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Background: The experiences of students and professionals with disabilities are routinely excluded from scholarly and policy debates about equity in engineering. Emergent research suggests that engineering is particularly ableist, yet systematic accounts of the possible exclusion and devaluation faced by engineers with disabilities are largely missing. Purpose/Hypothesis: This paper asks, do engineers with disabilities have more negative interpersonal experiences in engineering classrooms and workplaces than those without disabilities? Utilizing a social relational model of disability, I hypothesize that engineers with physical disabilities and chronic and mental illness are more likely to experience exclusion and professional devaluation than their peers and, partly as a result, have lower persistence intentions. Data/Methods: The paper uses survey data from 1729 students enrolled in eight US engineering programs (American Society for Engineering Education Diversity and Inclusion Survey) and 8321 US-employed engineers (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math Inclusion Study Survey). Analyses use regression, mediation, and intersectional approaches. Results: Consistent with expectations, engineering students and professionals with disabilities are less likely than their peers to experience "social inclusion" and "professional respect" at school and work. Students with disabilities are more likely to "intend to leave their engineering programs" and professionals with disabilities are more likely to have "thought about leaving their engineering jobs" compared to peers, and their greater risks of encountering interpersonal bias help account for these differences. Analyses also reveal intersectional variation by gender and race/ethnicity. Conclusion: These results suggest that engineering harbors widespread ableism across education and work. The findings demand more scholarly attention to the social, cultural, and physical barriers that block people with disabilities from full and equal participation in engineering.

Background: Understanding the nature of engineering is important for shaping engineering education, especially precollege education. While much research has established the pedagogical benefits of teaching engineering in kindergarten through 12th grade (K-12), the philosophical foundations of engineering remain under-examined. Purpose: This conceptual paper introduces the honeycomb of engineering framework, which offers an epistemologically justified theoretical position and a pedagogical lens that can be used to examine ways engineering concepts and practices are taught in precollege education. Scope/Method: The honeycomb of engineering was developed as a descriptive framework by examining existing literature over a wide range of related disciplines such as the philosophy of engineering and technology, as well as design thinking and practice. The pedagogical translation of the framework was then developed to examine published precollege engineering curricula. Results: The framework categorizes the multiple goals of engineering using an ontological classification of engineering inquiries anchored in the central practice of negotiating risks and benefits (i.e., trade-offs). This framework also illustrates the adaptability of design methodology in guiding six inquiries: (1) user-centered design, (2) design-build-test, (3) engineering science, (4) optimization, (5) engineering analysis, and (6) reverse engineering. The published curricula represented these inquiries with varying degrees, with design-build-test lessons seeing the most representation followed by user-centered design. Conclusions: The honeycomb of engineering framework delineates variations in engineering education based on an epistemological explanation. The pedagogical translations offer guidance to educators, researchers, and curriculum designers for differentiating curricular aims and learning outcomes resulting from participation in different engineering inquiries.

Background: Engineers are often expected to span organizational, cultural, stakeholder, geographic, temporal, and other boundaries. Yet, few studies on boundary spanning have appeared in the engineering education literature, suggesting the need for improved theoretical and conceptual foundations to guide empirical studies of boundary spanning in engineering. Purpose: To develop a more comprehensive understanding of boundary spanning, this study addresses five research questions: (a) What types of boundaries have been identified as topics of interest? (b) How are boundary spanners and boundary spanning defined? (c) What types of activities and behaviors comprise or have been linked to boundary spanning? (d) What individual competencies and characteristics have been proposed or studied as important for boundary spanning? and (e) What boundary spanning themes are most prominent in studies of engineers and other technical professionals? Scope/Method: Using a qualitative systematic review process, we identified and analyzed 72 scholarly papers from multiple disciplines. Multiple reviewers coded each paper using a hybrid deductive-inductive content analysis process to identify key themes related to boundary spanning. Conclusions: The analysis resulted in a framework consisting of six boundary types, three types of roles and definitions, and five types of activities. Discussion of boundary spanning competencies was limited in the collected works, and only seven papers exclusively focused on engineers. We conclude by proposing boundary spanning as an important meta-attribute for engineers and a promising lens for investigating engineering practice. We also relate our findings to the engineering education literature and suggest directions for future research.

Background: Children begin foundational learning in early childhood that sets the stage for later learning and academic success. Research regarding engineering in early childhood is limited yet growing. Purpose: Because interest in engineering in early childhood is growing, this article reviews research regarding interactions, materials, and activities that promote prekindergarten children's engineering thinking, and in turn how this engineering thinking is related to developmental outcomes. Scope/Method: The initial search for papers with relevant keywords returned over 2,000 papers. Upon review, 27 papers pertained to children age five or under and to engineering. The following research questions were addressed: What (a) interactions and (b) materials and activities promote prekindergarten children's engineering thinking? What developmental outcomes are related to children's engineering thinking? Conclusions: The small body of research regarding engineering thinking in prekindergarten children only allows for a few limited conclusions. Specifically, results indicate that children display engineering thinking when actively engaged with materials, adults are better able to facilitate engineering thinking if they have received some guidance on both engineering principles and asking children questions, and children's engineering thinking can promote early math skills and possibly social and emotional development. However, a consistent limitation in the literature is that measures are underdeveloped and their psychometric properties are often unestablished.

