Search

This research paper examines students' productive beginnings of engineering judgement while solving open-ended problems in a second-year dynamics course. Undergraduate students are typically assigned well-structured textbook problems for homework, in which the systems have already been simplified and there are few, if any, open-ended decisions to be made. Therefore, students have few opportunities in class to practice their engineering judgment until capstone design courses. We have developed a framework of the productive beginnings of engineering judgment with data from open-ended modeling problems in statics courses. In this paper we investigate how the framework transfers to open-ended modeling problems in dynamics courses. This analysis suggests our framework is transferable to dynamics courses, with all fourteen types of judgement found in the dynamics data set and no additional ways of engaging in judgement were found. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This Research-to-Practice paper presents a study of the use of concept maps for assessing engineering students' representation and identification of ethical dilemmas. The concept maps were implemented in the context of role-play case studies in a class on technology ethics. Due to the ubiquitous nature of technological applications in the field of engineering, it is important to teach students how to identify and address ethical dilemmas that might emerge through algorithms embedded in different systems. To understand how technology operates, students must explore the context around their implementation and understand the perspective of all stakeholders involved. Role-play scenarios (RPSs) are one pedagogical technique for students to explore nuanced topics and gain a situated perspective. For this study, we implemented RPSs, and data were collected from 56 undergraduate students during the Fall 2020 semester. Students were introduced to the case through a set of resources, including videos, publications, and news articles, and they created a pre-role-play scenario concept map. After participating in the roleplay scenario discussions, students completed a post-discussion concept map as a group activity. Analysis of the pre-and-post concept maps shows students were able to identify a greater number of concepts and ethical dilemmas after participating in the role-play scenario. This research reduces some of the barriers to role-play activities being incorporated in the classroom from an assessment perspective. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we have examined a major focus area of engineering education research--engineering students' experiences and outcomes, or ESEO--through a targeted literature review of 121 selected articles published by the Journal of Engineering Education from 2011 to 2021. We drew upon a methodological taxonomy (Malmi, et al., 2018), literature on student development theories, and particularly an integrative ecological systems theory (Bronfenbrenner, 1979, 1993), to guide our analysis. We have presented the findings with respect to engineering students' outcomes, and the contextual and individual factors in their learning experiences as exhibited in the selected articles, as well as the frameworks, methodologies and paradigms used by these studies. Based on these findings, we attempt to characterize ESEO studies in terms of topics, frameworks, methodologies and research paradigms. Our analyses have attested that student development perspectives in the field of higher education offer scholarly and useful insights to engineering education researchers and practitioners. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Engineering education in Malaysia has been recognized by the Washington Accord (WA) since 2009. The International Engineering Alliance continuously updates the requirements for the Program Learning Outcomes according to the needs of the current and future global graduating engineers that member countries of the WA must fulfill. Recent requirements emphasize lifelong learning, complex problem solving, engineering activities, and computing and digital tools capabilities geared towards developing engineering graduates ready for 21st century challenges. When brought upon engineering educators, these increasing requirements posed a dilemma because most are not trained to educate students beyond what they have experienced in their previous formal learning processes, which may be irrelevant for today's learners. In a survey conducted by the UK Royal Academy of Engineering, engineering knowledge and skills are the topmost needed challenges to meet the needs of the 4th Industrial Revolution. Thus, to transform engineering education in Malaysia, the gap between the needs of the current and future engineering requirements, with the current engineering education practices, must be determined. Hence, this study aims to identify the gaps in Malaysian engineering education towards preparing 21st century ready educators, study the transition of engineering educators in their attempt to implement innovative education, and finally develop a framework for transforming engineering education through the infusion of innovative teaching and learning to support the development of the future-ready educators. The study uses a mixed-method research design to identify the gaps through document analysis, interviews, questionnaire surveys, and focus group discussions (FGD) among engineering education providers and industry players. The data will be analyzed and triangulated to chart the gaps in engineering education toward preparing 21st century educators. Later, this result will be used to develop the directions, actions, and transformation framework. The findings from this study will be used to formulate Malaysian national policy for transforming future-ready engineering educators who can excel and be on the leading edge of knowledge, innovation, and humanistic values to develop quality engineers in the 21st century. In this work-in-progress paper, only the initial part of the research, which is part of the document analysis, under the training construct, is reported. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]