialties listedpreviously, the SIM course had subteams of three to six studentswho self-selected to work in each of these areas.

Focusing on problem identification was another significant dif-ference between traditional and SIM course offerings. Sometimesoverlooked in favor of focusing on calculations in engineeringcourses, problem identification and solution generation are keyelements of the design process that the SIM course sought toincorporate. In the traditional course offering, most of the projectconstraints and problems were identified by faculty prior to thesemester so the students could focus on the engineering designcalculations and drawings for a single solution. Primary gradeddeliverables for students in the traditional course offering wereconceptual design documents and a presentation roughly midwaythrough the semester, and then final design documents and apresentation at the end of the semester. Students received both agroup grade and an individual grade for their contributions tothe documents and presentation.

The SIM experience required students to gather input from realproject stakeholders, collect information on existing conditions,clearly identify and define potential problems, and posit solutionsacceptable to the community—all in advance of beginning in-depth

engineering calculations. For example, early in the semester,students collectively generated and evaluated multiple solutionsregarding road width and number of traffic lanes. This enabledclass members to narrow the scope of their work to two competingconceptual designs, a three-lane “road diet” option and a four-lanewidening option, which they developed in parallel over the courseof the semester. Rather than developing conceptual design docu-ments midway through the semester, as in the traditional capstonecourse, the SIM students developed documents and a presentationfor a collaborative design session with community members. Thestudents used input from this session to develop their final designdocuments and presentation at the end of the semester. Like thetraditional capstone course, students received both a group gradeand an individual grade for these graded deliverables.

The SIM course was coordinated and taught by six differentfaculty members, who received departmental service credit for theirefforts, and a graduate student, who received a half-time assistant-ship for his work on the class. The traditional course was taught bya faculty member, who received teaching credit for one course, andfour faculty consultants, who received partial teaching credit,roughly equivalent to leading one-third of a course. Table 1 outlinesthe notable differences between the two course offerings.

Method

The research team was assembled independently of the capstonecourse faculty and consisted of one faculty member from outsidethe department, one postdoctoral fellow, and one graduate student.To address the research questions, the research team employed acombination of qualitative and quantitative assessment tools in-cluding initial and final surveys, weekly e-journal entries, studentexit interviews, peer evaluations, and timecards (Table 2).

The study population consisted of senior-level civil engineeringstudents split between traditional (n ¼ 80; 7.5% female; GPA2.89� 0.4) and newly developed SIM (n ¼ 19; 15.8% female;GPA 3.41� 0.4) course sections during the same semester.Students self-selected into the SIM course offering.

Table 1. Comparison of Traditional and SIM Capstone Courses

Criterion Traditional capstone course offering SIM capstone course offering

Course objective Theoretical design problem for a new facility on campus(e.g., design a new 30,000-square-ft gymnasium)

Actual design problem affecting campus and localcommunity; in this case, project was transportationoriented

Course structure Four- to five-person teams working independently onsimilar designs for same project

19-person team working collaboratively on two alternativeconceptual designs (three-lane versus four-lane) for sameproject

Primary graded deliverables Conceptual design documents and presentation(group/individual), final design documents andpresentation (group/individual)

Charrette documents and presentation (group/individual),final design documents and presentation (group/individual)

Team design Jigsaw team approach: “specialists” within each team, eachperson focusing on one of construction management/materials, structural design, hydrology/storm water,geotechnical, or transportation

Alternative jigsaw approach: four design groups (three tosix students each) working in each emphasis area; allstudents work on both conceptual designs

Emphasis on sustainability Inclusion of sustainable features was optional; no academicrequirement or credit awarded for sustainable design

Major emphasis on incorporating sustainabilityconsiderations in the project

Problem identification Most problems and constraints (theoretical) identifiedby faculty at beginning of semester

Students required to identify problems and potentialsolutions; project was not well defined prior to start ofsemester

Faculty involvement and credit For four to five sections of capstone design (n ¼ 80):one faculty coordinator (full teaching credit); fourfaculty consultants (partial teaching credit) for subjectarea expertise

For one section of capstone design (n ¼ 19): one graduatestudent coordinator (half-time assistantship); six facultyconsultants (service credit) for subject area expertise

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Weekly journal entries for students in the SIM capstone coursewere guided by prompts designed to gauge student interests andperceptions related to the project and to assess their critical thinkingskills (Table 3). These prompts were based in part on a Critical andIntegrative Thinking (CIT) rubric, a tool developed, tested, andvalidated by the Center for Teaching, Learning, and Technologyat Washington State University (2009). Exit interview questionswere also partially based on the CIT rubric but included a seriesof additional questions designed to gauge course expectations,teamwork effectiveness, knowledge of sustainability, and overallproject success. These data were only collected from studentsin the SIM capstone course because it was not possible to havestudents complete these activities within the traditional capstonecourse. All protocols were approved by the institution’s institu-tional review board prior to the conduct of work, and all partici-pants were assigned pseudonyms for data analysis and reporting.