Background: Children begin foundational learning in early childhood that sets the stage for later learning and academic success. Research regarding engineering in early childhood is limited yet growing. Purpose: Because interest in engineering in early childhood is growing, this article reviews research regarding interactions, materials, and activities that promote prekindergarten children's engineering thinking, and in turn how this engineering thinking is related to developmental outcomes. Scope/Method: The initial search for papers with relevant keywords returned over 2,000 papers. Upon review, 27 papers pertained to children age five or under and to engineering. The following research questions were addressed: What (a) interactions and (b) materials and activities promote prekindergarten children's engineering thinking? What developmental outcomes are related to children's engineering thinking? Conclusions: The small body of research regarding engineering thinking in prekindergarten children only allows for a few limited conclusions. Specifically, results indicate that children display engineering thinking when actively engaged with materials, adults are better able to facilitate engineering thinking if they have received some guidance on both engineering principles and asking children questions, and children's engineering thinking can promote early math skills and possibly social and emotional development. However, a consistent limitation in the literature is that measures are underdeveloped and their psychometric properties are often unestablished. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Engineering competition teams (ECTs) allow college students to learn about and practice leadership within a technical domain, yet we know little about the mechanisms by which leadership development occurs within these teams. This paper explores how ECT participation contributes to students' leadership identity development (LID). Purpose: This paper addresses the following research questions:RQ1: How does the ECT experience contribute to students' relational LID?RQ2: What other factors influence ECT participants' LID?RQ3: Does the ECT experience provide opportunities for LID that are different from those provided by other experiences? Design: This paper reports the second phase of a mixed‐methods study. ECT members participated in individual semistructured interviews. Transcripts were analyzed via an interpretivist approach using deductive and constant comparative methods. The analysis employed the LID model as the primary theoretical construct. Results: ECTs contributed to most participants' LID. Factors affecting the extent of development included project complexity, team practices related to the claiming and granting of a leadership identity, positional leadership experience, involvement with other organizations, and preconceptions of leadership. Compared with other experiences, ECTs placed more emphasis on leadership based in expertise. Technical competence was considered a key attribute of ECT leaders. Conclusions: ECTs enhanced the LID of most participants, helping them understand leadership as a relational process. The LID model offers promise for designing engineering leadership development programs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Discusses a philosophy from which biological engineering curriculums can emerge. Discusses competencies, basic engineering and biological concepts, common courses, interfacing between engineers and biologists, and employment. Contains 28 references. (JRH)

Proposes the use of cases and instructional modules to teach invention, engineering design, and technology management. Discusses the case method in graduate business education, cases and modules in engineering education, using cases in class, and the development and distribution of cases. Presents examples of using cases about total quality management, systems engineering, and invention and design. Contains 33 references. (JRH)

Presents instructional techniques aimed at enhancing learning in the engineering science classroom, including mind or concept mapping, a variation of the one-minute paper termed a discovery sheet, and the inclusion of discussion of the nature of scientific paradigm shifts. Discusses students' reactions to these techniques and outlines a case study that illuminates the techniques' effectiveness as learning tools. (JRH)

Background: Understanding the nature of engineering is important for shaping engineering education, especially precollege education. While much research has established the pedagogical benefits of teaching engineering in kindergarten through 12th grade (K–12), the philosophical foundations of engineering remain under‐examined. Purpose This conceptual paper introduces the honeycomb of engineering framework, which offers an epistemologically justified theoretical position and a pedagogical lens that can be used to examine ways engineering concepts and practices are taught in precollege education. Scope/Method: The honeycomb of engineering was developed as a descriptive framework by examining existing literature over a wide range of related disciplines such as the philosophy of engineering and technology, as well as design thinking and practice. The pedagogical translation of the framework was then developed to examine published precollege engineering curricula. Results: The framework categorizes the multiple goals of engineering using an ontological classification of engineering inquiries anchored in the central practice of negotiating risks and benefits (i.e., trade‐offs). This framework also illustrates the adaptability of design methodology in guiding six inquiries: (1) user‐centered design, (2) design‐build‐test, (3) engineering science, (4) optimization, (5) engineering analysis, and (6) reverse engineering. The published curricula represented these inquiries with varying degrees, with design‐build‐test lessons seeing the most representation followed by user‐centered design. Conclusions: The honeycomb of engineering framework delineates variations in engineering education based on an epistemological explanation. The pedagogical translations offer guidance to educators, researchers, and curriculum designers for differentiating curricular aims and learning outcomes resulting from participation in different engineering inquiries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Mental health issues reported among college‐aged individuals have increased. Prevalence of these issues has an established impact on students' personal, professional, and academic outcomes. Graduate students experience unique stressors that impact their mental health. In particular, engineering graduate students have lower help‐seeking tendencies, which can impact the severity and length of their mental health problems. Purpose: We investigate the literature concerning engineering graduate students' mental health, focusing on academic outcomes, mental health measures, and mental health findings, to highlight gaps in current literature and the need for further research. Scope/Method: Five research databases, EBSCO: CINAHL, EBSCO: PsycINFO, ProQuest: ERIC, PubMed, and Scopus, were searched in a scoping literature review. Inclusion and exclusion criteria were applied during the screening process. Peer‐reviewed publications (i.e., articles and conference papers) were identified and coded for study focus, keywords, participants and institution(s), journal discipline, study type, methods used, and work referenced, in addition to academic outcomes, mental health measures, and mental health findings. Results: Nineteen of the 4,826 unique studies identified were included in the review. Ten academic outcomes and 13 mental health measures were discussed. Mental health findings were grouped into five themes: social support and sense of belonging; student–advisor relationship; cultural barriers faced by international students; gender and racial stereotypes; and generalized findings. Conclusions: Research on engineering graduate students' mental health is limited. Given that mental health has direct ties to students' well‐being and ultimately their success, engineering education researchers should focus on studying students' experiences, sharing these findings, and communicating best practices for all stakeholders. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: In Spring 2020, the COVID‐19 pandemic sent universities into emergency remote education. The pandemic has been disruptive but offers the opportunity to learn about ways to support students in other situations where abrupt changes to teaching and learning are necessary. Purpose/Hypothesis: We described the responses of engineering and computer science students to a series of prompts about their experiences with remote learning. Design/Method: Data about students' remote learning experiences were collected from undergraduate engineering and computer science students at four different universities through an end‐of‐semester survey. Descriptive statistics were calculated, and qualitative responses were analyzed using qualitative content analysis through the lenses of master narrative theory and sociocultural theory. Results: Student responses revealed how their individual circumstances combined to reduce motivation, create home environments detrimental to completing schoolwork, and increase stress. Many students described the negative impacts of remote learning, but some students found positive aspects of the situation. The majority of students did not indicate a change in their desire or plans to pursue engineering or computer science majors. Conclusions: There was wide variation in how students experienced the disruption to university learning during Spring 2020. Implications of this paper can help not only in cases where emergency remote learning is needed in the future but also as universities seek to return to "normal" operations in 2022 and beyond. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

