Impact of Physical Model Projects and Multidisciplinary Teams in Fluid Mechanics Education

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

This was an interesting paper to read. I would like to see a few more examples of the students’ models and how they illustrated fundamental principles. I’d particularly like to see one or two of the best ones, from your point of view.

It seems to me that this exercise is also limited by the length of the semester. That is, most of the students will work only on ideas from the first half of the semester. Is that what you found?

Comments on the Quality of English Language

fine

Author Response

Reviewer 1

This was an interesting paper to read. I would like to see a few more examples of the students’ models and how they illustrated fundamental principles. I’d particularly like to see one or two of the best ones, from your point of view.

We agree that this would be a valuable addition to this manuscript – we have updated section 3.1 with two additional models and further expanded the explanation for the originally presented model to ensure better readability.

It seems to me that this exercise is also limited by the length of the semester. That is, most of the students will work only on ideas from the first half of the semester. Is that what you found?

The authors agree that most student groups discussed in this study picked projects from topics that were discussed or current in class at the time of the project topic selection. In order to give students a broader base, during this Spring’s Fluid Mechanics class, the corresponding author introduced a longer list of potential topics/ideas and this, in conjunction with student interest, led to students selecting topics that were yet to be discussed in class – as  an example, one student group worked on demonstrating the thrust force produced by a nozzle assembly (using compressed air) and independently explored topics of compressible flow which were briefly covered in class. Additional results from this year’s cohort have not been included in this manuscript since the physical models constructed were limited to ME students and had a different focus compared to the present study.

We further note that implementation of hands-on learning modules was found to be most effective after foundation of the topic was presented [9] and when used to reinforce learning objectives at higher-levels of Blooms’ taxonomy [10], encouraging us to retain the original approach. 

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The paper presents the results achieved from a survey answered by students of Mechanical and Civil engineering that worked together in teams to solve projects in the fluid mechanicals area.

According to authors and, as indicated in the abstract, the main goal of the paper was to understand the effect of incorporating a physical model project solved by a set of students of different areas to address two main questions – Does the design and construction of the physical model aid understanding fluid mechanics concepts? Does working with students of different engineering disciplines improve student experience and comprehension?

To answer these two main objectives, authors present a survey unsewered by students, that basically indicate the positive impact of the adopted educational methodology (positive impact on their learning experience and the appreciation to work with engineers from distinct disciplines). However, the results presented by authors are got only from students, in any place there is an evaluation to understand if the adopted methodology are in fact adequate to answer the posed questions, because as a reader, and don’t understand if students learnt correctly the thematic of fluid mechanics (do they really learn better ? or do they just like to work in groups !?) This evaluation is not presented, only some students’ opinions! Teacher evaluation is required.

Additionally, and despite the interesting introduction with relevant and a well-accepted paper in educational area, like the Kolb’s Learning Style Theory, the remaining of the paper does not indicate where does this theory is adopted in the present research. This issue should be better clarified otherwise, as a reader, I don’t see a clear connection between the presented educational theories and the results/methodology presented in the paper. It seems that the introductory section was just a section to talk generically about educational theories and later they were forgotten. Basically, my question is: Where do the educational methods presented in the introductory section fit the methodology presented in the article? In section 2 (materials and methods) authors started presenting the way students do the experimental work. Here authors justify why they followed the educational methodology that basically uses experimental work in teams to solve a fluid mechanical problem. But again, there is no connection to the previous theories presented in the introductory section (I suggest authors to clearly indicate this issue to justify the adopted approach). In section 3 (results), subsection 3.1, authors start indicating that students choose different projects (models), exemplifying one of the most used based on the demonstration of Bernoulli’s equation (fig 3). However, in the remaining text of this section, in figure 4, there were other different topics, indicating the that the Bernoulli equation and the Pascal law were the preferred by students. Therefore, I don’t understand why authors only present, in a very brief way, only the implementation of the Bernoulli’s equation (fig 3). Furthermore, they present a set of tables in figure 3 that does not bring any added value to readers, because they are not explained! From my point of view it would be much better to present a brief explanation of all the select topics indicated in figure 4, without many details, but justifying the interaction of each group members in the experiment, in order to justify the different engineering disciplines adopted to solve a particular experiment, in order to improve students’ experience and comprehension (as indicated as an important objective of the presented research).

