Open Access

We describe an investigation of the heterogeneity in conceptual understanding of first-year engineering students by using the force concept inventory (FCI) as a diagnostic tool. The average FCI pre- and posttest results depend significantly on the type of school graduation. Even interactive teaching methods that have proven to be more effective in learning outcome cannot dissolve this heterogeneity within the first year of university study.

We report on an investigation of student thinking about steady-state pipe flow of an incompressible fluid. About 250 undergraduate engineering students were given a test consisting of two hydrodynamics questions, combining multiple-choice format with subsequent open-ended explanations. There is substantial evidence that students have difficulty applying and prioritizing the two basic principles of mass conservation (expressed in the continuity equation) and energy conservation (i.e., Bernoulli’s equation). When faced with questions that involve gravity, dissipative effects (“friction”), or a visible pressure drop, a considerable number of students did not invoke the continuity equation in situations where applying it is a necessary step for arriving at the correct answer. Instead, even after lecture instruction on this topic, many of the first-year students based their answers on ill-supported assumptions about local pressures. Some of them used formal arguments from a simplified Bernoulli equation (“lower pressure means higher velocity”), while others based their answer on intuitive arguments (“higher pressure leads to higher velocity”). We also found reasoning based on analogies to single-particle motion (“flow velocity decreases when flowing upwards or friction is present”). Contrary to other researchers, we did not see any evidence for the hypothesis that students think of water as a compressible fluid. Instead, students’ answers often indicate a lack of understanding of the conservation of mass or its implications for incompressible fluids or of the role that this principle plays in the context of fluid flow. In addition, our data indicate that some students have more general difficulties in describing and reasoning about technical situations, such as applying equations containing multiple variables, distinguishing spatial differences in a quantity from its changes with respect to time, or realizing the meaning of idealizations. We also present some evidence that different levels of activation of students during instruction influence the prevalence of these difficulties and discuss some implications for instruction.

The 12th International Conference on Physics Teaching in Engineering Education (PTEE 2024) took place from 15th to 17th of May, 2024 at TH Rosenheim. This “Program and Abstracts” contains the conference time schedule as well as the abstracts and video links of the 3 keynotes and the abstracts of the 46 contributions. The contributions cover actual themes in teaching engineers at universities and universities of applied sciences. Among others they are related to: SoTL (Scholarship of Teaching and Learning), influence of the pandemic on teaching, artificial intelligence in learning and teaching including learning analytics, and innovative concepts for lectures and labs in physics and engineering subjects.

In dieser Arbeit wird mit Hilfe des „Force Concept Inventory“, einem etablierten Diagnostik-Test, der Lernzuwachs im Konzeptverständnis von Studienanfängern in der Newtonschen Mechanik untersucht. Das Ergebnis wird aufgeschlüsselt nach dem Einfluss der Lehrmethode, der Studienzugangsberechtigung und dem Umfang schulischen Physikunterrichts. Die Daten basieren auf Testergebnissen von 778 Studierenden aus acht verschiedenen ingenieurwissenschaftlichen Studiengängen an der Hochschule Rosenheim über den Zeitraum der drei Studienjahre 2013/14 bis 2015/16. Im Ergebnis zeigt sich, dass bei Verwendung aktivierender und auf das Konzeptverständnis hinzielender Lehrmethoden im Vergleich zu traditionellem seminaristischen Unterricht ein signifikant höherer Lernzuwachs im Bereich der Mechanik erzielt wird. Im Detail weisen die Daten im Studiengang Wirtschaftsingenieurwesen darauf hin, dass dieser Lernzuwachs nahezu gleich für die Gruppen mit unterschiedlicher Hochschulzugangsberechtigung bzw. unterschiedlichem Umfang schulischen Physikunterrichts ist. Das bedeutet insbesondere, dass die Heterogenität der Studienanfänger in ihrem Konzeptverständnis der Mechanik innerhalb des ersten Studienjahres erhalten bleibt.