BACKGROUND Methodology refers to the theoretical arguments that researchers use in order to justify their research methods and design. There is an extensive range of well established methodologies in the educational research literature of which a growing subset is beginning to be used in engineering education research. PURPOSE A more explicit engagement with methodologies, particularly those that are only emerging in engineering education research, is important so that engineering education researchers can broaden the set of research questions they are able to address. SCOPE/METHOD Seven methodologies are outlined and for each an exemplar paper is analyzed in order to demonstrate the methodology in operation and to highlight its particular contribution. The methodologies are: Case Study, Grounded Theory, Ethnography, Action Research, Phenomenography, Discourse Analysis, and Narrative Analysis. It is noted that many of the exemplar papers use some of these methodologies in combination. CONCLUSIONS The exemplar papers show that collectively these methodologies might allow the research community to be able to better address questions around key engineering education challenges, such as students' responses to innovative pedagogies, diversity issues in engineering, and the changing requirements for engineering graduates in the twenty-first century. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: This study addresses gender differences in early career experiences in engineering by examining entry‐level jobs of Bachelor of Engineering (BEng) graduates in Canada. Purpose/Hypotheses: The study explored how gender shapes entry into this male‐dominated occupation in the context of the contemporary knowledge economy. I tested four hypotheses: (H1) There are no gender differences in job search duration and pay for BEng graduates in Canada; (H2) women experience longer job search durations than men and less pay than men; (H3) women's job searches are shorter with less pay than men; (H4) women's job searches are shorter and with the same pay as men's. Design/Method: The study uses data from Statistics Canada National Graduates Survey (2013), feminist theories, and the Cox proportional hazard (CPH) model. Results: I found that in the context of the knowledge economy, gender is a significant predictor of labor market outcomes during early career stages for Canadian BEng graduates. Hypotheses H1 and H2 were not supported. I identified partial support for Hypothesis H3 and complete support for H4. In particular, I found that women were hired sooner than men for their first engineering jobs and were paid the same salary as their male counterparts. Conclusions: Based on this study's results, I argue that early career experiences in engineering occupation continue to be defined by the gender of graduates. This paper offers several potential research areas in the field of engineering education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

BACKGROUND Design experiences play a crucial role in undergraduate engineering education and are increasingly important in K-12 settings. There are few efforts to purposefully connect research findings on how people design with what teachers need to understand and do to help K-16 students improve their design capability and learn through design activities. PURPOSE This paper connects and simplifies disparate findings from research on design cognition and presents a robust framework for a scholarship of design teaching and learning that includes misconceptions, learning trajectories, instructional goals, and teaching strategies that instructors need to know to teach engineering design effectively. METHOD A scholarship of integration study was conducted that involved a meta-literature review and led to selecting and bounding students' design performances with appropriate starting points and end points, establishing key performance dimensions of design practices, and fashioning use-inspired tools that represent design pedagogical content knowledge for teachers. RESULTS The outcome of this scholarship of integration effort is the Informed Design Learning and Teaching Matrix that contains nine engineering design strategies and associated patterns that contrast beginning versus informed design behaviors, with links to learning goals and instructional approaches that aim to support students in developing their engineering design abilities. CONCLUSIONS This paper's theoretical contribution is an emergent educational theory of informed design that identifies key performance dimensions relevant to K-16 engineering and STEM educational contexts. Practical contributions include the Informed Design Teaching and Learning Matrix, which is fashioned to help teachers do informed teaching with design tasks while developing their own design pedagogical content knowledge. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Women (along with minority ethnic and low‐income communities) remain underrepresented in engineering, despite a 30‐year history of research and equality legislation. Compared with the United States and other European Union countries, this underrepresentation is particularly pronounced in the United Kingdom. While existing literature gives insights into factors shaping retention and progression in university engineering students, comparatively less is known about the development of primary and secondary school students' engineering aspirations. Purpose This paper contrasts science and engineering analyses to explore how relationships between background and attitudinal factors and aspirations change across primary and secondary schools. We examine the relative influence of gender on aspirations in both science and engineering. Design/Method: We drew on survey data from more than 20,000 English students from the ASPIRES projects. A multilevel regression approach is implemented to test for the effects of gender, ethnicity, and cultural capital on science and engineering aspirations. Results: Gender is the main factor related to engineering aspirations, while science aspirations are influenced by a broader range of factors. School‐level factors become increasingly important for engineering aspirations. We also report evidence of the early distinctiveness of young women who aspire to engineering in terms of their relatively high self‐concept and motivations. Conclusions: The association of engineering with masculinity is evident in aspirations from age 10, and students aspiring to engineering are distinctive in several respects. Efforts aimed at improving participation in engineering might more usefully focus on challenging the elitist culture and practices, which may influence student perceptions, rather than focusing on changing student aspirations directly. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Educators, researchers, and policy makers have advocated student involvement for some time as an essential aspect of meaningful learning. In the past twenty years engineering educators have implemented several means of better engaging their undergraduate students, including active and cooperative learning, learning communities, service learning, cooperative education, inquiry and problem-based learning, and team projects. This paper focuses on classroom-based pedagogies of engagement, particularly cooperative and problem-based learning. It includes a brief history, theoretical roots, research support, summary of practices, and suggestions for redesigning engineering classes and programs to include more student engagement. The paper also lays out the research ahead for advancing pedagogies aimed at more fully enhancing students' involvement in theft learning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses various reports published within the issue, which includes all of the papers accepted and presented at the conference "1st International Conference on Research in Engineering Education" held on June 22, 2007 in Honolulu, Hawaii.