Supported on the previous comments, the discussion and the conclusions should be better explored. The main objective of the paper research is not clearly answered in the paper, since the survey doesn’t allow authors to get the main conclusion that is if the adopted methodology is in fact good for the students’ learning.

 As a conclusion I may say that generically the paper is well written and clear to understand, images have good quality and are referenced. The structure is adequate, but some contents should be adjusted according to some comments already made. Therefore, discussion and conclusions should be improved, but it seems that more results should be acquired. References are adequate to the thematic under analysis.

Author Response

Reviewer 2

The paper presents the results achieved from a survey answered by students of Mechanical and Civil engineering that worked together in teams to solve projects in the fluid mechanicals area.

According to authors and, as indicated in the abstract, the main goal of the paper was to understand the effect of incorporating a physical model project solved by a set of students of different areas to address two main questions – Does the design and construction of the physical model aid understanding fluid mechanics concepts? Does working with students of different engineering disciplines improve student experience and comprehension?

To answer these two main objectives, authors present a survey unsewered by students, that basically indicate the positive impact of the adopted educational methodology (positive impact on their learning experience and the appreciation to work with engineers from distinct disciplines). However, the results presented by authors are got only from students, in any place there is an evaluation to understand if the adopted methodology are in fact adequate to answer the posed questions, because as a reader, and don’t understand if students learnt correctly the thematic of fluid mechanics (do they really learn better? or do they just like to work in groups !?) This evaluation is not presented, only some students’ opinions! Teacher evaluation is required.

Additionally, and despite the interesting introduction with relevant and a well-accepted paper in educational area, like the Kolb’s Learning Style Theory, the remaining of the paper does not indicate where does this theory is adopted in the present research. This issue should be better clarified otherwise, as a reader, I don’t see a clear connection between the presented educational theories and the results/methodology presented in the paper. It seems that the introductory section was just a section to talk generically about educational theories and later they were forgotten. Basically, my question is: Where do the educational methods presented in the introductory section fit the methodology presented in the article? In section 2 (materials and methods) authors started presenting the way students do the experimental work. Here authors justify why they followed the educational methodology that basically uses experimental work in teams to solve a fluid mechanical problem. But again, there is no connection to the previous theories presented in the introductory section (I suggest authors to clearly indicate this issue to justify the adopted approach).

We have expanded on sections 2, 3.2 and 4 to address these concerns. Section 2 has a brief addition correlating to the theories discussed earlier (page 3). Section 3.2 incorporates two additional models along with the reasoning for the structure of the project and its correlation to Kolb’s cycle (page 5&6, page 10). The discussion (Section 4, page 12) has also been updated to include an evaluation from the method from the instructors’ point of view along with our impressions of the effect of this project on student learning with a specific example.

In section 3 (results), subsection 3.1, authors start indicating that students choose different projects (models), exemplifying one of the most used based on the demonstration of Bernoulli’s equation (fig 3). However, in the remaining text of this section, in figure 4, there were other different topics, indicating the that the Bernoulli equation and the Pascal law were the preferred by students. Therefore, I don’t understand why authors only present, in a very brief way, only the implementation of the Bernoulli’s equation (fig 3). Furthermore, they present a set of tables in figure 3 that does not bring any added value to readers, because they are not explained! From my point of view it would be much better to present a brief explanation of all the select topics indicated in figure 4, without many details, but justifying the interaction of each group members in the experiment, in order to justify the different engineering disciplines adopted to solve a particular experiment, in order to improve students’ experience and comprehension (as indicated as an important objective of the presented research).

We have added additional information expanding on the presented data for the Bernoulli’s equation-based model (page 5). Additionally, we have added in two more physical models (Figure 4) detailing an alternate representation of Bernoulli’s equation and another for Pascal’s law to provide a better view of the range of student work.

Supported on the previous comments, the discussion and the conclusions should be better explored. The main objective of the paper research is not clearly answered in the paper, since the survey doesn’t allow authors to get the main conclusion that is if the adopted methodology is in fact good for the students’ learning.

 As a conclusion I may say that generically the paper is well written and clear to understand, images have good quality and are referenced. The structure is adequate, but some contents should be adjusted according to some comments already made. Therefore, discussion and conclusions should be improved, but it seems that more results should be acquired. References are adequate to the thematic under analysis.

