TDT-L0 a test-based method for assessing students’ prior knowledge in engineering graphic courses

Since students attending basic engineering courses are numerous and show different background regarding high school, experience, skills and attitudes, it has become important for educators to assess the level of their prior knowledge. In Italy, in order to access university engineering courses (BS degree level), students usually must take an entrance test; it assesses their knowledge about basic subjects such as mathematics, physics and chemistry, as well as their logical and linguistic skills. However, this test does not refer to technical subjects, e.g., the technical drawing. The two university research units of Udine and Brescia collaborate in developing the Technical Drawing Test-Level 0 (TDT-L0), a test-based method to assess students’ prior knowledge about basic engineering graphics topics like axonometric and orthographic projections, sectional views, basic dimensioning standards, etc. This paper describes the definition of the test contents - the selection of the questions to ask to the students - as well as the way to analyze the collected information and exploit the results to improve the learning and teaching experience of both students and educators. An adoption of the TDT-L0 at the University of Udine is reported as first validation.