Statics is a foundational class in civil and mechanical engineering. Students learn about forces, moments, and static equilibrium. They learn skills, such as drawing free body diagrams, that they will continue to use throughout their coursework. However, statics classes often have high failure rates and, unfortunately, is sometimes seen by students (and used by faculty) as a weed out class.  

Statics is also one of the first classes in which students learn how to model physical systems from the world around them. The problems move from theoretical to practical, or at least that is the goal. However, a quick perusal of the most popular statics textbooks tells a slightly different story. Textbooks tend to introduce theory first, before they even get to a problem. Students learn about forces, vectors, vector multiplication, components, and notation and then are presented with abstracted problems. This is not to say that the problems are not practical or that they are not “real world problems.” Rather, I mean that the problems have already been simplified (reduced to a 2-dimensional drawing) and fully defined (lots of clearly defined parameter values). Therefore, students do not need to make a direct connection between the physical problem and the engineering mechanics problem that they end up solving.[1]

The net effect of this is that students sometimes leave engineering because they struggle in one of the first classes where they get to apply engineering problem solving skills to real world practical problems.

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Project goals

Our research team, with the support of an NSF RIEF grant seek to change the way we teach statics to include the missing first step of taking a real-world problem and abstracting it to a tractable engineering mechanics problem. We will start with small-scale physical models of actual engineered structures and guide students through the process of abstracting the physical model into an engineering mechanics problem. Only then will we introduce the mathematical tools needed to solve the problem. By explicitly teaching students how to abstract the physical world, we hypothesize that (1) students will develop greater confidence in their ability to solve statice problems (increased self-efficacy) and (2) will have a stronger connection between the class material and their future career as professional engineers. In turn, this will increase their enthusiasm to learn the material (future oriented motivation.)

Example abstraction problem

To illustrate this point, we might have a class in which students are asked how strong the cables need to be to support a local traffic light. We will then lead a discussion about what the question means and what more we need to know. Some questions students might have could include:

1. What do we mean by “how strong”?
2. How heavy is a typical traffic light?
3. How many traffic lights are on the cable?
4. How long is the cable?
5. How is the cable held in place?

After this point students will start to engage with a physical model on their desks. The model will be designed to capture the key features of the traffic light problem (a weight supported by a cable). The model will be designed so that students can experiment with different weights and different locations for the model light. We will use the model to help students understand that forces have both magnitude and direction and that both need to be accounted for when solving for the forces in the cable. Finally, we will have students develop a model (free body diagram) of the problem, solve it, and then compare their results with their measured values of the tension.

Future plans

The research team will be developing this course over the next 8 months and, in parallel, will develop and deploy surveys and interviews to assess if this new approach increases student’s self-efficacy and future-oriented motivation. We will continue to post updates on this project every few months.

[1] In defense of textbooks, I do not mean to suggest that textbooks do a bad job. Authors and publishers are constantly improving with more focus on problem solving skills, detailed worked examples, providing students with formative self-assessment opportunities, and an array of online tools that support learning. I just point out that, the very nature of textbooks, is that they are abstract.