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Abstract At our institution, architectural technology students chose one of the two career pathways- a two-year Associate of Applied Science (AAS) degree or a four-year Bachelor of Science degree (BS). The AAS degree gives graduating students the opportunity to join workforce or the B.S program at our school or elsewhere, usually at junior level. Students in both AAS and BS programs take the Structural Analysis I course. This course mainly involves hand calculations for the analysis of structures like trusses, beams, frames, and columns. Hand solutions are extremely important as they provide good theoretical foundation and analytical skills. However, they become tedious and cumbersome when structures are made of many members. Under such circumstance, the use of commercial structural analysis software greatly simplifies calculations, gives freedom to change loads and support conditions, and visualize deformations, internal forces, and stresses. This paper discusses the learning modules developed for the use of commercial finite element analysis software in the structural analysis and structural design courses in the architectural technology program.
Sitaram et al. (Tue,) studied this question.