Roger Schvaneveldt - US grants

This project is developing a reliable and valid statics assessment instrument to evaluate student learning. In the first step we are working to define the core concepts in statics. Our second step is to create an appropriate instrument, a set of questions that tests students' basic knowledge of statics as well as their depth of comprehension and application skills. This development process is based on the success of the widely accepted Force Concepts Inventory in Physics. In the third step we are undertaking extensive field-testing to assure the validity and reliability of this instrument. The fourth step, following the development and validation of the instrument, is to initiate national dissemination of the Statics Knowledge Inventory instrument. To help in this effort we have created a national board of mechanics faculty. This instrument will find wide application because many engineering programs require their majors to study statics. Our project is providing faculty with a validated instrument for formative assessing as they develop and refine their individual courses to enhance student learning. We are also working with a commercial publisher to disseminate and publish this work.

In our highly mobile environment, driving accidents pose a major threat to our quality of life. In the U.S.A., roughly 43,000 people were killed and 3 million were injured in driving accidents in the year 2004 (NHTSA, 2006). Two keys to reducing the incidence of driving accidents are: (i) improving our knowledge of the perceptual and cognitive processes involved in driving through research, and (ii) improving driver training and awareness of the causes of driver error. With the support of the NSF Major Research Instrumentation program, the Perception and Action Lab at Arizona State University will acquire an Advanced Driving Simulator to be used for innovative driving safety research and education programs. The research programs in this project will investigate how drivers used visual information for collision avoidance for particular driving tasks (e.g., left-turns, merging), how multimodal (tactile and auditory) warning signals can be used to re-orient a driver's attention to potential hazards on the roadway, how drivers organize and prioritize information as a function of age and expertise, and how the complexity, structure, and bandwidth of secondary tasks (e.g., using a navigation display) influence driving performance. The educational programs in this project will involve presentations to the local community on driving safety, classroom demonstrations/laboratories in the "Human Factors in Transportation" course taught at ASU, outreach programs aimed at elderly and teenage driver instruction, and undergraduate and graduate student training.