AC 2012-2962: CHALLENGES AND EXPERIENCES IN TEACHING ACONCRETE PROBLEMS DIAGNOSIS AND REPAIR COURSE

Dr. Jiong Hu, Texas State University-San Marcos

Dr. Jiong Hu an Assistant Professor in the Concrete Industry Management (CIM) program at Texas StateUniversity San Marcos, United States. Dr. Hu received his BS and MS in 1996 and 1999 from South-east University, China, respectively, and his PhD from Iowa State University in 2005. He is teachingconstruction and concrete related courses including Construction Materials and Processes, Concrete Con-struction Methods, Management of Concrete Products and Concrete Problems: Diagnosis, Prevention,and Dispute Resolution. His research interests include concrete materials and construction, engineeringand technology education and problem-based learning.

Dr. Vedaraman Sriraman, Texas State University, San Marcos

Vedaraman Sriraman is Foundry Educational Foundation Key Professor and Interim Director of the Con-crete Industry Management program at Texas State University. His research interests are in engineeringeducation, sustainability and applied statistics. In the past, he has received several grants from the NSFand SME-EF. He has also received teaching awards at Texas State.

Ms. Yaoling Wang, Texas State University, San Marcos

Yaoling Wang is currently a User Services Consultant at Texas State University, San Marcos. Wang re-ceived her B.S. from Nanjing Normal University, China, in 1998, and M.S. from Iowa State University in2006. Her interests are instructional technology assisted learning, problem-based learning, and instruc-tional design and development. Wang has been working with university faculty on a variety of projects:ePortfolio, Classroom Response System, a learning management system, and a content management sys-tem.

c©American Society for Engineering Education, 2012

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Challenges and Experiences in Teaching a Concrete Problems Diagnosis and Repair Course

Abstract

In 2009, a new industry oriented technology degree called Concrete Industry Management was established at Texas State University-San Marcos. This program is one of the only five such across the nation. A unique aspect of this program is the inclusion of a senior level course that focuses on problem solving in the area of concrete products. Students are exposed to methods for recognizing and diagnosing concrete problems and measures that may be employed to resolve these problems. The course is integrative in nature and requires background material from several sophomore and junior level concrete material-related courses. The course embodies an unique pedagogical challenge as students are not only required to imbibe specific technical content, but also develop the ability to solve technical workplace problems. The course is also challenging from the instructor’s standpoint for the technical content covered may come across to the students as being dry, besides multiple topics need to be covered therefore the time presents a significant constraint as well. However, the knowledge and skills acquired in this course will be very valuable to the graduates as they embark on professional careers in the concrete industry. The paper details the design of the course, issues involved in teaching, and the strategies that were employed to resolve the issues.

Introduction

A major segment in construction industry, the growing demands of the progressively changing concrete industry of the 21st century prompted the development of a new construction oriented Bachelor of Science (BS) degree program called Concrete Industry Management (CIM). The CIM degree is patented by the National Steering Committee (NSC) of CIM. Partnerships that the NSC initiates with target universities leads to the establishment of a CIM program in particular universities. At Texas State University-San Marcos, the CIM program was established in 2009. The objective of the CIM program is to produce graduates grounded in the basics of concrete’s production techniques and its use in a multitude of construction applications.1 The heart of the CIM curriculum is a nine-course CIM core, which covers both the technical and managerial knowledge related to the concrete industry. In this set of courses, students are provided with ample “hands-on” opportunities in order to become fully familiarized with real-world concrete problems. Within the core curriculum, courses such as Construction Materials, Fundamentals of Concrete and Concrete Construction Methods rely on lectures and structured laboratory exercises to deliver well-defined technical contents, on the other hand, courses such as Senior Concrete Lab and Capstone, which focus on problem solving rely on the project based approach. The Concrete Problems: Diagnosis, Prevention and Dispute Resolution course faces a unique pedagogical challenge as students are not only required to obtain specific technical contents, but also develop the ability to solve technical workplace problems.