BACKGROUND Research is considered the essence of graduate engineering education, but knowledge about the engineering graduate student research experience is scarce in literature. Some studies that examine graduate engineering education suggest that students are experiencing educational deficiencies that can affect the research experience. Thus, exploring engineering graduate student research proficiency is warranted. PURPOSE (HYPOTHESIS) This work begins to earnestly answer the research questions "How proficient are engineering graduate students in research?" and "What factors affect the research proficiency of these students?" DESIGN/METHOD In order to answer the two research questions specifically for the Georgia Institute of Technology Environmental Engineering graduate program, current students in the program participated in two surveys. Survey questions were designed to measure students' perceptions of their research proficiency and to aid in determining student academic motivations tied to proficiency. RESULTS Many students indicated that they lacked research preparation upon beginning graduate study and during the first year of study, lacked development in important research skills like statistics and communicating in writing, and were somewhat hindered in research organization and progress. Regarding academic motivations, students generally valued personal advancement and enrichment over paper publication. Doctoral students overall indicated more preparation with respect to several aspects of research and more value placed on paper publication than did master's students. CONCLUSIONS The surveys provided important findings regarding student research proficiency for the engineering graduate program in question. These findings encourage the exploration of engineering graduate student research proficiency on a broader scale in future studies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Automatically grading essay questions can have advantages for instructors in higher education. Understanding and specifying how grading is done manually, so that there is potential to do it automatically, is a labor-intensive effort in knowledge elicitation, acquisition, and representation. This paper describes how an interdisciplinary team used conceptual graphs to formally specify the model for a good essay response, and then how that expert model was used as the standard by which the student responses were judged. The methodology is then described for creating the expert model for student responses. These were compared using two different approaches. It was found that most students included the most important concepts, but those student answers that were more complete (i.e., also including concepts of lesser importance) received higher grades. The approaches are then evaluated in terms of reliability and validity, and finally, suggestions are made for future work. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is based on the premises that the purpose of engineering education is to graduate engineers who can design, and that design thinking is complex. The paper begins by briefly reviewing the history and role of design in the engineering curriculum. Several dimensions of design thinking are then detailed, explaining why design is hard to learn and harder still to teach, and outlining the research available on how well design thinking skills are learned. The currently most-favored pedagogical model for teaching design, project-based learning (PBL), is explored next, along with available assessment data on its success. Two contexts for PBL are emphasized: first-year cornerstone courses and globally dispersed PBL courses. Finally, the paper lists some of the open research questions that must be answered to identify the best pedagogical practices of improving design learning, after which it closes by making recommendations for research aimed at enhancing design learning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The function of the engineering profession is to manipulate materials, energy, and information, thereby creating benefit for humankind. To do this successfully, engineers must have a knowledge of nature that goes beyond mere theory-knowledge that is traditionally gained in educational laboratories. Over the years, however, the nature of these laboratories has changed. This paper describes the history of some of these changes and explores in some depth a few of the major factors influencing laboratories today. In particular, the paper considers the lack of coherent learning objectives for laboratories and how this lack has limited the effectiveness of laboratories and hampered meaningful research in the area. A list of fundamental objectives is presented along with suggestions for possible future research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we analyze the 2002 U.S. News and World Report rankings of universities offering graduate programs in engineering. We show that a reasonably simple model, whose independent variables are derived from the intuitive causal relationships among the various performance sub-measures, can represent the data. The results can be used to quantify the choice of an efficient policy for improving a school's ranking. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the distance learning process by providing an informed student's perspective as well as the instructor's perspective on an Internet-based synchronous distance learning experience. Throughout the semester, the student maintained a class-by-class journal on his experiences and reactions to the Internet-based course. This journal served as a crucial resource in the subsequent evaluation of the virtual classroom experience. The analysis provided in this paper, informed by current research on traditional and distance education, suggests that community, interaction, pedagogy, attention, and feedback play important roles in the success of an Internet-based learning experience. Specific comments by the course instructor, as well as survey results from both students and other instructors for a number of synchronous Internet-based courses, are also presented. This data further illuminates the student synchronous distance education experience and contributes additional insight into the delivery method and its ongoing evolution. The unique observations and conclusions provided here are useful for both instructors and students interested in participating in synchronous as well as asynchronous computer-mediated education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

BACKGROUND Engineering graduate education, particularly at the doctoral level, relies heavily on mentored research experiences often conducted in a research group. PURPOSE (HYPOTHESIS) The purpose of this study is to understand how and under what conditions research groups foster successful learning and professional development for graduate engineering students, and how these findings can be used to inform management of engineering research groups to optimize student learning, productivity, and intent to complete the degree. DESIGN/METHOD This study utilizes a sequential exploratory mixed methods design, with nine months of ethnographically guided observations and interviews used to develop an online survey instrument. Data reported in this paper include results from the ethnographic analysis and survey responses from over 800 students at four institutions. RESULTS Key findings from the ethnographic analysis indicate that group size directly influences the mechanisms of student learning. Survey results confirm the prevalence of engineering graduate research groups, as well as several elements common across research groups from different universities and academic departments, including: interactions and communication, access to resources, and role of the advisor. CONCLUSIONS An understanding of the mechanisms for learning in research groups can be used by engineering administrators, faculty members, and graduate students to create an environment that fosters successful learning and professional development. We also recommend practices for ensuring positive experiences for all graduate students, which may ultimately reduce attrition from engineering graduate programs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reports the results of a study into the impact of computer simulations on the understanding of fluid mechanics by engineering students. A "lesson study" approach was taken, using constructivist educational theory combined with the variation theory of learning from phenomenography to inform the design of learning activities and to assess their impact. Student difficulties with fluid mechanics concepts were assessed using questions from the Fluid Mechanics Concept Inventory (FMCI). Students had the greatest difficulties with pressure measurement, fluid flow through pipes with changing diameter, and velocity profiles for fluid between flat plates. We developed a set of three simulations to address these difficulties. The impact of the simulations was gauged by a second administration of the FMCI. Most of the students in the sophomore fluid mechanics class participated in the whole of this exercise. Students showed significant improvement in two of the three areas of difficulty. Student feedback on this as an additional learning exercise was very positive. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

