Sentiment Analysis of Semester Learning Essays in Design Education

AME4163: Principles of Engineering Design is a design, build and test course offered at the University of Oklahoma, Norman, USA. Throughout the semester students are expected to reflect on authentic and immersive experiences and write Take-aways and Learning Statements. At the end of the semester each student submits a summative Semester Learning Essay. Between 2019–2021 we collected about 10,000 Take-aways and Learning Statements from the Semester Learning Essays of nearly 400 students. In this paper, we attempt to help instructors gain insight of what students have learned through these materials and thence improve the delivery of the course in the future. We analyze their Take-aways from summative Semester Learning Essays by using dictionary-based sentiment analysis to assess students' subjective feelings toward what they have learned. The results prove that we gain insight into their learning thereby providing instructors with evidence-based guidance on modifying the course from different perspectives. The method proposed is generalizable to courses that involve authentic immersive experiences.

I. Introduction

Nowadays in an ever-changing industrial environment, professional engineers are expected to recognize and adapt to the changes. Under these circumstances, it is important to explore and develop learner-centric paradigms for educating strategic engineers [1]. This situation necessitates continuous improvement of the curriculum, especially for senior undergraduate students who need to cultivate relevant competencies before their graduation. AME4163: Principles of Engineering Design, is a course anchored in Kolb's experiential learning [2] and offered at the University of Oklahoma to prepare senior undergraduate students for their future careers in engineering. The instructors launch AME4163 for offering senior undergraduates the opportunity to learn by reflecting on doing in an authentic immersive environment (AlE). We hypothesize that by having soon-to-be junior engineers reflect on an experience related to the principles of engineering design (POEDs) and articulate a lesson learned, they will cultivate the ability to continue identifying new principles and afterwards continue to grow professionally [3].