Exploring Student Difficulties in Divide and Conquer Skill with a Mapping Tool

Abstract

Divide and conquer is an essential thinking skill for engineering undergraduates to have in order to solve engineering estimation problems. However, there exist no teaching-learning tools and strategies for divide and conquer skill for engineering estimation. In this paper, we report on the design of a mapping tool to improve students’ divide and conquer skill while solving engineering estimation problems. We evaluated the tool to identify student difficulties in doing divide and conquer while using the tool. We identified several categories of difficulties which will be used to design appropriate scaffolds to support improvement of students’ divide and conquer skill for engineering estimation