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The intention of this course is to outline the basic mechanisms of concrete deterioration, approaches for diagnosing and evaluating the types and extent of damage, the processes of selecting materials and methods to return concrete to a desirable condition, and the methods and application of repair. The course deals with common engineering problems in fresh and hardened concrete, which could be the result of faults of design, uses of unsuitable materials, improper workmanship, exposures to an abnormally aggressive environment, excessive structural loading, accident, or a combination of two or more of such errors or failures. The course is challenging from the instructor’s standpoint for several specific reasons. Firstly, the course is integrative in nature and requires background information from several sophomore and junior level concrete-related courses, which in turn requires carefully organized lectures to present course materials that deal with various aspects of concrete in a smooth and concatenated manner. Secondly, a majority of materials presented in this course are purely technical in content, which are dry and often causes students to lose focus and become passive during the lectures. Thirdly, the variety of topics that need to be covered in the class presents a significant constraint on time and the instructor often feels there is not enough time to cover each specific topic in depth. In addition, as the course is relatively new and only a very limited schools offer this course, there is a lack of ideal textbooks to cover the entire course content, which not only creates difficulties for the instructor to design lecture materials, but also makes it very challenging for students to keep up with the pace of the lecture content through activities outside of the classroom, instead of relying solely on the very limited in-class time. Finally, because of the depth of technical contents that are to be covered, similar contents are more commonly found in graduate level curriculums, there is also the issue of how to effectively adapt the course content for an undergraduate audience.2 Due to the above mentioned challenges, the instructor has to apply different strategies to not only attract students’ attention, but also promote critical thinking, content knowledge and problem-solving skills. Essentially, this calls for the application of active learning strategies.

The importance of problem solving skills for future engineers and technologists can hardly be overstated. Solving open-ended problems is arguably the corner stone of the engineering endeavor. Employers look for engineers who are effective at solving open problems.3 However, the topic of teaching problem solving is difficult to define because of its multifaceted characteristics. Therefore, it is important that all aspects of this topic should be understood and considered before a plan for implementation is designed. The first element that needs to be taken into consideration is the types of problems. When we speak of problem solving we mean those that graduates will be facing in real workplaces.4 Problems typically encountered in the classroom possess knowable, correct solutions that are achieved by applying preferred solution methods and they apply a limited number of regular rules and principles that are organized in a predictive and prescriptive arrangement.5 But problems in real workplaces are different. It requires students to develop adequate conceptual frameworks in solving complex ill-structured problems.4 Educators historically have assumed that learning to solve well-structured problems positively transfers to solving ill-structured problems.4 However, recent research has shown that learning to solve well-structured problems does not readily transfer students to solve ill-

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structured problems.6 However, the incorporation of ill-structured problems in education introduces significant challenges. These are on account of the nature of ill-structured problems which characteristically possess conflicting goals, multiple solution methods, non-engineering success standards, non-engineering constraints, unanticipated problems, distributed knowledge, collaborative activity systems, the importance of experience, and multiple forms of problem representation. 4 The second element would be the teaching method. Prior research maintains that an explicit discussion of problem-solving methods and problem-solving hints should be included in every engineering class.7 A 25-year project at McMaster University found that students needed both comprehension of engineering and general problem solving skills to solve problems successfully.8 This project recognized problem based learning (PBL) as one solution for addressing the aforementioned issues associated with teaching problem solving. PBL is an active learning approach in which problem solving provides a context for students to apply prior knowledge and acquire new knowledge. PBL is widely recognized in promoting students’ creative thinking, improving analysis and problem solving ability and promoting lifelong learning.9 The foregoing research findings influenced the design of an undergraduate senior course at Texas State University-San Marcos in the area of concrete problems diagnosis and repair.

The objectives of the course to be discussed in the paper are to equip students with technical knowledge regarding causes of concrete problems, methods of analyzing concrete problems and prevention and resolution methods, together with experiences in solving workplace problems through problem-based learning. In this paper, the strategies used in teaching this unique course and experiences gained therein are described.

Details of course implementation

Due to the unique nature of this course, several different pedagogical approaches were adopted. In order to provide students with sufficient technical knowledge, most of the theoretical content was delivered through lecture based approach. In addition, laboratory activities and special activities including field concrete distresses hunting and poster competitions were used to reinforce content knowledge and develop critical thinking and problem-solving skills. The following sections provide the details of these approaches.

