Work in Progress: Homework in the Digital Age: The Implementation, Effects, and Perception of Randomly Generated Custom Digital Assignments

This work-in-progress paper studies a particular method of creating and utilizing digital homework. Online homework systems are prevalent in many STEM fields. Such systems are valued for their ability to save time for faculty in preparing and grading homework assignments as well as for providing immediate feedback to the students. However, such systems also make it difficult to identify which students are actually working through the problems, and which students are obtaining their solutions illegitimately. In this work, a system was designed to randomly generate unique custom problems and track user activities as they attempted to solve the problem. The system generates a random pipe flow problem incorporating major and minor head losses for a junior level mechanical engineering fluid mechanics course. Assignment performance, exam performance, and user feedback were collected over three separate semesters for a total of 125 students. The effects on performance are currently inconclusive. On average, students reported a positive perception of the assignment. Additionally, the survey responses indicated that the students appreciated the ability to attempt a problem multiple times, receive immediate feedback on the correctness of their answer, and receive hints that allow them to check portions of their analysis.