A Statistical Study of Student Work Input into Projects in a Capstone Design Course

Abstract – This paper explores student work input into design projects in a capstone design class in chemical engineering. Student time sheets, modeled on industrial engineering accounting practices, were utilized as a data source to investigate several related relationships. They covered three terms stretching from Fall 05 through Winter 06. The data covers 115 students working in 29 design teams on 9 different projects. Patterns of student work input were studied in relationship to distribution of work within teams, variance in work input among different projects, pace of work over the course of a term and relationship between work input and project grades. The paper indicates how this data can be useful in monitoring consistency of course content and in giving insight into the concept that different work patterns can produce the same results. Future work is proposed on using similar data to study specific tasks within student projects in order to increase student learning efficiency