in this paper we report on an in-depth study of engineering design processes. Specifically, we extend our previous research on engineering student design processes to compare the design behavior of students and expert engineers. Nineteen experts from a variety of engineering disciplines and industries each designed a playground in a lab setting, and gave verbal reports of their thoughts during the design task. Measures of their design processes and solution quality were compared to pre-existing data from 26 freshmen and 24 seniors. The experts spent significantly more time on the task overall and in each stage of engineering design, including significantly more time problem scoping. The experts also gathered significantly more information covering more categories. Results support the argument that problem scoping and information gathering are major differences between advanced engineers and students, and important competencies for engineering students to develop. Timeline representations of the expert designers' processes illustrate characteristic distinctions we found and may help students gain insights into their own design processes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In spite of considerable research about the poor retention rate of undergraduate engineering students, we still have an inadequate understanding of the factors that affect students' decisions to remain in engineering programs and their ability to perform well enough to be retained. Although continued study is needed of external factors such as curricular requirements, admissions criteria, and test scores, we also need to know much more about the relationships between curricular experiences and students' learning styles, habits, and attitudes. The work presented in this paper was designed to enhance educators' understanding of the factors that underlie the concern about student retention in engineering. By observing 1,000 engineering students during their first three years in college, the research team generated a large database on the students' academic and non-academic characteristics as well as their successes and failures. The traits discovered not only support many findings from previous studies but also reveal some new relation- ships that could prove essential to designing an educational environment that will prepare engineers for success in the future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An empirical ethnographic survey of engineers using interviews and field observations in Australia provides evidence that coordinating technical work of other people by gaining their willing cooperation is a major aspect of engineering practice. Technical coordination in the context of this study means working with and influencing other people so they conscientiously perform necessary work to a mutually agreed schedule. While coordination seems to be non-technical, analysis provides evidence supporting the critical importance of technical expertise. Coordination usually involves one-on-one relationships with superiors, clients, peers, subordinates, and outsiders. Coordinating the work of other people seems to be important from the start of an engineering career. Engineering education only provides limited informal coordination skill development and current accreditation criteria may not reflect this aspect of engineering. This paper suggests ways in which students can learn coordination, and describes some of the author's experiences in applying this research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the summer Research Experience for Undergraduates offered by the NSF-sponsored VaNTH Engineering Research Center in Bioengineering, core competency instruction in ethics and communication was integrated into students' research experiences outside of formal courses. This paper describes our instructional approach and presents an initial evaluation of its effectiveness. A simple concept mapping assessment used at the beginning and end of the summer suggests that students made gains in both areas. In ethics, students developed greater awareness of key concepts, such as respect for persons (informed consent), beneficence, justice, and integrity. Gains in communication were more modest, but the maps revealed growth in understanding the importance of audience and the multifaceted nature of technical communication. Overall, the study suggests that students can make measurable strides in core competencies without taking formal courses. Future research should consider integrating components of our intervention into other non-credit experiences for engineering undergraduates. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Designing, generally, requires a team effort. Consequently, several variables affecting team performance have been studied, such as team composition, female/male ratio in the organization, and teamwork skills training. This study furthers this effort by investigating the effect of guided external research during the concept generation phase of the design process. The premise of the study is that as resources increase in number and complexity, and time constraints pressure an overcrowded curriculum, professors are challenged to find new methods to train students in the skills needed for the constantly changing workplace. One technique to address this issue, a creative collaboration and its impact on design team performance, is discussed in the paper. First, the approach for incorporating guided research into curriculum is explained, and then the results of the study are presented, which indicate that a higher design performance can be achieved when guided research is added to design teaching. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A learning community was developed to enhance the teamwork and communication components of a freshman design course. The learning community was comprised of students from a fleshman design course, a freshman graphics course, and a high school technology course. Design teams were formed by combining three to four students from each of these courses. These teams were required to research, design, build, and test a specified product. The high school and university students communicated only using e-mails and Internet conferencing. This paper outlines how the learning community is implemented, describes three design projects, and presents the assessment methods. Assessment reveals that university students who participate in the learning community have a better understanding and confidence in the technical aspects of the design project than the students who do not participate in the learning community. It also reveals that high school participants display notable interest in the engineering design process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A primary goal of The Pennsylvania State University's new Engineering Entrepreneurship (E-SHIP) Minor is to build students' life skills so they can succeed within innovative, product-focused, cross-disciplinary teams. The E-SHIP Minor is designed for undergraduate students majoring in engineering, business, or IST (Information Sciences and Technology) who aspire to be innovation leaders for new technology-based products and companies. This paper outlines five E-SHIP program components to meet this mission: the core courses for the minor, E-SHIP competitions in which students exhibit their products and ideas, the E-SHIP Event Series, student organizations to support out-of-classroom entrepreneurial interest, and team projects for local industry and Penn State researchers. Penn State's engineering entrepreneurship program is reviewed, summarizing both quantitative and qualitative assessment data to date, previewing future assessment plans, and providing a summary of lessons learned during the development and implementation of this program. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper assesses two approaches for delivery of engineering ethics: a full semester ethics course and an engineering course that includes an ethics module. The Defining Issues Test was used to compare the improvement of a student's moral reasoning ability in each class as compared to a control class. Our findings were that the module approach used did not provide any improvement in moral reasoning. In addition, although the ethics course showed improvement when compared to the module, it was not significantly different from the control class. We also found that there was little distinction between males and females and no distinction by age, although education level did have an impact. The results suggest that to improve a student's moral reasoning and sensitivity to ethical issues, engineering ethics must be integrative, delivered at multiple points in the curriculum, and incorporate specific discipline context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Increasing emphasis on interdisciplinary research and education requires researchers and learners to build links between distinct disciplines. In engineering education, work on integrated curricula to help learners build connections between topics began with three programs in 1988. Integrated curricula have connections to a larger movement in higher education- learning communities, which help learners to build interdisciplinary links and social links within a community. Integrated engineering curricula have provided concrete assessment data on retention and student performance to augment research on learning communities. While innovators in both movements have offered many prototypes and gathered many data, goals and results from programs implemented to date are not sufficiently well defined to guide the design and implementation of programs at other institutions. This paper discusses the importance of integration, reviews accomplishments to date, draws conclusions by analyzing those accomplishments, and suggests future initiatives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the current state of assessment in engineering education in the United States as reflected in the Journal of Engineering Education. We begin with a brief review of recent developments in the assessment of engineering education and the events that have inspired change. Next, we explore assessment methodologies that have been used repeatedly in the evaluation of engineering courses, curricula, and research investigations as well as some methods that have not been used extensively but are likely to be informative. We conclude with a discussion of the importance of establishing collaborations between researchers in engineering education and educational research. Throughout this paper we highlight examples of sound and rigorous assessments in engineering education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The relative confidence the public displays in the activities of engineers ("success"), as contrasted with the skepticism ("indifference") it displays towards economists, is explored in this paper. It uses the descriptions of engineering activities provided by authors such as Petroski and Bucciarelli, and particularly the detailed history of aviation engineering of Vincenti. The "separability" of problems, combined with the ability to get ones hands "dirty" on a given problem, are seen as the critical differences between engineering and economics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

