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Final Report – Biomechanics Laboratory Curriculum CCLI Project: Spring 2008 - Fall 2010

Robert Schleihauf & Mi-Sook Kim – San Francisco State University

Introduction

The purpose of this Biomechanics of Human Movement Laboratory Curriculum (BLC) project was to

create new learning materials and software based tools for use in undergraduate programs in kinesiology,

exercise science, pre-physical therapy and related areas. The curriculum itself is embodied in a series of

software-based laboratory exercises custom written to adapt to student input. This laboratory curriculum

is tied to the existing Biomechanics of Human Movement textbook (Schleihauf, 2004) and the Kinematic

Analysis (KA) biomechanics research software (Schleihauf, 2010). The primary goal of the project is to

improve student research skills and reinforce student learning of the course objectives.

Biomechanics Laboratory Curriculum

The BLCViewer laboratory curriculum software displays laboratory content materials in a flexible

electronic form. As students progress through the lab exercises, their responses to questions and their

reading rates are continuously recorded.

The software incorporates Conditional Branch Content Sequencing to address the needs of low, middle

and high performing students simultaneously. A graphical illustration of this software design (with details

for a lab on ground reaction force) is shown below:

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The upper row shows the laboratory subtopics. The middle row (<?>) represent laboratory questions.

Students who answer questions correctly move directly to the next subtopic. Students who answer

incorrectly are given expanded feedback and discussion on the subtopic before they can move forward in

the lesson. As a result, the laboratory curriculum content is equivalent to 3 standard lessons. Advanced

students are free to advance quickly through the fundamental materials and have time to address

challenging research topics. Base-level performers are given expanded feedback on foundation level

topics as necessary. Finally, mid-level performers are given a balanced exercise experience that clearly

exceeds the minimal learning objectives for the course.

Program Design: Task Switching

The BLCViewer is designed to coexist on the Windows desktop along with this project’s Kinematic

Analysis (KA) software. During a typical laboratory session, the student is guided through an analysis of

the biomechanical research data for a particularly interesting example. The following figure illustrates a

portion of the Linear Kinematics lab, where Excel is used to compute the toe velocity for a soccer kick

file.

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During the course of the illustrated laboratory exercise, the student is instructed to load both the KA2D

program and the Excel software. The BLCViewer software is automatically positioned on the right side of

the screen. The KA2D program positions itself at the upper left corner of the screen. The student is

instructed to move and resize the Excel window at the lower left corner of the screen. The laboratory then

leads the student through a detailed analysis of velocity and acceleration calculation and graphing

procedures in Excel.

Learning Data Collection and Analysis

The BLCViewer software includes twelve 50 minute laboratory sessions that are typically administered

once per week during the course of the semester. Over the time period of this project, learning data for

175 students was collected for each of the 12 laboratories.

Learning Data Analysis: Lab Content Refinement

Students generate a “learning data” outcome file as they work on each laboratory exercise. The beginning

and end of a typical student data file is shown below:

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The first two lines in the left portion of the figure show that this lab was conducted on 9/28/2009 and this

student began work at 11:10:33. The last line on the right side of the figure shows that the student ended

work on the lab at 11:59:32. The remaining lines in the file indicate the student actions that cause the

BLCViewer to either scroll forward or present a question.

The student data files were analyzed further to determine summary information on question responses and

reading times. A typical summary data file for the question response information is shown below:

Student data collected over three successive semesters was used to make refinements to the laboratory

materials. Questions that were consistently answered incorrectly (with % correct scores < 50) were given

expanded feedback sections in the following semester’s laboratory. These modifications assured that base

and mid-level performers were given ample feedback on the most troublesome topics.

Data on student reading rates and laboratory % completion was also collected. Labs where students

finished in less than 50 minutes (and had 70% correct question responses) were expanded to include more

difficult topics. By the third laboratory revision, virtually no student finished any laboratory early. These

modifications assured that the best students in the class were challenged during every lab.

Analysis of Academic Performance

Our original NSF project proposal stated:

“… research data analysis skills will be developed through scripted “mini-research” exercises tied to the

KA software.” (Emphasis added).

To quantify research data analysis skill, we defined an approach to objectively measure the “Depth of

Analysis” for pre and post lab term papers. A Depth of Analysis scale was defined that awarded small

values to simplistic measures (i.e., position, joint angle) and more heavily weighted values for advanced

measures (i.e., acceleration, force, torque…). This evaluation scale and the scores from an example term

paper are shown below:

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The Depth of Analysis score was set as the summation of the various weighted score components (84

points for the above paper). This procedure was used to analyze the scores of 41 “with lab” term papers

and 36 “without lab” (from Fall 2003 – Spring 2004) term papers.

The results indicate that the “with lab” group involved 78% greater depth of analysis. The figure below

shows the T-test results as well as a frequency distribution for both score samples.

Analysis of Student Attitude Data

A student attitude survey was conducted during Week 3 and Week 17 of the Fall 2010 semester. The

survey collected data on student attitude toward the biomechanics course topics and contents, student

learning experiences with the instructional software, student liking of the software based learning

environment, and the students’ perceived changes in liking of the course contents and topics. The pretest

(Week 3) and posttest (Week 17) attitude scores were analyzed for any significant change over time. The

following table shows the means and standard deviations of the assessed attitude variables.

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The results clearly indicate that the students’ attitude toward the course and use of the BLCViewer

software improved over time. In particular, the students reported greater interests in the biomechanics

topics and contents area. They also reported that the BLCViewer instructional software clearly helped

them to enhance their comprehension of the major topics, and the software helped them understand the

materials faster than the textbook. Further, the software helped them to retain the information longer. The

learning environment (e.g., use of the software, assessable locations, having an individual copy of the KA

software) was also favored by students. These data indicate that the learning environment enabled

students to be more time efficient and helped them to be more confident and focused on the topic. Lastly,

the student data indicate that the learning environment helped them to increase their interest and

appreciation of the topics and course contents.

Conclusions

An entire undergraduate biomechanics curriculum is now freely available to any interested faculty

member via DVD Rom. This DVD Rom includes a 400 page course textbook (BHMViewer), updated

video data analysis software (KA), and the newly developed laboratory curriculum software

(BLCViewer). In addition, an extensive (3.0 gigabyte) movement library of video and data files has been

added to the courseware DVD. This final DVD can be either given to students or used to raise funds to

support student based laboratory equipment purchases.

Most important, this complete biomechanics curriculum provides the tools that will enable any class to

include student based research activities. Our data indicate that students will develop improved research

data analysis skills and will become more involved in the learning process when they are given the

opportunity to apply textbook theory to practical data analysis problems. Given this improved strategy for

undergraduate preparations, we are hopeful that more students will move on to graduate programs and

more advanced levels of employment.