In order to better organize the multitude of topics covered in this course, the class was thematically broken into three major segments. These include concrete problem and deterioration mechanisms; diagnosis and evaluation of concrete problems; and concrete protection and prevention. In the first of these, typical concrete problems, including fresh concrete problems, durability issues, moisture and thermal effects, corrosion, etc. were discussed. It should be noted that many of the topics in this section have been briefly covered in several previous sophomore and junior level courses, however, greater details were provided in this course for students to better understand various kinds of concrete issues and mechanisms behind these issues. In

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diagnosis and evaluation, the focus was on how to identify different kind of concrete problems, diagnose the causes of issues, and evaluate levels of deterioration. Methods including visual inspection, destructive tests and nondestructive evaluation, microstructure, chemical, and petrographic analysis were presented to students to make them aware of various diagnostic tools that may be employed in the application. The final part of the course covered the practices and procedures used in concrete protection and prevention. Different approaches in repairing and methods for strengthening and stabilization of damaged concrete structures were discussed. This special arrangement of course content helps students to distinguish the roles of the different components covered in the course and relate to the same.

In addition to lectures presented by the instructor, the course included three guest lectures that were delivered by concrete industry experts. These lectures covered topics such as the fundamental science behind deterioration, special concrete problems and government agencies’ considerations and policies in regard to concrete deterioration. The approach not only provides students with knowledge of concrete problems from different viewpoints, but also broadens the student’s horizon in regard to the world of concrete problems. Laboratory activities were developed to provide students hands-on opportunities in specific topics, particularly those related to diagnosis and evaluation of concrete problems. Students were expected to apply designated nondestructive test equipment in evaluating concrete integrity through the examination of prepared specimens with imbedded problems. Laboratory exercises adopted in the course covered the evaluation of corrosion, appropriate reinforcement, internal and surface cracks, delamination, and carbonation.

Due to the complex nature of concrete technology, i.e. different concrete mixtures, different environmental conditions concrete structures might be experiencing etc., concrete problems and distresses are generally unique. In many real world situations, information on the concrete mixtures, environment and loading conditions were either incomplete, or unavailable. Unlike the traditional method of problem solving where students receive prior content knowledge that they subsequently apply to well-defined problems, problems presented in this course are not usually such that the student can readily answer with prior input of knowledge. They are required to explore and seek answers outside of textbooks making this course very suited to the adoption of problem based learning (PBL).Two special activities, both related to PBL were incorporated into the course.

Following the section on the mechanism of concrete problems and deteriorations, an activity called “Field Hunting of Concrete Distresses” was hosted in the class. “Concrete distress” refers to one or more instances of physical compromise of a concrete structure. Figure 1 showed examples of concrete problems students identified during this activity. The three photos in Figure 1 from left to right are associated with slab failure, severe cracking of a concrete artwork and unsuccessful repairing job respectively. Students were broken into groups and required to perform a “field hunt” the object of which was to identify instances of concrete problems within

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and outside of the campus. All results, including digital pictures and extent of concrete distresses through onsite measurements, for example, patterns, lengths, width of cracks were to be documented. In addition to locating and identifying various concrete distresses, students were also required to provide an estimation of the severity of deterioration and indicate potential causes of the deteriorations. Thus, the “problem” to be solved was open-ended and not academic. The process of brainstorming the causes for failure and the determination of appropriate relief measures exercises problem solving and critical thinking skills because unlike academic problems no one “correct” solution may be found by reading a textbook on the topic.

 

Figure 1 Examples of photos students took during field hunting

Based upon results obtained from the field hunting activity, students were required to present their work in front of judges (served by the instructor and faculty members), and their peers. During the presentation, students not only presented their findings of different kinds of concrete distresses, but also provided their analysis of potential causes of these distresses. The evaluation form for the presentation is shown in Table 1. The evaluation was based on the quality of technical content, presentation skills, and the degree to which questions were fielded.

Table 1 Evaluation form of field hunting of concrete distress

Item Score Technical Identification of types of concrete distresses

Estimation of severity of concrete distresses Analysis of possible causes of concrete distresses

Presentation Organization, comprehension, & professionalism Visual poise, vocal effect, speed of delivery, and enthusiasm Questions and answers

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As there are a significant number of special concrete problems to be covered in the course, it is practically not possible to have all of these covered in depth due to restrictions in the availability of time. In order to provide students with the opportunity for a comprehensive study of particular concrete distress, from mechanism, identification, to potential methods for repairing, another PBL activity of “Concrete Distresses Poster Competition” was included toward the end of the semester. Students in the class were asked to choose specific concrete problems and perform a comprehensive study based on fundamental knowledge obtained through the class, together with literature review, and case studies. Students are required to prepare a poster based on the topic they selected and provide information including mechanism of concrete distresses, measures to identify and evaluate the distresses, possible causes of the distress, measurements to minimize/mitigate and measures to repair the distress. Specifically, students were required to include a case study in each of their posters. Students were required to present their poster in front of the judge panel composed of industrial experts and faculty members from related programs within the department. All posters were setup in a classroom with enough space for judges to walk past individual posters and ask questions related to those posters. The setup allowed students to have one-on-one opportunity to present their poster to individual judges. Two examples of student posters from the concrete problem poster competition may be found in Figure 2.