If, as current proponents of AI posit, these tools exist to help us do our jobs more quickly (Lopez, [12]), then we need our students to be prepared to improve on the AI-generated text. In closing, AI-based tools are certainly a potential opportunity as a tool for writing, as long as the ideas fed to the AI systems are not sensitive, and as long as human writers still have the abilities to refine and powerfully edit any text that is smoothed by an AI system. This guest editorial is framed around two propositions regarding why we still need to teach engineering writing: First, to teach students to write is to teach them to think; and second, AI is a tool and not a replacement for teaching writing. Faculty wonder how artificial intelligence (AI) such as ChatGPT will revolutionize higher education, where writing is a key competency and where our careers are built on our ability to productively publish. [Extracted from the article]

Background: Although participation rates vary by field, Latiné and women engineers continue to be underrepresented across most segments of the engineering workforce. Research has examined engagement and persistence of Latiné and White women in engineering; however, few studies have investigated how race, ethnicity, gender, and institutional setting interact to produce inequities in the field. Purpose: To address these limitations, we examined how Latina, Latino, and White women and men students' engagement in engineering was informed by their intersecting identities and within their institutional setting over the course of a year. Method: We interviewed 32 Latina, Latino, and White women and men undergraduate engineering students attending 11 different predominantly White and Hispanic Serving Institutions. Thematic analysis was used to interpret themes from the data. Results: Our findings illustrate how Latinas, Latinos, and White women developed a strong engineering identity, which was critical to their engagement in engineering. Students' engineering identity was grounded in their perceived fit within engineering culture, sense of purpose for pursuing their degree, and resistance to the dominance of White male culture in engineering. Latinas described unique forms of gendered, racialized marginalization in engineering, whereas Latinas and Latinos highlighted prosocial motivations for completing their degree. Conclusions: Findings suggest that institutional cultures, norms, and missions are critical to broadening participation of Latinas, Latinos, and White women in engineering. Disrupting White male culture, leveraging Latiné students' cultural wealth, and counter‐framing traditional recruitment pitches for engineering appear to be key in these efforts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Pre‐college engineering education reform documents aim to help students develop engineering literacy. Helping students develop sophisticated epistemological views about engineering makes a significant contribution toward developing engineering‐literate citizenry. Despite these widely recognized benefits, research on students' and teachers' epistemological views about engineering, commonly termed nature of engineering (NOE) views, has remained stagnant due to the absence of an open‐ended questionnaire whose collected evidence of validity indicates its appropriateness for assessing students' and teachers' NOE understanding. Purpose: The purpose of this study is threefold: (a) describing the development of a new open‐ended instrument, the Views of Nature of Engineering Questionnaire version B (VNOE‐B), (b) providing evidence in support of the VNOE‐B validity and reliability, and (c) discussing the implications of the newly developed instrument for future research. Design/Method: We aimed to provide evidence for the content and face validity of the VNOE‐B by seeking input from a panel of science/engineering educators. Evidence for the construct validity was determined by analyzing the open‐ended questionnaire and semistructured interview responses provided by pre‐service and in‐service teachers (considered novices in this field) and experts (engineers and engineering educators). Results: Our findings indicate that the VNOE‐B is consistently successful in differentiating between experts' and novices' NOE views. All engineering experts held sophisticated NOE views across all NOE views under study, whereas most novices held partially informed or uninformed NOE views. Conclusion: Evidence of validity supports the appropriateness of the VNOE‐B as an open‐ended instrument for assessing adults' NOE views. Its application may guide teacher educators in determining the efficacy of teacher professional development in meeting the aim of improving in‐service teachers' NOE understanding. Additionally, VNOE‐B may potentially inform the success of pre‐service teacher training. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background The integration of science and engineering practices in K-12 science education provides a platform for students to engage in productive classroom discourse supporting deep student understanding and reasoning in a real-world context. However, the engineering design discourse in K-12 science classrooms has not yet been fully examined. Purpose This article aims to explore the decision-making processes and verbal interactions of eighth grade students as they engage in a 12-day engineering design-based science unit. The following research questions guided the study: (a) How do student discourse patterns and interactions affect design decisions? (b) How do the instructor's discursive interactions in design groups influence student design? Method In this exploratory case study, discursive patterns and interaction patterns between four student groups and their instructor were captured through audio and video recordings. Results The design discourse structure and patterns differed among groups, affecting their design decisions. There was also a difference in both the number of new ideas generated and, most notably, the level of student engagement in those groups. In addition, the complexity of design decisions varied, with most groups focusing on financial feasibility rather than scientific reasoning. Finally, it was observed that the instructor discourse influenced student engagement in design discourse and the use of scientific reasoning and justifications in small group discussions. Conclusions This discourse study offers insight into students' scientific reasoning in an effort to help educators more effectively structure instruction discourse and practices in engineering design in K-12 science education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: A defining characteristic of expertise is the use of intuition to navigate tasks. The construct of intuition and its importance is well‐studied in other disciplines, but little is known about how it translates to engineering. Existing literature on intuition does not clearly define the construct and its relationship to problem solving, which creates a substantial gap in our understanding of intuition and its applicability to engineering. Purpose: This study's purpose is to better understand the relationship between expertise, decision‐making, and intuition from the perspective of engineering practitioners. We additionally seek to define engineering intuition from this same perspective. Design/Methods: Seventeen semi‐structured interviews were conducted with engineering practitioners with at least 6 years of experience. Sensitizing concepts tied to models of expertise development and dual process cognition were used to guide the study's design and data analysis. Iterative qualitative analysis culminating in code mapping supported the development of a definition and theory of engineering intuition. Results: This study's result is an emergent definition of engineering intuition and a complementary framework called Leveraging Intuition Toward Engineering Solutions (LITES). LITES uniquely situates intuition as part of the problem‐solving process among experienced engineering practitioners and describes how practitioners use their intuition. Conclusions: This work advances knowledge of the relationship between intuition and expertise in engineering education by providing a definition of engineering intuition and a framework describing intuition's role in engineering problem solving. This contribution furthers efforts to equip current and future engineers with the necessary skills to navigate existing and upcoming societal challenges. