(233a) Guiding and Motivating Students' Practice of Fluid Dynamics Concepts Using a Token Economy System.

As a discipline, chemical engineering often presents students with concepts that are novel or highly specialized applications of foundational chemistry and mathematics. To support students as they build their conceptual understanding, class instruction is paired with opportunities, such as homework assignments, for students to practice course material. However, the fast pace of core curriculum classes that is seemingly necessary to cover all required concepts can limit the amount of “low stake” homeworks that cover a specific topic. Without sufficient practice and subsequent instructor feedback, students will likely find recalling information and effectively applying concepts difficult to achieve during “high stake” quizzes or exams. Although the instructor can still direct students to resources that offer more topic examples, there is rarely a formal class system in place that helps students receive timely feedback on such additional practice or helps motivate students to utilize such resources.

Here we explore how a token economy can guide and motivate students to revisit concepts throughout an undergraduate fluid dynamics course. Under this system, students are able to acquire tokens as they fulfill previously expected class participation and pre-lecture preparation. Once tokens are acquired, students are able to exchange tokens for resubmissions of prior homework or quizzes with commentary about how the student has resolved their errors. If the resubmission is accepted, the student recovers a portion of their missed points for that assignment’s final grade. The effects of the token economy on the course experience will be assessed through student survey responses with the focus around how the token economy influences 1) perceived class workload, 2) student motivation for revisiting assignments, and 3) perceived utility of homework for exam preparation. We hope that the implications of this study will highlight the token economy as an instructional tool that can easily be integrated into a core chemical engineering course and promote students’ conceptual practice outside the classroom.