Reviewer 3 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Please see review in attached file

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Comments on the Quality of English Language

Author Response

Introduction:

Please refer to Figure 1 in text prior to the figure. Where it is currently Kolb’s model has not yet been introduced, so it appears to be inserted out of place.

We agree with this suggestion to improve readability and have moved the text corresponding to the figure before the figure itself.

The sentence “A complementary study [22] suggests that a student could enter the cycle at any point but the stage of ‘Concrete Experience’, where the student is actively involved in the problem via a physical experiment, is where learning occurs.” appears to have a strange structure. Please consider alternative ways to say what you’re communicating here.

This sentence has been updated as “In the study [22], it is suggested that while students can enter the cycle anywhere, learning occurs primarily during the 'Concrete Experience' stage, where students are actively engaged in physical experiments.” (Page 2, lines 77-80).

“The application further allows them to translate concepts to a range of settings and internalize the fundamental principles, thus ensuring long-term retention.” - This is a big claim in education writing – please follow up with a citation.

We thank the reviewer for this suggestion – we have updated the manuscript with the citation [23]. We should note here that the citation provided is for a class of medical students studying intubation but the reference shows the importance of experiential, application-based learning by assessing skills up to 12 months after conclusion of the lesson. The data shows higher success rates (up to 86%) in the experiential group at 12 months. Data from another source [24] studying language learning showed a statistically significant difference in knowledge retention between an experimental group employing Kolb’s cycle and the control group. An in-depth analysis revealed that the two groups differed in the rate of procedural knowledge retention compared to declarative knowledge.

Overall, this is a comprehensive overview of PBL, but I find it challenging to identify specifically where and how your work fits into / aligns with the literautre that you’ve presented. What were the findings of the work you cited and how did those findings inform your own PBL design? You mention specific theories of learning and development here, but it’s never clearly articulated how they influence your pedagogy design, your research questions or methods, etc.

We have expanded on sections 2, 3.2 and 4 to address these concerns. Section 2 has a brief addition correlating to the theories discussed earlier (page 3). Section 3.2 incorporates two additional models along with the reasoning for the structure of the project and its correlation to Kolb’s cycle (page 5&6, page 10).

I also think given the practitioner-focused nature of this special edition that it would be helpful to have a “background / course context” section. You mentioned that this is a mid-sized class, but how many students per section? How many credit hours is the course? What resources do students have at their disposal to do the projects described? There are details that someone interested in adapting or adopting this work to their own course would likely find helpful.

While some of this information was provided on Page 4 (143-147) we have added in some additional information (lines 127-129, 144-145) as per the reviewer’s suggestion.

Materials & Methods:

What does semi-random selection mean in the formation of a team? If not entirely random, what choices were made? By whom? And why?

Students within each discipline (ME / CE) we given the choice of selecting their own teams while the pairing between the ME and CE classes was randomly assigned by the instructors. We wanted given students a sense of team building (since some were anxious about the idea of working with a different discipline) but also allow for a more real-world scenario where team selection is typically not a choice – hence the mix of both methods.

What was your research question as the ones who designed this activity and reported on it? It’s unclear the purpose of the publication or its contribution to literature based on gaps that you’ve found – having a guiding research question that you answer is helpful in clarifying your specific contribution and purpose of the paper.

As a pilot study, our main questions were – 1. To determine if students demonstrated a better understanding of a certain topic upon designing and building a physical model (answered on page 12 of the updated manuscript) 2. To determine if working in interdisciplinary teams benefited student experience and understanding (answered on page 10 of the updated manuscript).

Results:

The introductory text in this section appears to be generic text similar to what comes in a template – please correct.

This has been updated in the current version of the manuscript.

Discussion:

I would recommend a limitations section all its own rather than having it be the bulk of the discussion. The discussion seems to be lacking the exploration of the results in relation to 1) prior and previous literature in the PBL space (and specifically PBL in engineering education, and better yet more specifically PBL in this topic), 2) implications for practitioners (maybe challenges or future changes based on results of this work), and 3) specifically what your results do say and what they cannot say (In this case a unique aspect of your study is that the majority of data reported is students’ perceptions of the activity and their own learning. What this work can’t do is make supported claims about their academic performance, long-term retention, etc.)

