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Disciplinary Diversity in the Development of Geotechnical Engineering Undergraduate

Education Materials

Arthur Ornelas, Jr.1, M.Ed., Sandra Houston2, Ph.D., P.E., G.DE., M.ASCE, Wilhelmina
Savenye3, Ph.D, Claudia E. Zapata4, Ph.D, M.ASCE, Eddy F. Ramirez5, MS, E.I.T., A.M.ASCE,
and Allen Corral6,, M.Ed.
1
Research Assistant, Div. of Educational Leadership and Innovation, Mary Lou Fulton Teachers College, Arizona
State University, P.O. Box 871811, ASU, Tempe, AZ. 85287-1811
2
Professor, School of Sustainable Engineering and the Built Environment, Ira A. Fulton Schools of Engineering,
Arizona State University, P O Box 873005, Tempe, AZ 85287-3005
3
Professor, Div. of Educational Leadership and Innovation, Mary Lou Fulton Teachers College, Arizona State
University, P.O. Box 871811, ASU, Tempe, AZ. 85287-1811
4
Associate Professor, School of Sustainable Engineering and the Built Environment, Ira A. Fulton Schools of
Engineering, Arizona State University, P O Box 873005, Tempe, AZ 85287-3005
5
Research Assistant, School of Sustainable Engineering and the Built Environment, Ira A. Fulton Schools of
Engineering, Arizona State University, P O Box 873005, Tempe, AZ 85287-3005
6
Research Assistant, Div. of Educational Leadership and Innovation, Mary Lou Fulton Teachers College, Arizona
State University, P.O. Box 871811, ASU, Tempe, AZ. 85287-1811

ABSTRACT: A team of geotechnical engineering faculty and students and educational

technology faculty and students worked together to develop, pilot test, and disseminate learning
materials in unsaturated soils for undergraduate geotechnical engineering courses. The eventual
goal of the team is the institutionalization of this learning material. The geotechnical engineers
served as the subject matter experts and were the primary resource for the content. The
educational technology team members’ primary responsibilities were the development of
materials and evaluation of the material’s effectiveness. Faculty resistance to change was
another issue addressed. The educational technology team members assisted with the flexibility
and seamlessness of the material into current undergraduate geotechnical engineering classes,
thus lessening the resistance. This paper will emphasize challenges encountered in working with
those outside of their own field of expertise, in this case, the interdisciplinary design team.
Qualitative data in the form of notes, design logs, and surveys and interviews will show the
challenge of learning new curriculum (educational technology) and/or methods (geotechnical
engineers). Learning new material without the background knowledge and dealing with
unfamiliar research methods and regulations are dominant themes. In the development of the
curriculum material, established guidelines were followed. When a diverse team from different
backgrounds is involved, it may benefit the team if some additional steps are taken at the initial
stages. One major recommendation is that the team establishes roles and expectations for each
member early on and leaning objectives for the learning materials.

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INTRODUCTION

An interdisciplinary team approach to making changes to required Undergraduate Civil

Engineering curriculum may serve as an effective tool. In a study at Arizona State University, a
team of geotechnical engineering faculty and educational technology faculty, together with
students from both disciplines, developed, pilot tested, assessed, and disseminated learning
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materials in unsaturated soils for undergraduate geotechnical engineering courses. The

geotechnical engineering faculty and students provided the content for the learning modules,
whereas the educational technology faculty and students focused on development of materials
and evaluation of the material’s effectiveness. Several lessons in working with a diverse
interdisciplinary team for curriculum development are addressed in this paper, and a summary of
the effectiveness of the curriculum change project is presented.

CHALLENGE TO CHANGE WITH NEW CURRICULUM

One major challenge the design team faced was the implementation of new curriculum to
long-standing learning material in geotechnical engineering through the contributions of
individuals such as Karl Terzaghi (1943). The goal of the team was not to discredit these long-
standing concepts but to add to them. Recent advances through research have been made in the
understanding of unsaturated soil fundamentals (Fredlund, 2006) and it is highly likely that
students graduating from undergraduate civil engineering programs across the country and
throughout the world will eventually run into issues of unsaturated soil mechanics. However,
these concepts are not covered in most undergraduate geotechnical engineering classes (Houston,
et al., 2010). With that in mind, the team still encountered issues in convincing faculty to add this
essential material into their own already full curriculums. Although 75% of geotechnical
engineering faculty surveyed indicated that unsaturated soil material should be introduced into
the undergraduate curriculum (Houston, Zapata & Savenye, 2010), the challenge still persists
(Getz, et al., 1997; Lane, 2007; Bariel, 2013). A preliminary review of the qualitative data
collected by the team indicates that this resistance stems primarily from a difficulty of fitting it
into their already full semesters.