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Despite the prevalence and potential of K–12 engineering outreach programs, the moment‐to‐moment dynamics of outreach educators' facilitation of engineering learning experiences are understudied. There is a need to identify outreach educators' teaching moves and to explore the implications of these moves. Purpose/Hypothesis: We offer a preliminary framework for characterizing engineering outreach educators' teaching moves in relation to principles of ambitious instruction. This study describes outreach educators' teaching moves and identifies learning opportunities afforded by these moves. Design/Method: Through discourse analysis of video recordings of a university‐led engineering outreach program, we identified teaching moves of novice engineering outreach educators in interaction with elementary student design teams. We considered 18 outreach educators' teaching moves through a lens of ambitious instruction. Results: In small group interactions, outreach educators used ambitious, conservative, and inclusive teaching moves. These novice educators utilized talk moves that centered students' ideas and agency. Ambitious moves included two novel teaching moves: design check‐ins and revoicing tangible manifestations of students' ideas. Ambitious moves offered students opportunities to engage in engineering design. Conservative moves provided opportunities for students to make technical and affective progress, and to experience engineering norms. Conclusions: Our work is formative in describing engineering outreach educators' teaching moves and points to outreach educators' capability in using ambitious moves. Ambitious engineering instruction may be a useful framework for designing engineering outreach to support students' participation and progress in engineering design. Additionally, conservative teaching moves, typically considered constraining, may support productive student affect and engagement in engineering design. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Mindsets are based on two basic assumptions: some people think that their intellectual abilities can be developed through hard work and instruction (i.e., a growth mindset), whereas others believe that nothing can change their level of intellectual ability (i.e., a fixed mindset). The association between mindsets and academic achievement has been examined in different academic subjects, such as biology and math. However, no previous study has examined the effects of language learning mindsets (LLMs) and math mindsets (MMs) on academic success in an English medium instruction (EMI) setting in which English, rather than the first language of the students, is used for teaching content (e.g., mechatronics engineering). Purpose/Hypothesis: This study explores the relationship between Turkish mechatronics engineering undergraduate students' domain‐specific mindsets, LLMs and MMs, and their academic success. Design/Method: Student test scores for English medium and first‐language medium courses were collected from fourth‐year students studying mechatronics engineering (n = 68) at a public university in Turkey. Students also completed the LLM and MM inventories. Results: Regression analyses revealed that growth LLM and MM were positive predictors of EMI and Turkish medium of instruction (TMI) academic success, whereas fixed LLM and MM were negative predictors of EMI and TMI academic success. Conclusions: In both EMI and TMI courses, a growth mindset in math and language learning can profoundly predict students' academic achievement in a mechatronics engineering program. We argue that domain‐specific mindsets can effectively explain the self‐theories of intelligence and achievement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: For engineers who aim to address sustainability challenges, participating in transdisciplinary teams is key. Yet developing transdisciplinary knowledge, including systems thinking, metacognition, and empathic thinking, is not well supported in traditional engineering programs. Purpose: The extent to which selected learning activities in the introduction to engineering courses support student development of systems thinking, metacognition, and empathic thinking is investigated. Design/Method: Focus group discussions with instructional teams and student interviews are examined to elucidate how course activities improved student transdisciplinary knowledge. Threshold concepts frame the qualitative analysis of the collected data. Implications for teaching and learning are discussed. Findings: Results suggest the investigated learning activities support student development of transdisciplinary knowledge as indicated by changes in systems thinking, metacognition, and empathic thinking. Where prior quantitative exploratory studies revealed little change in transdisciplinary knowledge indicators pre‐ and post‐course, deeper qualitative analysis uncovers students manifested improvements in transdisciplinary knowledge indicators as narrated by the students themselves and as observed by instructors and teaching assistants. Conclusions: Integrating transdisciplinary knowledge development into engineering programs, starting with appropriate learning activities in first‐year engineering courses, may provide new pathways for transforming curricula aimed at educating the 21st‐century engineer. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Engineering self‐efficacy, or the belief in one's own capabilities to complete engineering tasks, has been shown to predict greater motivation, academic performance, and retention of engineering students. Investigating the types of experiences that influence engineering students' self‐efficacy can reveal ways to support students in their undergraduate engineering programs. Purpose/Hypothesis(es): The purpose of this study was to qualitatively examine how undergraduate engineering students describe the sources of their engineering self‐efficacy and whether patterns in students' responses differed by gender. Design/Method: Participants (N = 654) were undergraduate engineering students attending two public, land‐grant universities in the U.S. Open‐ended survey questions were used to identify the events, social experiences, and emotions that students described as relevant to their engineering self‐efficacy. Chi‐square analyses were used to investigate whether response patterns varied by gender. Results: Students described enactive performances as their most salient source of self‐efficacy, but interesting insights also emerged about how engineering students draw from social and emotional experiences when developing their self‐efficacy. Women more often referred to social sources of self‐efficacy and reported fewer positive emotions than did men. Conclusion: Findings suggest ways that educators can provide more targeted opportunities for students to develop their self‐efficacy in engineering. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The author discusses the proceedings of the conference "First International Conference on Research in Engineering Education" held on June 22, 2007. The conference was attended by sixty-eight researchers, hosted by the "Journal of Engineering Education," and supported by the National Science Foundation.