Student responses to the weekly journal entries and exit inter-views were coded using the software package RQDA (Huang2010). The coding structure was developed over several weeksthrough an iterative process captured through the developmentof a coding handbook. Two members of the research team ran-domly selected one student’s journal entries and exit interviews

to develop the coding procedure and reach agreement on whatthe codes were intended to capture. After refining the codes, an-other student’s journal entries and exit interviews were randomlyselected. Coding of these journal entries and interviews showedhigh inter-rater reliability (κ ¼ 0.90), meaning both researcherswere interpreting the data consistently (Cohen 1960). While thereis no universally applicable minimum value for κ (Bakeman 1997),Landis and Koch (1977) suggest that values above 0.80 representnear perfect agreement.

When coding the journals for evidence of critical thinking, thedata were evaluated using the CIT rubric described previously andshown subsequently in Table 3. The rubric is designed to evaluatecritical thinking in seven areas on a scale from 0 to 6; we considereda rating of 4 (“competent”) to be the minimum standard for a gradu-ating engineer.

Furthermore, initial and final surveys (n ¼ 19 and n ¼ 15, re-spectively) were compared to see if students improved in theirknowledge of fundamental concepts related to sustainable develop-ment, as identified on a Likert scale. The questions on two estab-lished sustainability-focused surveys (Azapagic et al. 2005; Marcusand Strandberg 2009) were modified to make them relevant to thepresent case; the survey was then pilot tested to ensure clarity, as

Table 2. Assessment Matrix

Research questions

Initial survey(SIM students

n ¼ 19)

Final survey(SIM students

n ¼ 15)

Peer evaluations(SIM students

n ¼ 19)

Timecards(SIM students n ¼ 19;SIM faculty n ¼ 7;traditional students

n ¼ 80)

Weekly journals(SIM students

n ¼ 19)

Exit interviews(SIM students

n ¼ 9)

1. Impact of classwide jigsaw team designon meeting learning objectives

X X X

2. Impact of community-based projecton critical thinking

X X

3. Impact of integration of sustainabilityon student’s knowledge of subject

X X X X

4. Impact of real-world project onstudent/faculty workloads

X X X

Note: SIM = sustainable infrastructure modeling.

Table 3. Critical and Integrative Thinking (CIT) Rubric and Corresponding Weekly Journal Prompts

CIT dimensions Journal prompts

Issue identification and focus: identifying, focusing on, and thoroughly exploringthe issue and significant underlying or implicit issues, aspects, or relationshipsintegral to effective analysis.

What are the main issues, problems, or questions that your projectaddresses?

Context and assumptions: context, scope, and assumptions connected to theissue, considering other integral contexts, background information, and thechallenges regarding complexity and bias; work demonstrates understanding ofsocial, political, and ethical implications.

What are some assumptions, background information, or challenges thatyour team has considered so far to address the problem?

Sources and evidence: search, selection, and source of evaluation skills includingaccuracy, relevance, and completeness; analyze and integrate multipleappropriate pieces of evidence, acknowledge biases, and distinguish correlationsfrom causal relationships.

What types of evidence, knowledge, or resources are needed to addressthe problem, and what have you used so far?

Diverse perspectives: identifying and integrating diverse relevant perspectives,including contrary views and evidence.

What different perspectives, viewpoints, or alternative approaches haveyou considered or integrated into your project so far?

Own perspective: ownership of an issue, indicated by justification andadvancement of an original view or hypothesis, recognition of personal bias, andskill at integrating multiple perspectives or interpretations.

What are your own perspectives and ideas about this project?How well do you think your own perspectives and ideas about this projecthave been integrated into your team’s design up to this point?

Conclusion: integrating previous dimensions and identifying conclusions orconsequences/pulling the work together as a professional, ethical, and sociallyresponsible citizen; may provide future action, outcome, significance, issuesummary or essence, overarching question.

What are some conclusions, consequences, future actions, or outcomesfrom your project so far?

Communication: intentional and purposeful strategies to communicate anidentified purpose and message while managing relationships and affect withintended audiences.

How well are your team members communicating with each other, otherteams, and other groups so far?

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suggested by Suskie (1996). Students were asked to rate theirknowledge of 19 topics related to sustainability as well as theimportance of sustainability for engineers. Survey question topicsthat were relevant to the course are shown with results in Table 4.The results were then analyzed using a paired t-test to determineany statistically significant changes for each question.