WORKING OUTSIDE OF YOUR AREA OF EXPERTISE

As an interdisciplinary design team of geotechnical engineering and educational technology

(EdTech) experts, this team ran into challenges of working with materials, policies and
methodologies with which they were unfamiliar. As subject matter experts (SMEs), the civil
engineering members had an easier time of developing learning materials for the unit of
instruction. However, at the outset of the design process the EdTech members were charged with
developing the material. This proved to be difficult in that their expertise was not in geotechnical
engineering. The EdTech members could develop some material, but it fell well short of what
was needed for an undergraduate student to grasp the basic concepts of unsaturated soil
mechanics. Even after the engineers took over a good portion of the learning material

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development, there were still issues. The SMEs developed a summary of the material they
wanted to include in the learning materials, but when the EdTech members attempted to fit it into
a learning module, the learning materials somehow were still incomplete. As it turned out, the
SMEs found a greater portion of the learning material development would fall on them (Ornelas,
et al., 2013).
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Issues of research on human subjects were also a challenge faced by the team. The
Institutional Review Board (IRB) process was at times frustrating. The university’s review board
required more than what several members of the team had experienced in the past. As is often the
case when developing a successful IRB application, there were several requests by the board for
further explanation of different sections of the application and the tools to be used by the team.
The Collaborative Institutional Training Initiative (CITI) certification process was also a source
of frustration. CITI certification required a four to six hour series of online lectures and tests on
human-subjects research. The tests required an 80% pass rate, overall, to earn the certificate.
Team members became frustrated with this process. Although necessary and beneficial, the
training was extensive and at times the tests were difficult. This difficulty lead to frustration;
however, once the training was completed the team members felt it was useful. The new
knowledge gained by the team in human-subjects research aided with the Institutional Review
Board (IRB) application process at the university as we were more familiar with acceptable and
unacceptable practices with this type of research.

DEVELOPMENT OF NEW LEARNING MATERIAL IN UNSATURATED SOIL

MECHANICS

The team followed the guidelines set forth by Dick et al. (2009). Although the team did not
follow exactly their step-by-step procedure, the team did use it as a guide to completing the
learning material. The team began with the development of the “measure of student learning” or
the student quiz. They then proceeded to develop individual learning modules. The process was
initiated in January 2012. The first complete learning unit, which had two lectures (one pre-
laboratory lecture and two laboratory exercises), was finished in the summer of 2013. Figure 1
shows a slide from the stress state presentation developed by the team. The learning modules
were implemented in phases, to be discussed later on. Different iterations of the learning material
were developed in subsequent semesters as the team used feedback from the faculty and student
surveys, interviews and personal discussions to improve the material.

IMPLEMENTATION OF ONE MODULE OF LEARNING VERSUS MOST OR THE

ENTIRE UNIT

In the spring and summer of 2012, the team developed a measure of effectiveness, a nine-
question survey of student understanding in basic and essential unsaturated soil concepts. The
team then completed the development of one of the learning modules on the state of stress in
soils and tested it in the fall of 2012. By the fall of 2013, the team had completed and tested the
entire learning unit, including a lecture on the state of stress in soils, a lecture on the soil-water

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characteristic curve, a pre-laboratory lecture on axis translation and two laboratory exercises.
The students’ scores with only one module in the spring 2013 indicated no significant gains. The
pre-test score yielded values for the mean (M) = 4.69, standard deviation (SD) = 1.46; while the
post-test score values were M = 4.82, SD = 1.47, t-test t(94) = -0.78, p > .05. This indicated that,
although there was a slight gain in pre-test to post-test scores, the use of only one module was
not enough to garner significant gains. Of the nine questions, the students only had a significant
gain on question 2. A summary of individual scores with one module can be found in Table 1.
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However, when most of or the entire learning unit was implemented in the fall of 2013 we did
find a significant gain from pre-test (M = 4.65, SD = 1.31) to post-test (M = 6.03, SD = 1.76)
t(111) = -8.12, p < .01. This result would indicate that when the students were exposed to most
or the entire curriculum developed by the team, they were capable of significant growth on the
nine-question survey. Of the nine questions, the students had significant gains on six of them. A
summary of individual scores with most of or the entire unit of learning can be found in Table 2.

In student responses to survey questions, they indicated that they would prefer to have more
hands-on learning materials such as the laboratory experiment. Some students mentioned they
liked “getting their hands dirty”. They also indicated that they liked the material but would like
to see how it is relevant to the field of civil engineering.

Fig. 1 Sample Slide from Stress State Learning Module

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CONCLUSIONS

In conclusion, there are advantages and frustrations associated with working with an
interdisciplinary team for development of new engineering curriculum materials. However, an
interdisciplinary design team of geotechnical engineering and educational technology (EdTech)
experts can work effectively to develop undergraduate engineering learning modules. Although
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there are challenges for EdTech team members when working with materials, policies and
methodologies with which they were unfamiliar, their contributions are essential to development
of clear teaching materials. However, the civil engineering members of the team, as subject
matter experts, play an essential role in initial development and in fine-tuning of the final product
to ensure completeness and accuracy of materials from an engineering perspective.

