Cultivating Technology and Pedagogical Strategies that Influence Students’ Innovative Thinking
Skills
David Okoth, Vaishali Nandy, Dr. Julaine Fowlin
Learning Sciences and Technologies
Dr. Catherine Amelink, Dr. Glenda R. Scales
College of Engineering
Virginia Tech
Abstract: Enhancing innovative thinking skills among engineering undergraduates is of critical
importance to the national economy with nine in ten CEOs, executives at private and public sectors
including nonprofit organizations, agreeing that innovative thinking skills is essential for the
continued success of their businesses and organizations (Hart Research Associates, 2013). In this
paper, we report the efforts being made by students to effectively use specific technologies that
enable creative and innovative thinking skills development. The research and analysis of the data
extracted from a focus group study fills a significant gap: that there is emerging a preferable
pedagogical strategy particularly perceived as effectively integrating classroom technology and is
preferred by most undergraduate students in large classrooms as enabling innovative thinking skill
acquisition. The study also noted that innovative thinking skills among undergraduates is a gradual
process as the students move from first year of engineering to final year of engineering and this
pattern mirrors Kolb’s model of learning style (Kolb, 1984). The findings of this study helps in
understanding and gauging how pedagogical strategies that integrate classroom technologies
influence undergraduate students to develop innovative thinking skills.
Background
This study is part of a larger Transforming Undergraduate Education in STEM (TUES) grant research project
examining pedagogical strategies that engineering instructors use in teaching to facilitate the development of
innovative thinking skills among engineering students. It has drawn considerable literature from past researches and
theoretical discussions on instructional design, classroom technology experiments, as well as longitudinal studies
touching on how students learn with technology.
When students get into engineering classes; whether lecture halls, labs or out doing fieldwork, they are
exposed to different teaching styles that expose them to learning content aimed at improving their psychomotor
skills, metacognitive abilities, among other generic skills and abilities. The biggest concern for engineering
professors has been setting up an environment that can enhance innovative thinking skills in the learning process.
Student assessments and instructional evaluations are normally carried out in order to eke out behavioral pointers
that indicate whether some of the pedagogical strategies are effectively achieving desired outcome. Kolb’s models
of learning style was used to gauge whether the student’s experiences were developing toward acquiring innovative
thinking skills. Kolb’s experiential learning model elaborates four cycle stages of learning modes each with a
characteristic that can describe whether the students are innovators in maximizing their opportunities to discover
things for themselves, i.e., to critically think and be innovative (Kolb, 1984).
In an instructional setting, there are both predictable and unpredictable factors that come to play during
learning. For instance, for learning to occur, the teacher, the learner, the learning content and the learning tools are
the four common denominators that interact. In this study, themes, derived from ABETs EC2000 engineering
criteria (Felder, 1998), are among the behaviors identified to gauge the different approaches that different instructors
took to foster innovative thinking skills.
Methodology
The study investigates the phenomenon in a qualitative approach which is a post-positivist naturalistic method of
inquiry (Creswell, 1994).The qualitative technique allowed information presented as data function of personal
interaction and perception of the phenomenon. Design: Three focus groups were identified and sessions held at
different days at similar times. The setup envisaged a fair environment where students could freely articulate their
ideas and perspectives in relation to the guided discussion. Method: A semi-structured discussion enabled the group
to stay on the crucial topic while allowing exploration of key issues that arose during discussion. Procedure: Two
graduate students guided the discussion, assuaging any notion of ill-will or retribution should the undergraduates
have anything they felt strongly was not being addressed by the school administration. The sessions were recorded
and transcribed. Emergent themes were tabulated, collated and correlated to identify any significant relationships.
During the data analysis stage, the themes were refined to achieve objectivity through intersubjective convergence
of definition from peer researchers. Two cycles of coding, a patterned coding method, focusing on the coded data
was applied to harmonize the emerging paradigms with the research literature (Saldaña, 2012).
Results
The research compounded the undergraduate’s thoughts on whether they were leaning toward learning any kind of
skill more so, innovative thinking skill. Word count for the operationalizing phrase of innovative thinking and
technology revealed that FocusGrp1 used technology, tablet, and learning more than all the other groups. This is a
clear indication that their professors’ pedagogical approach involved more technology.
Figure 1. Cumulative percentage of theme occurrence throughout the focus groups.
% Cumulative Theme Occurence
Authentic learning behavior
8.44
8.30
8.01
7.28
6.84
5.53
4.22
Reflection
Authentic context
1.89
(+)ve perspective
0.00
5.00
10.00
12.95
12.23
12.23
12.08
15.00
%
The students’ cumulative negative perception about their class experiences was highest at 12.95% followed
by 12.23% for both professional learning and authentic learning behavior. Other top ranking themes include
authentic activities at 12.08%, multiple roles and perspective at 8.44%, reflection at 8.30%, coaching and
scaffolding at 8.01%, access expert performance at 7.28%, authentic context at 6.84%, integrated authentic
assessment at 5.53%, collaboration at 4.22%, and finally the positive perspective at 1.89%.
Conclusion
While there is clear evidence of the differences in strategies used in teaching with the different focus groups, more
data needs to be gathered to get a deeper understanding of the emerging themes. Doing so will also point to a most
preferable strategy which undergraduate students in large classrooms perceive as the most effective integration of
technology in their learning process. There is need to involve more structure and tactics to cultivate the kind of
lifelong learning skills for today’s engineering student, there is indeed need for instructional design in large lecture
classrooms.
References
Creswell, J. W. (1994). Research design: Qualitative & quantitative approaches. Thousand Oaks: Sage.
Felder, R.M. (1998). ABET Criteria 2000: An Exercise in engineering problem solving.” Chemical Engineering
Education, 32(2), 126–127.
Hart Research Associates. (2013). It takes more than a major: Employer priorities for college learning and student
success. Washington, DC: An online survey among employers conducted on behalf of: The Association of
American Colleges and Universities.
Kolb, D. A. (1984). Experiential learning: Experience as the source of learning and development (Vol. 1).
Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.
Saldaña, J. (2012). The coding manual for qualitative researchers (No. 14). Sage.