Next, the survey results were compared to the qualitative datafrom the journal entries and exit interviews. Qualitative data werebased on capturing evidence of students applying basic principlesof sustainability as described by Adams (2006), Gibson (2006),Vanegas (2003), and others. Triangulation of the data ensured thatknowledge gains in sustainability from sources outside the cap-stone course were accounted for.

Additionally, students submitted peer evaluations of theirgroup members at three points during the semester using the onlineComprehensive Assessment of Team Member Effectiveness(CATME) (Loughry et al. 2007). Peer evaluations help ensure indi-vidual effort and identify any student “hitchhikers” who are notcontributing equitably. They also give instructors a sense of howteams functioned during the semester. The peer evaluations werecompared to reflections on teamwork from the student journals andexit interviews to evaluate the classwide jigsaw approach. Effectiveteamwork was defined and identified using characteristicssuggested by Smith (2003) and Oakley et al. (2004) as well as per-sonal experience in working with teams.

Finally, students and faculty submitted weekly timecards indi-cating how much time they devoted to the course. The timecarddata between the traditional and SIM course offerings werecompared and student journals and exit interviews were then ana-lyzed to investigate the causes of any significant difference inworkloads.

Results and Discussion

RQ1: How effective is applying a classwide “jigsaw”approach at helping students meet project objectives?

Peer evaluations collected at three points during the semester forSIM students indicated consistently high ratings on a five-pointLikert scale. The results of the final peer evaluations are shownin Table 4; similar ratings were noted at the other two time points.Evidence of “hitchhiking” was also looked for in the peer evalu-ation, student journal, and exit interview data, but none was found.These results, combined with high peer evaluations throughout thesemester, suggest that the students were generally satisfied withtheir distribution of workload and the effort put forth by each oftheir team members.

The success of a classwide jigsaw team approach was con-firmed by the analysis of student journal entries and exit inter-views. The overwhelming majority of feedback on teamwork waspositive, and the students demonstrated confidence in completingtheir project design. For example, Penny noted, “We have a goodcohesive team with a lot of perspectives and I think we integratethese perspectives very well. It makes our design diverse andinteresting.”

When asked about the most important thing learned through thisproject, Sheldon responded:

I learned a lot about : : : the roadway design, but : : : I think (asfar as a skill) to take with me : : : I learned how to deal with allthe different people there were : : : , having all the differentideas and how to work together with that many people : : :Youcan go to a manual and find design standards and stuff likethat, but : : : you can’t just read a book and learn how to dealwith people. You have to actually deal with people to be ableto do that. I think that was a very good experience and it mightbe the most worthwhile experience that I am getting out of agroup this large. It’s really challenging for you to understandeverybody’s ideas and to make them work together.

The only consistent negative comments about teamworkoccurred early in the semester when the class was initially dividedinto two 9- to 10-person teams to consider alternate conceptualdesigns. Amy commented that her

biggest frustration was trying to get 10 people to meet at thesame time and trying to get everyone to stay on task. Typicallyit just took someone reminding everyone that there were moreissues than just the one we were focusing on.

Penny added, “It was a little frustrating working with such a largegroup at times to come to a consensus on the solutions we wantedto present or what would be feasible.” Such early team-buildingfrustrations were, as indicated previously, due to the large groupsize at the time and may also be indicative of the “storming” stageof Tuckman’s group development model (1965).

The students initiated their own solution early in the semesterto improve communication and stay on schedule, as describedby Bernadette:

To help communication between teams and to help meetdeadlines a construction team member is going around toeach group once a week to see what that group is strugglingwith and see if they will be able to meet set deadlines. Thishelps teams stay on task and helps for them to stay on top oftheir work.

Such initiative helped deliver a positive teamwork experience, dem-onstrating that a classwide jigsaw approach could help studentsaccomplish project objectives.

RQ2: How effective is applying a community-basedproject in a capstone experience at developingstudents’ critical thinking skills?