Additionally, as far as I can tell, the theories presented in the introduction never come back to be integrated into the project design, the study of its outcomes (learning achievement or student perceptions) or the discussion of the results. Please consider how the theory(s) presented at the beginning can be carried throughout the work to inform the research, outcomes, discussion, and recommendations

We have addressed these concerns via the updated sections 2, 3.2 and 4 to address these concerns. The discussion (Section 4, page 12) has also been updated to include an evaluation from the method from the instructors’ point of view along with our impressions of the effect of this project on student learning with a specific example.

Reviewer 4 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

In line 136 2.3 must be changed to 3.2

On line 210 the percentage should be 75% according to Figure 5.               

Why is only the Bernoulli equation model selected as a sample to your article?  In section 3.1 where you describe the model you refer to one team, but according to your Fig 4 about the percentage of students’ selection the teams with the Bernoulli equation must be 5. All the other teams made exactly the same model? The composition of all the teams was 50-50 (meaning two CE and two ME students)?

I do not understand the diagram in Figure 5. According to the percentages, there is one student who thinks that the "model does not look as planned and has regular unexplained deviations from expected results" which means that the rest of his group did not have the same opinion. This means that the students' opinions were not the same about the model they built. So in a group, there could be opposing views? I think this should be more analyzed.

I think that there should be a better analysis of the gains the students made by working in mixed groups (Me and CE students). It is not obvious that this mixture helped the understanding of the subject and not only improved the students' collaboration skills.

Your suggestion is interesting and may help to improve the understanding of fluid mechanics by students. As mentioned your effort is initial and can be improved a lot. It is important that the results of the student's understanding of the subjects taught can be measured and compared to a group of students who would have been taught the subject in the traditional way.

 

Nevertheless, your suggestion is worthy of note and it would be good to develop it in other disciplines—for example: Electronic and mechanical engineering. 

Author Response

Reviewer 4

In line 136 2.3 must be changed to 3.2

This has been updated in the manuscript. 

On line 210 the percentage should be 75% according to Figure 5.        

This has been updated in the manuscript.         

Why is only the Bernoulli equation model selected as a sample to your article?  In section 3.1 where you describe the model you refer to one team, but according to your Fig 4 about the percentage of students’ selection the teams with the Bernoulli equation must be 5. All the other teams made exactly the same model? The composition of all the teams was 50-50 (meaning two CE and two ME students)?

The manuscript has been updated to include two additional models – one showing an alternate demonstration of Bernoulli’s equation and another showing Pascal’s Law (Figure 4 with corresponding explanation on Page 5). Given that the two class sizes were different (29 in CE vs 20 in ME), not every team had a 50-50 distribution of students. We however did ensure that every team had at least one student from each discipline.

I do not understand the diagram in Figure 5. According to the percentages, there is one student who thinks that the "model does not look as planned and has regular unexplained deviations from expected results" which means that the rest of his group did not have the same opinion. This means that the students' opinions were not the same about the model they built. So in a group, there could be opposing views? I think this should be more analyzed.

We concur with the reviewer’s observation and note that even in the same group, students are likely to have differing opinions.  However, since our surveys were anonymous (to encourage honest student response) and did not include any group specific questions, it would be difficult to track it back to the student team in question and decipher the reason for the responses. We do acknowledge this variability within the teams and will add in a group identifier (keeping the individual student responses anonymous) in future implementations of this project.

I think that there should be a better analysis of the gains the students made by working in mixed groups (Me and CE students). It is not obvious that this mixture helped the understanding of the subject and not only improved the students' collaboration skills.

Your suggestion is interesting and may help to improve the understanding of fluid mechanics by students. As mentioned your effort is initial and can be improved a lot. It is important that the results of the student's understanding of the subjects taught can be measured and compared to a group of students who would have been taught the subject in the traditional way.

Nevertheless, your suggestion is worthy of note and it would be good to develop it in other disciplines—for example: Electronic and mechanical engineering. 

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

OK. The document has been improved. I suggest that you complement the colours of the figures with patterns, as most of the papers are printed in black or white, and it becomes difficult to detect the captions.

 

in the

Reviewer 3 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Thank you for your revisions in response to the feedback provided!