The Impact of Undergraduate Experience on Mental Model Component and Function Identification

Abstract The examination of a student’s comprehension of concepts and ability to apply these concepts to the real-world is challenging. Mental model elicitation has been used as a methodology for decades by educators and researchers to examine conceptual knowledge of various systems. This study examines the impact that student expertise has on mental model completeness through a study involving everyday products. Mental models were gathered using a direct elicitation method from 1st- and 4th-year students in undergraduate engineering courses. Students were instructed to identify components and their functions within the product. Results showed that the student’s overall mental model completeness and identification of system functionality did not significantly change as they progressed through their degree program. However, there was a direct positive correlation between the year of study and the students’ ability to identify components across all products. The findings emphasize the importance of developing mental models as students gain engineering content knowledge and conceptual understanding over the course of a degree program. Equally important is the ability to recognize the similarities between engineered systems and transfer knowledge between those products. The results of this research continue to build on prior examinations using mental models, which provides a broadened view of the capabilities of students regarding component and system functionality of common products. Other peculiarities are discussed as potential avenues for future work through other mental model elicitation methods such as semi-structured interviews. Overall, this study contributes to our understanding of how expertise relates to system thinking.