Two of the researchers used the seven dimensions of the CIT rubric(Table 3) to evaluate student journals and exit interviews for the SIMstudents. Because of the tendency for journal entries to be morerepetitive and less reflective as the semester progressed (which isdiscussed later in this section), the data were initially coded in abinary fashion: a given passage either revealed evidence of criticalthinking in one or more of the seven dimensions (i.e., yielded a rating

Table 4. Final Peer Evaluations, Rated on 5-Point Likert Scale (1 ¼ low, 5 ¼ high)

MeasurementContributing toteam’s work

Interacting withteammates

Keeping teamon track

Expectingquality

Having related knowledge,skills, and abilities

Mean 4.69 4.66 4.60 4.73 4.58Standard deviation 0.55 0.64 0.59 0.45 0.64

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of 4 or higher in the rubric) or it did not. Based on overall ratings andthe coders’ analysis of students’ combined reflections, a collectiverating for the entire class was assigned on the 0–6 scale in eachof the seven dimensions as shown subsequently in Table 5. Studentsdemonstrated at least the minimum desired level of critical thinking,as indicated by a rating of 4, or “competent,” in six of the seven in-vestigated dimensions. A sample of coded passages that support eachof the ratings is shown in Table 5; to conserve space, the followingthree criteria are discussed in more detail: “Issue Identification andFocus” and “Diverse Perspectives,” each of which was assigned themaximum rating of 6, and “Own Perspective,” which was rated a 2.

Dimension 1: Identifies and Focuses (and AppropriatelyReformulates) the Issue, Problem, QuestionWe expanded the definition of this criterion to also include effectivelyapplying the rest of the problem-solving and design process such asgenerating solutions, evaluating alternatives, and picking a solution.The “mastering” rating was assigned because journals and interviewsindicated that students could readily identify and analyze the rele-vant issues, generate solutions, and effectively proceed through theproblem-solving process. Some journal entries indicated how seriousthe team took the problem identification phase of the project and thecomplexity of the issue. Leonard wrote that the project

Table 5. CIT Assessment of SIM Class Using CIT Rubric

CIT dimension Rating (6-point scale) and definition Sample quote

Issue identification and focus 6-Mastering: identifies, focuses on, and thoroughly exploresthe issue and significant underlying issues, aspects, orrelationships; captures multifaceted and dynamic nature,scope, and elements of complex issue.

Penny journal entry: “When identifying problems, myselfand all my other team members really strive for a greatsolution not just an adequate one. No one lets something goby without investing time in analyzing solutions andproblems to get the best results. People are personallyaffected by this road on a daily basis and thus everything wedo we think about using it ourselves which can bechallenging but in a good way.”

Context and assumptions 4-Competent: presents and explores relevant contextsregarding the issue; considers and develops at least oneaspect of context; some other aspects are marginallydeveloped.

Brad journal entry: “On the surface, I feel our project isaddressing the bad traffic flow conditions and bad pedestrianfacilities along the corridor : : :With all the information beingcollected, I think this project is also raising awareness forhow much work needs to be done at a given site in order toproceed with planning. However, I feel that the project israising a bigger concern as a whole: not just (improving) theroads, bike lanes, and sidewalks themselves, but also thequestion as to whether or not they are truly necessary (in lightof stakeholder concerns and priorities).”

Sources and evidence 5-Effective: evidence of search, selection, and sourceevaluation skills demonstrates notable identification ofunique and salient resources; views knowledge as the bestavailable evidence within the given context, even in face ofuncertainty and ambiguity; demonstrates understanding ofhow facts shape but may not confirm opinion.

Leonard journal entry: “The SCDOTwill be a very importantsource of knowledge for this project, because theirregulations will definitely be a driving source for our projects[sic] design. We will also have to check code to make surethat all solutions are ADA compliant. Possibly our mostvaluable resource : : :will be our professors. We will need tolook at other corridor revitalization projects to see whatworked and what didn’t. Another source we have begun touse is the campus master planning office : : :For the design ofthe bridge, I believe it will be helpful to consult architects tohelp pick the most aesthetically pleasing design thatenhances the campus’s image.”

Diverse perspectives 6-Mastering: addresses other perspectives and additionaldiverse perspectives to qualify analysis; multiple viewpointsare thoroughly discussed, explained, and qualified; seeks out,weighs, and effectively integrates diverse, uncomfortable, orcontrary views.

Amy journal entry: “Currently, our main issue is trying tocombine everyone’s ideas and thoughts into one cohesivedesign. Especially after the design charrette today, we have alot of different ideas that we are trying to incorporate. Wewant to make everyone happy, but obviously not every ideacan be implemented : : :We have had to integrate the differentperspectives of everyone in the group. On Tuesday, forexample, we all tried to come up with what we thought wasthe ‘best’ design, and chaos ensued.”

Own perspective 2-Emerging: personal position or hypothesis is minimallyidentified or justified; may not clarify established positionrelative to personal position.

Stuart journal entry: “My opinions parallel my group’sopinions and most decisions are made by the group (not anyindividual group member).”

Conclusion 4-Competent: presents conclusions, recommendations, andpotential consequences, though limited; generally aligns withprevious dimensions.

Brad journal entry: “I can honestly say that with every singlechange we propose to the corridor, I can see a consequencefrom another stakeholder down the line, and yet the biggestconsequence : : :would be to do nothing on the corridor.”

