Course Assessment Report
College of Engineering, The University of Iowa
(CAR Format Revision Date 14 November 2007)
CAR Completed March 2008
Course: 59:009 Engineering Fundamental III: Thermodynamics (3 semester hours)
Semester and Instructor: Fall 2007, Charles Stanier (section 1) and Al Ratner (section 2)
Coordinator: Charles Stanier
Student Head Count: 209 (135 section 1 for 12:30 lecture; 74 section 2 for 8:30 lecture)
Teaching Assistants: 8 TAs (2 FTE)
I. Assessment Techniques
Indicate how the students’ achievement of each course goal was assessed.
Course Learning Goal
Assessment Technique
1. The student will become familiar with fundamental concepts and definitions used in the
study of thermodynamics.
EASY Survey; Exams
2. The student will learn about properties of pure, simple, compressible substances and
property relations relevant to engineering thermodynamics.
EASY Survey; Exams
3. The student will have an understanding of macroscopic and microscopic energy modes,
energy transfer, and energy transformation.
EASY Survey; Exams
4. The student will understand the basic laws of classical thermodynamics for open and
closed systems.
EASY Survey; Exams
5. The student will learn about some important thermodynamic cycles and their
applications.
EASY Survey; Exams
6. The student will utilize a computer software tool to learn about the design aspect of
engineering thermodynamics.
EASY Survey; design
projects.
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II. Course Goals and Program Outcomes
Course Learning Goal
Program Outcome
1. The student will become familiar with fundamental concepts and definitions used
in the study of thermodynamics.
2. The student will learn about properties of pure, simple, compressible substances
and property relations relevant to engineering thermodynamics.
3. The student will have an understanding of macroscopic and microscopic energy
modes, energy transfer, and energy transformation.
4. The student will understand the basic laws of classical thermodynamics for open
and closed systems.
5. The student will learn about some important thermodynamic cycles and their
applications.
6. The student will utilize a computer software tool to learn about the design aspect
of engineering thermodynamics.
a(●), e(●)
a(●), e(●)
a(●), e(●)
a(●), e(●)
a(●), e(●), j(○)
c(○), g(○), j(○), k(○)
Notes:
○ denotes moderate contribution to the outcome ● denotes substantial contribution to the outcome
III. Program Outcomes (provided for reference).
New graduates from the College of Engineering Undergraduate Programs will have:
(a) an ability to apply knowledge of mathematics, science, and engineering
(b) an ability to design and conduct experiments, as well as to analyze and interpret data
(c) an ability to design a system, component, or process to meet desired needs within realistic constraints such as economic,
environmental, social, political, ethical, health and safety, manufacturability, and sustainability
(d) an ability to function on multi-disciplinary teams
(e) an ability to identify, formulate, and solve engineering problems
(f) an understanding of professional and ethical responsibility
(g) an ability to communicate effectively
(h) the broad education necessary to understand the impact of engineering solutions in a global, economic, environmental, and
societal context
(i) a recognition of the need for, and an ability to engage in life-long learning
(j) a knowledge of contemporary issues
(k) an ability to use the techniques, skills, and modern engineering tools necessary for engineering practice.
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IV. Assessment
Log of Recent Changes and Improvements. This section contains a running account of course
improvements, including the motivation for the changes.
Fall 2007. (Stanier, Ratner) see below. Only minor changes in the course relative to fall 2006.
Spring 2007 (Beckermann) Six 15-minute unannounced quizzes were given. An extensive final
design problem was given, as well as six open-ended problems from the Moran & Shapiro text, each
requiring ~4 pages of written response. Continuation of open-ended problems and quizzes
recommended. (Note, in the fall semester, in-class quizzes are not used since the course is offered in
two separate sections).
Fall 2006. (Stanier, Ratner) Guest lectures were given (Milster Ferman on UIowa Powerplant, Iowa
State researcher on biodiesel); the powerplant tour program was continued from Fall 2005.
Spring 2006 (Ratner) Course was maintained similar to Fall 2005. Guest lectures and the power plant
were again popular and the students were excited about seeing real-world applications of the topics
they are studying.
