Self-regulated learning activities in engineering design education

The major aim of this five-year research project is to study the self-regulated learning (SRL) activities of college seniors engaged in a capstone engineering design project. Specific objectives of the research activities in this project are to (1) develop and field-test tools for researching SRL in engineering design; (2) conduct a two-phase, descriptive study that investigates SRL activities employed by engineering students; (3) describe potential differences in self-regulation processing by gender. To advance practice, and extend this initial research project, integration of research and education will occur by (1) designing a teaching guide that will help instructors develop materials and tools that foster the development of student SRL in engineering design; and (2) disseminating the materials and tools, and evidence of their effectiveness, within a workshop designed to train engineering teachers. This project is currently at the survey instrument development and initial validation stage. Six undergraduate engineering students were invited in the face validity process. Moreover, the content validity involved two engineering professors and two experts in self-regulated learning. The resulting survey instrument contains 127 questionnaire items assessing five SRL features.