The evaluation of poster completion was based on the quality of the technical content and the poster presentation. The evaluation form for the presentation is shown in

Table 2. At the end of the competition, scores from each individual judge were compiled and used to determine the winners (the first three places) of the competition.

                     

Figure 2 Examples of posters presented in the poster competition

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Table 2 Evaluation form of poster competition

Item Score Technical Description of mechanism of concrete distress

Description of the distress identification methodology Description of possible causes of concrete distresses Description of measurements to minimize/mitigate the distress Description of potential measures to repair the distress (if applies) Case study - General introduction of the case Case study – Technical content

Presentation Organization Visual quality Technical depth

Due to the variety of concrete mixtures, differences in environmental and physical exposure, concrete distresses are unique and complicated. Thus, there is no ideal procedure to identify or evaluate concrete distresses. In contrast to some sophomore and junior level courses which focus on fundamentals of materials, this class uses the PBL approach in addition to lectures, and thereby enables students to confront open-ended workplace problems. To promote critical thinking through the course of the whole class, the instructor emphasized the point that in addition to being aware of the options in the “Tool Box”, it is equally (if not more) important to be cognizant of what “Tool(s)” to use. As there are various equipment or approaches that can be used to evaluate concrete distresses or to repair or strengthen existing concrete structures, in order to promote critical thinking, for each of the specific concrete distress evaluation case, students were encouraged to ask themselves questions such as: “Is this approach practical? It is a cost-effective approach?”

Results

The two special activities, i.e., field concrete distresses hunting and concrete problem poster competition were considered to be very effective based on students’ and judges’ feedback after the events. The field hunting activity provided students with opportunities in seeking real life problems, which successfully raised their awareness of concrete problems in real structures. The activity is a unique example of ill-structured problems that most students’ first encounter. During their presentation, students were also challenged in the sense of identifying potential causes of these problems based on very limited background information, i.e., they are forced to provide their “Best technical hunches” in regard to what causes those concrete problems according to their observations of the structures, together with the technical knowledge obtained through lectures. The activity served as an excellent channel to reinforce contents covered within the lectures, particularly diagnosis and evaluation of concrete problems. During the field hunting, students encountered a variety of concrete problems, including delamination, cracking, plastic shrinkage, honeycomb, efflorescence, spalling, corrosion and poor repairing. In addition, the

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presentations led to good discussions and significant amount of excitement, which not only served to cover a gamut of technical topics, but also promoted students’ enthusiasm in the remaining topics of the course following this activity.

The poster competition, on the other hand, served as a tool for students to explore specific topics and provide detailed information and analysis through comprehensive literature review and communication outside of the classroom. Topics students chose covered a wide range of areas, from fresh concrete to hardened concrete, and from chemical to physical deterioration. For most of the concrete problems the students identified, there was a significant amount of literature available through internet, books, technical reports and research papers. However, contents available from these sources do not necessarily match the need for the poster the students needed to prepare. This process provided students a good exercise in seeking and screening information from a wide range of resources. Students also put extra effort in seeking input from “domain experts” i.e., contractors, researchers, and other individuals with vast experience in their topic, so as to provide additional information, particularly in regard to case studies. While the activity is to provide each student with an opportunity for an in-depth understanding of one particular concrete problem, the similarity between many concrete problems makes it possible to adopt similar approaches to other types of concrete problems and deterioration mechanisms. The exercise helped students to better prepare for various concrete problems that they might encounter in their future career, which is not easily achievable through in-class lecturers. The poster competition provided an opportunity for students to effectively present their knowledge in front of audiences and thereby hone their technical communication skills. Additionally, the activity also promoted the direct interaction of students with industry practioners. The feedback from the real work environment prospective will enable the instructor in streamlining the course and in promoting further curriculum improvement.