Fall 2005. (Ratner, Stanier) Design problem scaled back to two (one writing and research / one
calculation-based) relative to fall 2004. Guest lectures introduced. Guest lectures by Milster Ferman
(UIowa Powerplant), Bill Eichinger (Atmospheric Thermodynamics), and Jerry Schnoor (Climate
Change) to bring more current applications of thermodynamics to the students. Voluntary program of
powerplant tours started to followup on high interest level of students in Milster Ferman lecture. A
tablet PC was introduced to improve legibility of hand-worked example problems. Elluminate Live
software was used to record tutorials on the IT software – so that more students would have access to a
detailed problem solving demos using the IT software.
Spring 2005 (Beckermann)
Fall 2004. (Ratner, Stanier) Minor changes relative to previous semesters. Three “design problems”
(involving a mix of outside reading, guided computations, and open ended problem solving) were used
in the course, with students selecting from multiple topics to try to interest students from multiple
disciplines. Motivation was to bring more realistic problems to the students, and give more choices to
interest electrical and biomedical engineering students.
MEAN EASY SCORES
Offering
Goals 1-5 (non software)
F2007
5.03 to 5.45
S2007
5.33 to 5.67
F2006
5.05 to 5.38
F2005
4.45 to 4.98
Goal 6 (software)
4.29
4.83
4.73
4.42
Part A. Improvements and Recommendations this Semester. Provide a description of course
improvements that have occurred this semester relative to those of previous semester (including the
motivation for these changes), and recommended changes for upcoming semesters as needed.
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FALL 2007 HIGHLIGHTS


New 6th edition of Moran and Shapiro was used for the first time. Students were required to
purchase the book with the “WileyPlus” online content feature, and were allowed to purchase
the book with optional IT software. A delay in WileyPlus version textbooks, plus a
proliferation of ISBN numbers for the text (4 ISBNs depending on whether it included software
and/or WileyPlus) caused confusion for students and the bookstore. WileyPlus was not used
except for voluntary practice problems, because only a small percentage of end-of-chapter
problems were in Wiley Plus.
Two guest lectures were given (Milster Ferman on UIowa Powerplant, Alec Scranton/David
Murhammer on Energy and Society; the powerplant tour program was expanded to include 144
students. The expansion was based on good reviews of students and high demand for tour
slots.
Recommended changes for future offerings:
 If Wiley-Plus question library is substantially enlarged, then 1/3 of the problem sets should be
completed on Wiley-Plus and set for automatic grading. This will lighten the grading load for
hand-written problems. If the Wiley-Plus question library is not enlarged, then Wiley-Plus
should not be used.
 Continue efforts to make the homework as streamlined as possible, while still providing
practice on all the course learning goal elements.
 As corrective action to the two unmet course goals (#4 understand/apply thermodynamic laws
to open and closed systems; #5 thermodynamic cycles), tests and homeworks questions need to
be structured in a way to better assess exposure vs. competency. Specifically,
o A range of exam questions from easy (indicating exposure), to medium (indicating
competency), to difficult (indicating mastery) is needed.
o Multipart homework problems will be assigned where possible to range mirror this
scale on the exams.
o Exams (for some thermo instructors, including Stanier and Ratner) have historically
relied on time pressure as a tool to separate very good (B and A-) from outstanding (A
and A+) students. This time pressure leads to “competent” students skipping or getting
low marks on relatively easy material. Therefore, improved assessment of competency
vs. exposure (on which the quantitative achievement of the course goals is measured –
see below) will be obtained by relieving the time pressure.
Part B. Quantitative Assessment Results. Provide a quantitative assessment for each course
learning goal.
Quantitative Assessment Method:
Self-assessment results and exams were used to provide independent assessment of achievement of
course learning goals.
 Self-assessment based method: Each learning goal was assessed using questions phrased as “I
learned the concepts….” and a 1-6 response scale: 6 strongly agree; 5 moderately agree; 4
slightly agree; 3 slightly disagree; 2 moderately disagree; 1 strongly disagree. Mapping scores
of 5-6 to mastery; 3-4 to competency; and 1-2 to exposure.
 Exam-based method: Problem-specific exam scores were recorded for 2 of the 3 midsemester
exams and the final. Problems were mapped to 1 or 2 learning goals, and then a weighted
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average for each student and each learning goal was calculated. These were binned to mastery
(>75%), competency (50-75%), and exposure (<50%). Students receiving an F in the course
are not included in the calculations.
