Scholars within computing and engineering education have broadly explored how students understand computing-related disciplines. Existing studies have led to publications on promising practices for teaching computing, such as evidence-based strategies for teaching computer science principles and programming languages like C++ and Java. However, other education research on computer-based technologies that students in engineering disciplines often use, such as MATLAB, Mathematica, Mathcad, Excel, and Aspen Plus, is limited. Initial analysis reveals that most of the published work on numerical and computational methods (NCM) in engineering education is in the form of textbooks used to introduce these software packages. However, a gap in the literature exists between understanding the technical content that these textbooks provide, and the degree to which effective pedagogy is used to teach this content. In other words, while textbooks exist to introduce these concepts, few studies have been done to measure the effectiveness of teaching these concepts. Understanding how to effectively teach these computing resources is important because it provides a foundation to allow engineering students to tackle their day-to-day calculations and be prepared with essential tools in the 21st century to tackle modern projects. Literature indicates that very little has been done to understand the impact of these computational technologies both on students as well as the perspective of faculty who teach these courses. As part of this literature review, we will review published scholarship to understand ways in which scholars have investigated the way that computational and numerical methods have been taught so far. This is a work in progress that will serve as a foundation for a broader study to understand effective pedagogies in computational and numerical methods in computing and engineering education.