Background: Many instructors made an emergency shift to online teaching during the Spring 2020 semester. There is reason to expect that instructors would have dramatically changed their pedagogy and teaching philosophies. At the same time, there are reasons that engineering instructors might be hesitant to introduce some changes to their courses. Purpose/Hypothesis: This study explores pedagogical and philosophical adaptations using instructors' accounts of emergency remote teaching during the Spring 2020 semester. Design/Method: In‐depth interviews with six engineering instructors were conducted to examine their teaching experiences and the way they responded to the online transition. Interview transcripts were analyzed for general themes and commonalities. Results: Instructors made many changes during the transition, some of which were general and others individualized after a problem came to their attention. However, other changes were uncommon or even avoided, in particular, reducing content difficulty and shifting their teaching philosophies. Our interviews suggest several explanations for their choices, including the degree to which course design rendered change unnecessary, or the influence of the instructors' existing skillset, their desire to protect the validity of grades, and their sense of the scope of engineering pedagogy. Conclusions: These interviews contribute to our understanding of how the emergency transition to online teaching impacted engineering instructors and how instructors might improve resilience during future crises. The conceptual tools and thought processes elucidated by this study can inform future analyses. Further research should pursue comparisons with other disciplines and consider the long‐term effects of pandemic teaching. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: To meet the growing demand for the science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) workforce and remain competitive in the fields of science and technology over the next decade, the United States is expected to need more than 1 million additional STEM professionals. This would require an annual increase of 34% in undergraduate STEM degrees over the next decade to meet the projected need. Purpose: This study examined the relationship between Advanced Placement (AP) STEM course‐taking in high school and selection of college STEM majors and whether the relationship differs by gender and race/ethnicity. Design/Method: For controlling student and school factors, a binary logistic regression model with the clustered standard error was utilized to determine the relationship between AP STEM course‐taking and STEM major selection. Multinomial logistic regression was conducted to further understand how AP STEM course‐taking was associated with engineering major selection. The analysis included a series of interaction effects tests, examining the variation of gender and racial/ethnic differences in STEM and, more specifically, engineering major selection as a function of AP STEM course‐taking. Results: Findings indicate gender and AP STEM course exposure are significant in predicting STEM major selection. Interaction effects test results further show that the relationship between AP STEM course‐taking and STEM major selection varies significantly by gender. A similar pattern is found in the relationship between AP STEM course‐taking and engineering major selection. Conclusion: This study provides much‐needed empirical evidence to understand the relationships between AP STEM courses course‐taking in high school and the selection of college STEM majors and how such relationships vary by race/ethnicity and gender. Additional research is encouraged to inform future educators and policymakers in promoting equity for students in pursuing paths to STEM and, more specifically, engineering‐related careers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Authentic assessment and two‐stage exams have recently received attention; however, they are rarely used together. We reimagine assessment by integrating an authentic, computer‐based assessment into the structure of a two‐stage exam in a large engineering class. Purpose We seek to identify ways that such assessment extends classroom testing to better align with engineering practice by examining the ways teams negotiate uncertainty to make engineering decisions. We also identify differing students' reactions to increased uncertainty during tests. Design/Method: Using the methodical framework of design‐based research, we analyze performance and reflection data for 117 student teams through two design iterations to explore four design and theoretical conjectures. Results: Teams chose multiple solution paths to this authentic task, an aspect that aligns with the characteristics of engineering practice that we seek to assess. In addition, the technology tool allows the evaluation of procedural accuracy for many of the teams' chosen paths. The teams' decision‐making performances correlate; however, decision‐making and traditional assessments do not correlate, suggesting they measure different competencies. The computer‐based second stage provides a holistic assessment that shifts the messages that students implicitly receive about valued practices in the classroom. However, not all students took up the authentic group assessment in desired ways. Conclusions: Technology‐based two‐stage exams with authentic assessment show promise to shift testing practices in large engineering classes to include decision‐making. Such assessments better align with engineering practices that are valued in the profession, but more work is needed to develop systems for widespread implementation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]