Use of Presage-Pedagogy-Process-Product Model to Assess the Effectiveness of Case Study Methodology in Achieving Learning Outcomes

Abstract

In this paper, we integrate organizational, engineering education, and educational learning literature to develop a model of student learning so as to research how learning style, behavioral tendencies, gender, and race have the potential to act as facilitators or barriers to the learning process. We argue that the gains in higher-order cognitive skills, improvement in self-efficacy, and improvement in team-working skills are positively related to the absence of barriers to the learning process. The experimental design tests the model at two universities: Auburn University, a large land-grant institution in Auburn, Alabama, and Hampton University, an HBCU in Hampton, Virginia. Both groups of students were provided the multimedia case studies during Spring 2010.

The results show that the students prefer a visual mode of learning, that they were generally self-confident, and that they perceived an improvement in higher-order cognitive skills, team-working skills and self-efficacy after working on the case studies. At both universities, students overwhelmingly found the case studies and labs that involved building projects to be most interesting. Students found the multimedia case studies to be beneficial for improving teamwork skills, networking, problem solving, presentation skills, and communication skills. They mentioned that using the case studies helped them learn to research and make effective PowerPoints. Students also mentioned that the case studies helped their critical thinking and decision making skills. An unexpected outcome of this project was that the clinical supervision became an important outcome of the evaluation project. It provided a forum for the teaching, evaluation, and senior faculty teams to mesh together so as to improve the education of freshman engineering students.