It is worth noting that even though the unsaturated soils learning modules developed in this
project using an interdisciplinary approach proved to be successful, the students still required an
appropriate amount of instruction to show a significant gain in mean test scores. When students
were introduced to one of the learning modules they did not show significant growth in pre-test
to post-test mean score, but a significant gain was achieved when the students were exposed to
most or the entire learning unit on unsaturated soils.

Introducing new materials into a curriculum that is already in place can be a challenge. To
help ease the burden of this challenge, providing materials that can be easily incorporated to
existing curriculum and providing suggestions to the “best place” to put this new material is
suggested. Also, students had a propensity to be more responsive to the materials that were
hands-on and that they felt were more relevant to their field of study and subsequently, their
future careers. Faculty suggestions also reflected this desire to emphasize why this is relevant to
the students. Faculty understood its relevance; however, getting that point across to the students
proved to be a challenge and offering real-world examples as to how this is relevant would aide
to that end.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

The authors would like to acknowledge the support of the International Engineering
Foundation, the National Science Foundation grant #1044012 and all participants, both faculty
and students at the various universities, for their assistance and support. These are the opinions
and work of the researchers and not of the National Science Foundation.

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TABLE 1. Means, standard deviations and paired samples t-test results for Phase 2 of
implementation with one module of instruction (spring/summer 2013).

Test Question M SD M SD t df p
Pre- Pre- Post- Post-
test test test test
1. What is the expression for soil .69 .48 .77 .44 -.56 12 .58
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gravimetric water content, w? (with 4 as

the answer)
1. What is the expression for soil -- -- .51 .50 -- -- --
gravimetric water content, w? (with 5 as
the answer)
2. What is the expression for soil degree of .59 .49 .71 .46 -2.01 94 .05
saturation, S?
3. A soil is said to be unsaturated when: .62 .49 .65 .48 -.56 94 .58
4. For an initially unsaturated soil, as the .82 .39 .76 .43 1.28 94 .20
water content of the soil increases, the
soil shear strength:
5. The matric suction of soil is defined by: .41 .49 .53 .50 -1.78 94 .08
6. The behavior of unsaturated soils is .31 .46 .31 .46 .000 94 1.0
controlled by:
7. The 1-D consolidation test .21 .41 .26 .44 -9.28 94 .36
(ASTM D-2345) is:
8. When an unsaturated soil is wetted .83 .38 .88 .32 -1.15 94 .25
under load, its response depends on:
9. In the laboratory testing of unsaturated .12 .32 .18 .39 -1.23 94 .22
soils, the axis translation method:
Total 4.69 1.46 4.82 1.47 -.78 94 .44
Note: A typographical error was found by an engineering research assistant in the subscript for answer
number 1 on some of the post-tests, hence the reason for the two possible answers, either 4 or 5,
dependent upon which test the student received. The error was corrected for Phase 3.

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TABLE 2. Means, standard deviations and paired samples t-test results on individual test questions
for Phase 3 of implementation with complete unit distribution (fall 2013).

Test Question M SD M SD t df p
Pre- Post-
test test
1. What is the expression for soil .84 .37 .84 .37 .00 111 1.00
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gravimetric water content, w?

2. What is the expression for soil degree of .58 .50 .73 .44 -3.29 111 .001
saturation, S?
3. A soil is said to be unsaturated when: .61 .49 .75 .44 -2.87 111 .005
4. For an initially unsaturated soil, as the .66 .47 .66 .48 .20 111 .84
water content of the soil increases, the
soil shear strength:
5. The matric suction of soil is defined by: .41 .49 .82 .38 -7.73 111 .000
6. The behavior of unsaturated soils is .32 .47 .65 .48 -5.39 111 .000
controlled by:
7. The 1-D consolidation test .22 .42 .27 .44 -.93 111 .36
(ASTM D-2345) is:
8. When an unsaturated soil is wetted .86 .35 .94 .24 -2.22 111 .03
under load, its response depends on:
9. In the laboratory testing of unsaturated .14 .34 .37 .48 -4.10 110 .00
soils, the axis translation method:
Total 4.65 1.31 6.03 1.76 -8.82 111 < .01
Note: The p-values with significant gains are indicated in bold. In the semi-structured interview, one
faculty member mentioned they did not complete the laboratory exercises.

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REFERENCES

Bareil, C. (2013). Two paradigms about resistance to change. Organization Development

Journal, 31(3). 59-71.
Getz, M., Siegfried, J. and Anderson, K. (1997). Adoption of innovations in higher
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Dick, W., Carey, L. and Carey, J. O. (2011). The Systematic Design of Instruction (7th ed.).
Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson.
Fredlund, D. G. (2006). Unsaturated soil mechanics in engineering practice. Journal of
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Houston, S., Zapata, C.E. and Savenye, W.S. (2010) Advancement of unsaturated soils theory
into the undergraduate civil engineering curriculum, National Science Foundation Award
ID: 1044012, Arizona State University

Lane, I. F. (2007). Change in higher education: Understanding and responding to individual and
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(2013). An engineering and educational technology team approach to introducing new
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Terzaghi, K. (1943). Theoretical Soil Mechanics, John Wiley and Sons, New York

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