Formative Feedback Improvement in MCAD Education: Supporting Knowledge-Driven Dormant Deficiency Detection and Analysis

Currently, most software tools and educational interventions supporting the automated grading and assessment of CAD models, such as are currently provided to students in CAD courses, are limited by their metrics and by their assessment approach. In particular, the metrics they use are of a rather static and exclusive nature, relying heavily on the final outcome. That is to say that they rely upon the completed CAD model, which then has its data structure compared to that of a fixed reference solution. Such approaches are not structured suitably to assess CAD model quality in regard to robustness and alterability, due to their static and exclusive nature, which usually leads them to discount CAD model regeneration processes and their impact after alteration. To address those shortcomings while improving the learning experience, in particular supporting students in acquiring the knowledge and skills development needed to create robust alterable CAD models, among other issues, the dormant deficiency concept and metric and a software-based feedback agent have been developed. These were introduced recently during the restructuring of a mechanical engineering CAD (MCAD) course. To translate the insight from lessons learned into improvements of and support for this feedback intervention, a two-step project follow-up was initiated, with results from the first step being reported in this paper