In order to evaluate the effectiveness of PBL, in addition to regular types of questions, such as multiple choices, fill-in-the-blank and short answers, , two specific PBL related questions were included in the second and the final exam. The two questions were constructed in the manner of a case study. This basically included an explanation of the structure (location, age, environmental condition etc.), followed by a description of the visual observation of concrete distresses. The students were then required to propose in-situ test methods and procedures to evaluate structural integrity and explain the reason for their selections. As multiple methods can be used for similar purposes and as dynamic adjustments of test methods and procedures are often called for during the course of testing, answers to these two questions were generally open-ended. Evaluations of these two questions were therefore focused more on the students’ approaches, instead of on specific methods. In some cases, a two-stage examination with a preliminary study is necessary. It was found that while the first time this question appeared (in the second exam), students only scored 57.1%, which was much lower than class average of the exam at 73.1%; the score out of the second time the similar question appeared (in the final exam) improved significantly to 75.5%, which is very close to class average of the exam at 79.3%. The result was not unexpected

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as after reviewing the results of the second exam, students were more aware of the type of question and better understood what options they had. However, the results did indicate improvement in regard to how students solve similar types of problems. One observation worth mentioning is that in both questions, many students tend to propose more tests than needed; tests which were either not necessary nor practical in the real world. After a review of these questions, students had a better understanding of the effectiveness of different tests and advantages and disadvantages of the different approaches. It should be noted that even though the analysis was mainly based upon limited number of questions, the two abovementioned questions were constructed in a very comprehensive manner. As a consequence, valuable insights were gained from the responses to these questions.

“Student Learning Outcomes” of the course were evaluated using direct measurements from selected questions in homework, exams, and projects, and indirect measurements from student self-evaluation at the end of the course. The scoring of direct measurements were based upon the percentage of correct answers in selected (generally four to five) questions. For example, a score of 50% indicates that half of the students answered the selected question(s) correctly. The scoring of indirect measurements, on the other hand, were based on the student’s selection from their self-evaluation instrument on specific course outcomes on a scale of 1 to 8. A low score of 1 indicates very strongly disagree and a high score of 8 indicates very strongly agree. While the highest possible score of 100% indicates all students chose “very strongly agree” on that specific outcome, the lowest possible score of 12.5% indicates all students chose “very strongly disagree”. Results of the outcomes assessment are summarized in Table 3. As shown in the table, in general, indirect measurement (from students’ self-evaluation) showed slightly higher satisfaction compared to direct measurement (from student’s work). Within the five outcomes, the satisfaction of first outcome (Demonstrate a strong understanding of the root causes of concrete problems) from direct measurement was relatively low compared to indirect measurement, which is likely due to the technical complexity of the concrete deterioration mechanisms. Even though students feel that they understand these mechanisms well (from indirect assessment), results still show lack of fundamental knowledge regarding mechanisms of different concrete problems. Thus, the result suggests further improvement is called for in related content. Most other outcomes were found to be achieved in a reasonable manner from both direct and indirect measures.

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Table 3 Summary of course outcome assessment

Outcomes Direct Indirect Demonstrate a strong understanding of the root causes of concrete problems. 67.9% 83.0% Develop basic technical knowledge related to common methods for analyzing concrete problems. 71.6% 78.4%

Demonstrate a basic understanding of concrete related problem prevention and resolution methods. 77.4% 83.0%

Develop basic technical knowledge related to concrete repairing and protection. 75.4% 77.3%

Develop an understanding of role of concrete maintenance, concrete problem prevention and repairing in sustainable practices in the concrete construction industry

78.0% 84.1%

In addition to outcome assessment, a class evaluation was performed at the end of the semester. Within the class evaluation, there were 20 questions regarding learning, enthusiasm, organization, individual rapport, examinations, and assignments. Five choices were provided, from strongly agree to strongly disagree, with a highest score of 5 (out of 5) indicating strongly agree while a lowest score of 1 (out of 5) indicating strongly disagree. Another 11 questions were to evaluate student and course characteristics. The four questions related to learning: 1. I found the course challenging and stimulating; 2. I have learned something which I consider valuable; 3. My interest in the subject has increased as a consequence of this course, and 4. I have learned and understood the subject materials in this course received high scores of 4.75, 5.00, 4.88 and 4.75 respectively, which indicated that even though students feel the course to be very challenging (question 1), they considered the whole course to be very valuable and beneficial (question 2, 3, and 4). The two questions related to assignments: 19. Required readings were useful to me. and 20. Required texts were useful to me, received low scores of 3.75 and 4.00 respectively. The result indicated improvement was needed in providing students with better outside of class reading materials and references. Another observation worth mentioning is that the level of interest in the subject had a positive gain from “prior to this course” to “at this time (toward the end of this course)”, which is another sign that the students regarded the course on the whole very positively.

