A virtual classroom experiment for teaching engineering economy

Engineering Economist, Winter, 2004 by William G. Sullivan, Janis P. Terpenny, Harpreet Singh

Experimental Framework

During the Spring semester of 2000, four Web-based industrial problems from General Electric Industrial Systems in Salem, Virginia, were utilized by students in the 8:00 a.m. section of ISE 2014 (experimental group). The class was divided into 20 groups of four students each, and each group bid on one of the four GE projects. Students in the 10:00 a.m. section (control group) were not given access to these industrial problems.

During the Fall semester of 2000, Web-based course supplements to ISE 2014 were made available to the 10:10 a.m. section of ISE 2014 (experimental group). The GE industrial projects were again incorporated into the course. Every effort was made not to introduce or use the Web-based supplements in the 9:05 a.m. section of the course (control group). All course material for the 9:05 a.m. section was presented to students in hard-copy form. However, students in both sections were given the option to participate in the industrial project if they desired. Figure 1 shows the relationship between the two experiments conducted in the Spring and Fall semesters of 2000 at Virginia Tech. We wish to examine whether industrial projects and Web-based instruction can potentially result in higher quality Engineering Economy courses offered to a greater pool of students.

[FIGURE 1 OMITTED]

Treatment 1--Industrial Team Projects (Spring 2000)

Four industrial projects offered by GE were assigned to students in the Spring of 2000 (8:00 a.m. section, experimental group). The primary objective of the required participation in the projects was to allow students to interact with engineers from GE in order to demonstrate, extend, and integrate knowledge of engineering economy in the solution of real industrial problems. Deliverables of the project included a final report detailing the problem worked on, critical assumptions, problem-solving approach taken, results generated, conclusions, recommendations, and lessons learned. Refer to Appendix B for a brief description of the four General Electric projects.

Treatment 2--Web-Based Supplemental Course Materials (Fall 2000)

The implementation of course materials for the virtual classroom for Engineering Economy in the Fall 2000 semester was done through the Web site http://mielsvr2.ecs.umass.edu/virtual_econ. Students were strongly encouraged to access this Web site for in-class handouts and practice problems. As mentioned previously, greater detail regarding the Web site developed for the virtual classroom can be found in Appendix A. No fee or password was required to view the Web site and thus it continues to be an open resource available to other universities and industry practitioners.

To increase ease of use, the Web site was divided into several sub-modules that address specific areas of engineering economy, including:

* Time value of money and comparison of alternatives

* Consideration of risk and uncertainty

* The business/engineering environment

* Principles of design and systems analysis