Communication 5-Effective: meets needs of particular situation, bothimmediate and larger context; is well prepared and flexible.

Alice interview: “I was surprised at how many presentationswe did. It’s a good thing and I’m glad we did it, because Ithink presentation skills are so valuable in whatever you dowhether (at) school or working (professionally). This was ahuge advantage because : : : you get to pick out things thatpeople did well and didn’t do well and kind of think aboutwhat you want to do while presenting.”

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allows Civil Engineering seniors a look into the real world ofengineering where the teachers don’t know the answers to allof our questions, and we must come up with them on our own.It is also good practice to work on a problem that does nothave just one solution. We have to weigh the options of manydifferent solutions and how they will affect each stakeholder,and eventually choose the best solution.

Dimension 4: Integrates Diverse Relevant PerspectivesEvidence of critical and integrative thinking was the most notablein this dimension, as revealed in two ways: (1) within the dynamicsof the 19-person student team and (2) by working with real stake-holders with valid concerns affecting their business, church, home,or university missions. Nearly every weekly journal entry revealedsome evidence of the ability to incorporate multiple perspectivesand the challenges associated with doing so, earning the classthe maximum rating on the rubric’s six-point scale.

Rajesh described how the team incorporated diverse perspec-tives, both within the student team and within the community:

This whole project has been one big set of perspectives andviewpoints. It is really difficult to manage sometimes. Everyoneseems to have an opinion about the transportation issues, andrightfully so. We have developed some great ideas as a teamand some as individuals. Sometimes even the professors dis-agree, so it can be difficult to come up with definite solutionsto problems : : :The charette was very helpful in terms of gath-ering various viewpoints about the corridor and its condition. Itgave us some great insight into our design. Part of our switch-ing to a pedestrian underpass was because of input from othersand how they viewed the pedestrian bridge. This is constructiveand turned out to improve the outcome of our project.

Stephen commented on the necessity of partnering with thecommunity: “I have also learned how meetings and interactionsbetween engineers and the community have to work together to havea common goal.” On the other hand, Robb described the frustrationsof working with the community: “Some of the stakeholders may bethe biggest challenge. Obviously business owners want what is bestfor their business and maybe not the project.” Bernadette agreed:

One conclusion I have made since yesterday is that stakehold-ers can be very narrowly focused only on what impacts them.Sometimes they don’t look at the whole. I think that knowingthe concerns and feelings of the stakeholders will allow theproject to provide a more positive impact on the surroundingcommunity.

Dimension 5: Develops, Presents, and Communicates OwnPerspective, Hypothesis, or PositionThis dimension of critical thinking received a 2 out of 6 rating, thelowest of the seven areas examined. Despite our attempts to drawout students’ reflections through journal prompts, there was littleevidence that students actually reflected on their own perspectivesand accomplishments or how those perspectives were integratedinto the big picture. Statements about perspective usually referredto the project stakeholders or to the entire team, as described inDimension 4 above.

When students did discuss their individual efforts, it was usually amatter-of-fact observation, such as “I did some of the researchon bike share programs” or “I did the hydro/stormwater part,” butthese types of comments do not demonstrate serious reflection orthe expected level of depth. It is possible that the wording of the jour-nal question used to prompt reflection in this area was unclear and

limited students’ communication with respect to considering theirown perspectives in more depth. (See Table 3 for journal prompts.)

As previously noted, journal entries actually became less reflec-tive and insightful as the semester progressed. Two changes mighthelp avoid this decline for future studies. First, the reflection ques-tions should be varied each week to help stimulate the students’reflective thought and avoid simply copying previous responses.Second, the research team should code and analyze journal entriesas they are collected. This would enable adapting questions basedon themes emerging in the student entries.

To summarize, the community-based project proved effective inpromoting students’ critical thinking skills. Analysis of studentjournals and exit interviews revealed competence in six of the sevendimensions examined. The use of an ill-defined project withreal stakeholders proved especially beneficial in the areas of issueidentification and considering diverse perspectives.

RQ3: How does integrating sustainability into acapstone course affect student knowledge ofsustainability?

Table 6 shows the results of students’ self-reported changes inknowledge of eight principles related to sustainability, plus theirgeneral knowledge of sustainability. (The questionnaire listed 18principles, but only the 8 most directly linked to the students’project are shown subsequently for brevity.) A paired t-test analysisrevealed statistically significant student improvement from thebeginning to the end of the semester (p < 0.05) in six of theeight relevant areas, as well as their level of knowledge of sustain-ability. Improvements were most notable in the areas of EconomicAnalysis of Sustainable Infrastructure Projects, SustainabilityRating Systems, Impact of Infrastructure on Society, Life CycleAssessment, Sustainable Transportation, and Sustainable Materi-als. Students showed no statistically significant improvement inthe areas of Water Resources and Sustainable Cities/CommunityDevelopment, which are closely linked with the students’ effortsduring the project design.