In either case, a course learning goal was considered as NOT met if the “exposure” fraction of the class
was higher than 30% in either the self-assessment or exam based metric. This is higher than the 10%
threshold applied in some departmental classes, but is justified given the broad spread of majors.
Quantitative Assessment Results – Self-Assessment Based:
63 students completed the online survey administered by the college of engineering. Each learning
goal was assessed using questions phrased as “I learned the concepts….” and a 1-6 response scale: 6
strongly agree; 5 moderately agree; 4 slightly agree; 3 slightly disagree; 2 moderately disagree; 1
strongly disagree. Mapping scores of 5-6 to mastery; 3-4 to competency; and 1-2 to exposure.
Using this metric, the learning goals fall into 2 categories. The first category contains learning goals 15 and the fraction of students falling into mastery ranges from 77-94% (varies by learning goal); into
competency (6-23%), and exposure 0-2%. Learning goal 6 (software) was quite different with a
breakdown of mastery (42%); competency (50%); and exposure (8%). This is consistent with
historically low self assessment given around the IT software package, which requires simple
command line programming, has some bugs, and can be difficult at times.
Quantitative Assessment Results – Exam Based:
Summary:
The results show good to excellent achievement of the more fundamental learning goals (1 & 3,
concepts, definitions, and energy) with “exposure” at less than 10% of the class. The learning goals
involving computations, logic, and thermodynamic properties (2, 4, and 5, properties, application of 1st
and 2nd laws, and cycles) have the “exposure” fraction at 24-33% of the class. The lower 1/3 of the
class historically is hard to motivate to complete involved engineering computations.
Detail:
1. The student will become familiar with fundamental concepts and definitions used in the study of
thermodynamics.
This was accessed by a weighted average of the following exam questions
- Fq1, Fq2, E2q1
On these three questions, students received an average of 77% of available points, with a
standard deviation of 17%. The breakdown by mastery / competency / exposure is as follows:
M
64% of class
C
28% of class
E
8% of class
Survey-based assessment in this area (described above) was favorable.
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2. The student will learn about properties of pure, simple, compressible substances and property
relations relevant to engineering thermodynamics.
This was accessed by a weighted average of the following exam questions
- Fq4, Fq5, Fq6
On these three questions, students received an average of 62% of available points, with a
standard deviation of 20%. The breakdown by mastery / competency / exposure is as follows:
M
25% of class
C
51% of class
E
24% of class
Survey-based assessment in this area (described above) was favorable.
3. The student will have an understanding of macroscopic and microscopic energy modes, energy
transfer, and energy transformation.
This was accessed by a weighted average of the following exam questions
- Fq2, E2q3, E2q6
On these three questions, students received an average of 72% of available points, with a
standard deviation of 12%. The breakdown by mastery / competency / exposure is as follows:
M
53% of class
C
40% of class
E
2% of class
Survey-based assessment in this area (described above) was favorable.
4. The student will understand the basic laws of classical thermodynamics for open and closed
systems.
This was accessed by a weighted average of the following exam questions
- Fq5, Fq6, E2q2, E2q4, E2q5, E2q6, E3q2
On these three questions, students received an average of 59% of available points, with a
standard deviation of 16%. The breakdown by mastery / competency / exposure is as follows:
M
20% of class
C
49% of class
E
31% of class
Survey-based assessment in this area (described above) was favorable.
5. The student will learn about some important thermodynamic cycles and their applications.
This was accessed by a weighted average of the following exam questions
- Fq3, Fq7, E3q1
6
On these three questions, students received an average of 59% of available points, with a
standard deviation of 19%. The breakdown by mastery / competency / exposure is as follows:
M
19% of class
C
48% of class
E
33% of class
Survey-based assessment in this area (described above) was favorable.
6. The student will utilize a computer software tool to learn about the design aspect of engineering
thermodynamics.
This was accessed survey alone (exams are paper-and-pencil). See above for assessment result. In
summary,
M
42% of class
C
50% of class
E
8% of class
Corrective Action: See “Recommended changes for future offerings” on page 4.
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