Increasing Student Understanding of Response Spectra: An Argument for the Inductive Learning Approach

Creating and interpreting earthquake response spectra are important fundamentals in earthquake engineering education. We argue that an effective approach for teaching the fundamentals of earthquake response spectra is to use an inductive learning approach in an interactive classroom, which is well supported by engineering education literature. To demonstrate this approach we use desktop learning modules that exhibit response spectra concepts. Preliminary data based on post-class interviews with instructors support our opinion. Notably, all interviewed instructors have chosen to adopt the inductive learning approach when teaching response spectra concepts in future iterations of their classes.