Since the survey results depend on the students’ self-rating oftheir knowledge of the subject area, qualitative results from journalsand exit interviews are compared to the quantitative data. Analysisof student journals and exit interviews confirmed that, in general,students gained a better appreciation for sustainability, but theextent of their improved knowledge varied greatly.

Some teammembers like Amy took sustainable design seriouslyfrom the beginning: “I am trying to help push the sustainable filterapproach, in which everyone considers the sustainable impacts ofwhat they’re doing as they design.” Rajesh’s journal entry reflecteda similar drive:

As far as sustainability goes, it is going to be great implement-ing that directly into our project design. We need to consider itthroughout the entire planning process because that is how wewill get to the point where we aren’t repairing everythingagain sooner than expected.

Others, like Wil, greatly improved their level of knowledgebased on this project:

I am confident about the fact that I am aware of sustainablepractices : : : practices that I wasn’t aware of before : : : I justkeep that in the forefront of my mind as I move on, especiallysince I am going to build power plants (and) that’s not themost sustainable work : : : even though I am glad that I havethe knowledge. I think it’s good to apply sustainable practicesto (an industry) that probably needs it more than anything.

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When asked to explain the concept of sustainability, Howard re-sponded, “in the beginning of the semester : : : , I would have saidto look into the rating systems probably. Whereas now, I might say,look at the system as a whole, what makes it more efficient, whatmakes it better.”

In contrast, others never moved beyond the idea of sustainabilitysimply consisting of a rating system to be mastered. For example,when asked to explain his understanding of sustainable design atthe end of the semester, Glenn responded:

Well, depending on the project I will try to figure out whatgrading system would fit the best, because all of the gradingsystems that there are out there give you a pretty good idea,like pretty good guideline that’s what you need : : : in order tobe considered a sustainable project. So based on (what) wedid, we used grading rules (from Greenroads); but if weare building a building I would say use LEED.

The most likely reason for the varied level of improvement inknowledge of sustainability is the bulk of research into sustainabil-ity and the applied rating system (Greenroads) was mostly accom-plished by the work of the construction management team, perhapsas an unintended consequence of the classwide jigsaw approach.Howard noted, “Personally, I did most of the sustainability stuff.So, I did all the carbon analysis, potential social implications, mak-ing a lot of assumptions.” Likewise, Bernadette noted “I am mostlyworking on the Greenroads and sustainability portion of theproject.” At the other extreme was George:

Honestly, I am not that comfortable with (implementing ele-ments of sustainability). I mean I know about sustainability,but it’s more just kind of general knowledge from : : : thingseverybody else talked about. I didn’t do the : : : research aboutsustainability myself and so without doing that I would notreally feel comfortable.

Sustainability considerations did at times penetrate to othersubteams beyond the construction management team. For example,one of the students working on the roadway geometry referred todeveloping a “complete streets mentality” by including sidewalks

and bike lanes. Likewise, a student from the hydrology teamcommented about analyzing “stormwater runoff throughout theentire site while keeping LID (low impact development) techniquesin mind.” However, student journals and interviews revealed thatthese teams did not develop in their knowledge of sustainabilityas much as the construction management team, which dealt directlywith sustainability issues.

In summary, incorporating sustainability into this capstonecourse had positive but varying levels of impact on students’knowledge of the subject. In a survey of eight fundamental sustain-ability concepts relevant to this project, students showed statisti-cally significant improvement in six areas and in their generalknowledge about sustainability over the course of the semester.Examining student journals and exit interviews confirmed studentdevelopment in this area ranging from minimal to significant.

RQ4: How does implementing a “real-world” capstoneproject affect faculty advisor and student workloads?

Average weekly student workload in the traditional capstone andSIM courses were tracked throughout the semester. Most weeks(10 out of the 12 weeks measured), the SIM students logged morehours than students in the traditional course (average of 12.9�7.9 h vs. 9.7� 9.8 h, respectively), which is significantly differentbased on t-tests on differences between the means (p ¼ 0.0005).Five of the 18 traditional student groups with the highest GPAswere also identified for comparison with the SIM students tocontrol for the fact that SIM students had a higher presemestercollective GPA (SIM: 3.4� 0.4; all traditional: 2.9� 0.4; fivehigh-GPA groups in traditional: 3.2� 0.4); comparison of theSIM students with the high-GPA groups also yielded a statisticallysignificant difference (p ¼ 0.0002). Within the traditional course,the study found no significant difference between the averageweekly hours logged by the five groups with higher GPAs(p ¼ 0.60) and all other traditional capstone students.