Conclusions and Recommendations

Reports of prior work on the topic of teaching problem solving in the area of concrete problems diagnosis and repair is very limited. This paper has outlined an approach to teaching problem solving in the area of concrete problems diagnosis and repair. Students’ feedback and outcome assessment indicated that students consider this course as being very valuable. Through a careful design of the course, the instructor broke the class content into three major segments: concrete

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problems and deterioration mechanisms, diagnosis and evaluation, and concrete repair, strengthening and stabilization. The layout following these three segments help students better understand the fundamentals of various concrete problems and the measures to deal with the same. Besides lectures and laboratory exercises, two special activities (Field Concrete Distress Hunting and Concrete Problems Poster Competition) associated with the PBL approach was considered as very beneficial, as they not only activated students, but also promoted their critical thinking and ability to solve workplace problems. Industry involvement including guest lectures and judging the posters provides students with direct contact with industry and different perspectives on related concepts, which reinforced the course contents. The knowledge and skills that were acquired through this course would be valuable to the graduates to better prepare themselves for solving real workplace problems.

While the feedback acquired from the class were mostly very positive, the following needs for further improvement surfaced according to instructor’s own observation and responses from the students. One of the major concerns from students was the lack of reading material and texts. As it was mentioned earlier, there is no ideal textbook designated for the class, even though many of the concrete problems and evaluation methods were extensively addressed in research papers and technical reports, most of these materials were too specific for general use as reading materials in an undergraduate class. This issue needs to be remedied. Another area for improvement is the fact that more frequent homework assignment and quizzes were deemed necessary to reinforce the in class contents. This could be accomplished by identifying more reading materials and reading assignments that are associated with specific topics covered in the class. The activity of field concrete distress hunting can be extended with the additional requirement of estimating the level of distress through actual performance of in situ tests. However, this could be challenging in regard to equipment operation and time and equipment management. In addition, although the intention of the two PBL activities was for students to engage in independent exploration, it would be beneficial to require students to provide more frequent updates throughout the process, which in turn would allow the instructor to provide better guidance on a continual and as needed basis. Finally, even though students have the opportunity to go out and seek real concrete problems, a numbers of field trips with typical concrete problems, together with additional guest lectures on real case studies in concrete problems and concrete repairs would also be beneficial.

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References

1. Sriraman, V., and Hu J. (2012) Preparing the next generation concrete construction professionals – the Concrete Industry Management degree, World Transactions on Engineering and Technology Education, 10:1.

2. Maldonado, N.G., et al. (2009) “On Pathology and rehabilitation teaching of Concrete Structures: A Case Study,” Concrete Repair, Rehabilitation and Retrofitting II, 837:841, Taylor and Francis Group, London.

3. Sobek, D.L., and Jain, V.K. (2004) “The Engineering Problem Solving Process: Good for Students?,” Proceedings of the 2004 American Society for Engineering Education Annual Conference and Exposition.

4. Jonassen, D., Strobel, J., and Lee, C.B. (2006) “Everyday Problem Solving in Engineering: Lessons for Engineering Educators,” Journal of Engineering Education, 95, 2.

5. Jonassen, D. (1997) “Instructional Design Model for Well-Structured and Ill-Structured Problem-Solving Learning Outcomes,” Educational Technology: Research and Development, 45, 1.

6. Hong, N.S., Jonassen, D., and McGee, S. (2003) “Predictors of Well-Structured and Ill-Structured Problem Solving in an Astronomy Simulation,” Journal of Research in Science Teaching, 40, 1.

7. Wankat, P.C., and Oreovicz, F.S. (1992) Teaching Engineering, Chapter 5, McGraw Hill College.

8. Woods, D.R., et al. (1997) “Developing Problem Solving Skills: The McMaster Problem Solving Program,” Journal of Engineering Education,

9. Zeng, L., and Xu, C. (2010) “Problem-Based Learning in Civil Engineering Education,” Proceedings of the 2010 2nd International Conference on Educational Technology and Computer (ICETC).

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