Task-Analysis-Guided Deliberate Practice for Learning Free-Body Diagrams

Abstract

Free-body diagrams (FBDs) are diagrammatic representations of external forces and moments exerted on an object of interest for solving kinetics problems. Several studies have reported different ways of teaching FBDs in terms of pictorial representation of forces (e.g., placement of vectors or labeling). However, little research exists on practice strategies for helping students learn how to draw FBDs. Using task analysis and a subgoal learning model, we develop task-analysis-guided deliberate practice to enhance learning. Task analysis is often used in instructional design to identify knowledge requirements for a skill. Skill acquisition is usually divided into three phases: forming a declarative representation of the skill, knowledge compilation, and forming a procedural representation. Task analysis in our study identified relevant declarative and procedural knowledge needed for drawing FBDs. The knowledge identified is the "raw material" around which a deliberate practice scheme is then developed. Deliberate practice can help novices develop good representations of the knowledge needed to produce superior problem solving performance. This has been viewed as a gold standard for practice. Although deliberate practice is mainly studied among elite performers, recent literature has revealed promising results for novices. We apply cognitive load theory to develop deliberate practice to help students build declarative and procedural knowledge without exceeding their working memory limitations. In this study, a knowledge extraction expert took an iterative approach to conduct task analyses with a subject matter expert (or experts) to distill knowledge to a level that is appropriate for students in the dynamics course. We then integrated the task analysis results with instructional design strategies derived from cognitive load theory and the subgoal learning model to develop deliberate practice and assessment materials. Examples and assessment results will be provided to evaluate the effectiveness of the instructional design strategies as well as the challenges.