Analysis of weekly journal entries and exit interviews forSIM students revealed three possible reasons for their additionalhours on the project. First, the SIM experience by designwas an ill-defined, real-world problem, in contrast to a fairly

Table 6. Select Sustainability Survey Questions and Results

Principle related to sustainability SurveyNeverheard of

Heard of butcould not explain

Someknowledge

Knowa lot p value

Energy resources Initial 0 (0%)a 5 (33%) 9 (60%) 1 (7%) 0.004c

Final 0 (0%)a 1 (7%) 10 (67%) 4 (27%)Water resources Initial 0 (0%) 3 (20%) 9 (60%) 3 (20%) 0.670

Final 0 (0%) 2 (13%) 11 (73%) 2 (13%)Economic analysis of sustainable infrastructure projects Initial 1 (7%) 6 (40%) 5 (33%) 3 (20%) 0.014c

Final 0 (0%) 1 (7%) 9 (60%) 5 (33%)Triple bottom-line accounting Initial 10 (67%) 2 (13%) 2 (13%) 1 (7%) 0.164

Final 7 (47%) 5 (33%) 1 (7%) 2 (13%)Sustainability rating systems like LEED Initial 0 (0%) 6 (40%) 4 (27%) 5 (33%) 0.027c

Final 0 (0%) 1 (7%) 6 (40%) 8 (53%)Impact of infrastructure on society Initial 0 (0%) 2 (13%) 10 (67%) 3 (20%) 0.006c

Final 0 (0%) 0 (0%) 6 (40%) 9 (60%)Sustainable transportation Initial 0 (0%) 4 (27%) 9 (60%) 2 (13%) 0.003c

Final 0 (0%) 1 (7%) 5 (33%) 9 (60%)Sustainable materials Initial 0 (0%) 3 (20%) 8 (53%) 4 (27%) 0.014c

Final 0 (0%) 1 (7%) 5 (33%) 9 (60%)How would you rate your level of knowledgeof sustainability?b

Initial 0 (0%) 7 (47%) 7 (47%) 1 (7%) 0.0001c

Final 0 (0%) 0 (0%) 6 (40%) 8 (53%)

aResponses (percentage of respondents); initial survey results over final survey results.bLikert scale responses: No knowledge, A little knowledge, Some knowledge, Know a lot.cp < 0.05.

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well-defined, theoretical problem in the traditional capstone course.Gaining input from numerous real stakeholders, attempting tolocate utility maps, walking the streets to identify problems andtake measurements, and contacting local and state officials wereall part of the problem identification process in the SIM course.This resulted in more time being spent on the project during thefirst 4 weeks of the course for the SIM students, in some cases morethan twice as many hours as students in the traditional capstonecourse. Typical journal entries and exit interviews reflected this:“The whole first part of the project was all about organizing, gettingteam togetherness, getting problems (defined) rather than workingon the solution.” Second, this project incorporated sustainable de-sign aspects not required in the traditional capstone section. Thisaddition required research into sustainable practices, particularly inthe areas of developing “complete streets” with sidewalks and bikelanes, sustainable techniques for stormwater drainage, and learningabout the Greenroads rating system, which none of the studentshad studied in depth prior to this course. Third, the fact that thejigsaw approach required a consensus among many studentswhen making major decisions rather than a small group requiredstudents to spend time honing their communication and problem-solving skills, as explained by Sheldon:

I really feel like (I was) facing real world obstacles : : : andworking with 18 people, versus working with four (wherewe would) only have four different ideas coming together,it’s much easier to solve them than with 18 different peoplesharing their opinions. I felt like it gave memuch more : : :workready experience than the general capstone would have.

Analysis of the ratio of faculty time spent per student revealeda much greater difference between the two course offerings. Overthe course of the semester, the total number of hours logged bySIM capstone faculty equaled over 27 h per student taking thecourse. For faculty in the traditional capstone course, this numberwas around 6 h per student. (A statistical comparison of facultyhours was not feasible because in the traditional course, one facultymember contributed about two-thirds of the total hours.)

The notable difference in faculty workload can be attributedto at least four factors. First, the new SIM course offering onlyhad 19 students versus 80 enrolled in the traditional course.Increased course enrollments result in efficiencies of scale thatwould reduce the number of faculty hours per student. Second,the SIM version of the coursewas in its first offering, which requiredmore faculty involvement to build the course from the ground up.Third, the nature of an ill-defined, real-world problem that affectsthousands of people daily meant that students were more relianton their professors than traditional course students whowere design-ing a theoretical facility on an empty lot. Fourth, like the students,faculty on this project demonstrated a high level of personal interestin the project, to ensure the students’ experience was positive, toensure the department was represented well in the community,and perhaps because the project affected their daily commute.

