Engaging Freshman Engineers Using the Paul-Elder Model of Critical Thinking

6. Conclusions and Future Directions
To summarize, based on the analysis of student responses to these exercises and the survey information, 
the authors found three primary conclusions: 1) it is imperative that students get informative feedback as 
quickly as possible, 2) the “Analyze the Discipline” exercises were useful for reinforcing critical 
thinking and the P-E framework, and 3) the “Analyze the Discipline” exercises were effective for 
improving engagement of students during department presentations. Additionally, from review of our 
analysis of these exercises, there is also evidence that students gained an understanding and appreciation 
of all seven engineering disciplines offered at this university, as opposed to listening closely only to 
their department of interest. Of those selected students and also those from the larger sample, most 
could identify the purpose, concepts, and question at issue elements for all seven disciplines which 
demonstrates basic understanding of the disciplines. In future semesters, faculty will consider checking 
for a correlation between the student responses to the “Analyze the Discipline” exercises and the choice 
of major.
Since these exercises were useful in achieving the desired outcomes of reinforcing critical thinking and 
P-E framework and better engaging students in department presentations, similar activities will be 
continued in the future. However, the issue of better and more rapid feedback must be addressed as 
must the fact that most students struggled with the elements assumptions and point of view. This will 
inform how the instruction of the P-E framework is taught in the future. In lecture presentations and 
group activities, more concrete examples of identifying elements and “going around the wheel” to 

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analyze an article and a discipline (not necessarily engineering) will be done. The feedback issue is not 
new; all faculty know rapid, informative feedback is critical for student learning. However, in large 
classes, scoring written work in a timely manner is a challenge. These authors are challenged to find the 
best way to use these or similar exercises, but to give more rapid feedback. Part of our future work in 
this area includes determining the best approach for improvement of feedback, critical thinking 
instruction and student engagement. Some possibilities include focusing exercises on a smaller number 
of elements for each assignment, varying the element asked each time; developing some of these as team 
exercises; and working with the departments to make sure their presentations provide at least some 
information that gives students an understanding of most of the elements. By providing the students with 
quicker, more meaningful feedback, the authors feel that future “Analyze the Discipline” assignments 
can serve the dual purpose of further encouraging development of students’ critical thinking skills while 
enhancing the knowledge gained about various engineering disciplines.