Soto-Maldonado, Zachary M.

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Complexity measures: The case of engineering undergraduate education
(2017) Soto-Maldonado, Zachary M.; Medina-Aviles, Lourdes A.; College of Engineering; Dávila Padilla, Saylisse; Rodríguez Álamo, Betzabé; Department of Industrial Engineering; Alvarez, Jaquelina E
This work investigated the relevance and impact of complexity in Project-based learning (PBL) for engineering undergraduate education. Interviews were conducted with engineering professors to evaluate weather complexity is and should be considered for two scenarios: when students are assigned the same project and when students work on different projects. The first scenario is examined in more depth with a case study on a particular course – Process Automation, were complexity metrics were identified, adapted and implemented. These metrics measure components interaction, process and station functionality, the number of linearly independent paths in the program and volume. To evaluate the relationship among complexity metrics and designer’s characteristics and performance, a student survey was developed and implemented. Additionally, complexity prediction models are presented using randomForest, a statistical method for classification and regression problems. The intention of this work is to promote the assessment of complexity to identify and analyze PBL.