One limitation of this study is that the student populationexamined was small (n ¼ 19 in new course; n ¼ 80 in traditionalcourse). When building the structure for this study, an effort wasmade to overcome this limitation by gathering more qualitative data,especially from students in the newly developed course, in order toprovide a deeper, richer understanding of student development andmotivations. Second, students and faculty in the new SIM courseself-selected to work on this project. The students also had aboveaverage GPAs compared to traditional capstone students that semes-ter. To account for this difference, when analyzing student workload,we controlled for GPA by comparing SIM students to the five

traditional course student groups with the highest average GPAs.However, we were unable to control for GPA when analyzing theother research questions, which required more subjective analysis.

Conclusions

Conclusions related to the research questions are as follows:1. A classwide jigsaw approach can help students meet project ob-

jectives and can form the basis for a cohesive, productive designteam. The success of a classwide jigsaw team approach wasconfirmed from peer evaluations and from coding student jour-nal entries and exit interviews. The overwhelming majority offeedback on teamwork was positive, and the students demon-strated confidence in completing their project design. Facultyand project stakeholders were also generally pleased with thelevel of effort and the success of the project. While previousresearch had shown that capstone design teams are most oftencomposed of 4–6 students (Howe and Wilbarger 2006), thesuccess of a 19-person team suggests that other capstone engi-neering courses could successfully tackle larger-than-usual,real-world design projects by employing a classwide jigsaw ap-proach. The approach may also be plausible for other upper-level engineering courses but is not advised for lower-level(e.g., freshman level) courses where students are still learningthe basics of engineering design and may not have the maturityto work successfully in such a large group.

2. A community-based project proved effective in developingstudents’ critical thinking skills. Analysis of student journalsand exit interviews revealed competence in six of seven criticaland integrated thinking criteria. The use of an ill-defined pro-ject with real stakeholders proved especially beneficial in theareas of problem identification and consideration of diverseperspectives. These results suggest the requirement of dealingwith open-ended problems and real project stakeholders canyield a more beneficial learning experience than simply per-forming engineering calculations on a theoretical designproject. In this case, the additional work required by thereal-world nature of the project did not come at the expenseof quality in the final design product, according to the coursefaculty advisors, but that conclusion may be a function of thestudents’ level of interest and the relevance of the project forthem personally.

3. Incorporating sustainability into a new capstone course hadvarying levels of positive impact on student knowledge inthe subject. In a survey of eight relevant fundamental sustain-ability concepts, students showed statistically significant im-provement in six areas over the course of the semester.Examining student journals and exit interviews revealed thatstudent development in this area ranged from minimal to sig-nificant, as a result of the fact that sustainability research waspushed into primarily one of the four design teams, i.e., theconstruction management team. These results may further in-dicate that regardless of faculty members’ desire to drive homea particular learning objective, in a self-directed group learningenvironment like a capstone course, students will “divide andconquer” to complete a project in the most efficient manner.This strategy can prove effective for time management pur-poses and may even be indicative of real-world teamwork.However, this strategy could come at the expense of the mas-tery by all students of the learning objectives at the same level.

4. SIM students and faculty logged on average more hours overthe course of the semester than students and faculty in thetraditional capstone course offering. The difference in student

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workloads averaged about 3 h=week more for those in thenewly designed course. This additional workload was attrib-uted to working on an ill-defined, real-world project; the re-quirement to incorporate sustainable practices; and the need togain consensus from a larger group of students. The additionalworkload for SIM faculty can be attributed to the work re-quired to develop a new course; a high level of personal inter-est in the project; and the use of an ill-defined real-worldproject, which resulted in more requests from the studentsfor faculty support.

Future research in this area should address faculty time commit-ments: devoting over 27 h=student compared to 6 h in the tradi-tional course is not a sustainable model for future offerings.Could faculty workload be reduced in the future yet still providethe same positive outcomes? Subsequent offerings of the coursewill require less faculty time than developing a new course fromscratch. However, working on open-ended, real-world problemsis more complex than designing theoretical problems, which willlikely drive students to seek additional help from their advisors.Future research would help optimize the ratio of faculty involve-ment to student outcomes for a community-based project with sus-tainability considerations.

Publisher’s Note. This paper was posted ahead of print with anincomplete author list. The complete author list appears in thisversion of the paper.

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