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Purpose: This paper aims to explore the differences in first-year and senior engineering students' engineering agency beliefs and career goals related to sustainable development. The authors also sought to understand how topics related to sustainable development in engineering courses affect senior engineering students' goals to address these issues in their careers. This work provides evidence of how students' agency beliefs may be shaped by higher education, which is essential to workforce development. Design/methodology/approach: Findings stem from two national surveys of engineering first-year (Sustainability and Gender in Engineering, n = 7,709) and senior students (Student Survey about Career Goals, College Experiences, n = 4,605). The authors compared both groups using pairwise testing by class standing. Findings: The results indicate that undergraduate studies tend to reinforce students' engineering agency beliefs to improve their quality of life and preserve the environment. Significantly more senior students selected career goals to address environmental issues compared to first-year students. In general, students undervalue their roles as engineers in addressing issues related to social inequities. Those topics are rarely addressed in engineering courses. Findings from this work suggest discussing sustainability in courses positively impact setting career goals to address such challenges. Research limitations/implications: The study compares results from two distinct surveys, conveyed at different periods. Nonetheless, the sample size and national spread of respondents across US colleges and universities are robust to offer relevant insights on sustainable development in engineering education. Practical implications: Adapting engineering curriculum by ensuring that engineering students are prepared to confront global problems related to sustainable development in their careers will have a positive societal impact. Social implications: This study highlights shortcomings of engineering education in promoting social and economic sustainability as related to the engineering field. Educational programs would benefit from emphasizing the interconnectedness of environmental, social and economic dimensions of sustainable development. This approach could increase diversity in engineering education and the industry, and by ripple effect, benefit the communities and local governance. Originality/value: This work is a first step toward understanding how undergraduate experiences impact students' engineering agency beliefs and career goals related to sustainability. It explores potential factors that could increase students' engineering agency and goals to make a change through engineering. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: Considering the requirements of sustainable development regarding professionals training and the challenges evidenced during Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic, this study aims to contribute to the debates regarding the need to insert sustainability into engineering education in the current context. Design/methodology/approach: For this, the literature about sustainability in engineering education was considered, and the need for sustainability insertion in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic was debated. It is important to emphasize that this debate was based on the authors' experience regarding sustainability research and teaching. Findings: The current moment unveiled companies' financial management problems, constantly evidenced by media. In this sense, the interest of engineering students in business management may lead them to believe that companies' survival depends only on financial aspects, neglecting environmental and social aspects. This study is characterized as a reminder to academic staff in the field of engineering to continue valuing the principles of sustainable development with their students during the COVID-19 pandemic. Originality/value: The need to make engineering students understand the importance of social projects in the current period is emphasized. The training of professionals to consider all the sustainability aspects even during crisis moments is evidenced now and should be used as a learning lesson for the future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: This study aims to report on how programme directors address sustainability within engineering education at Swedish universities and engineering colleges. Design/methodology/approach: The study was performed as a survey with follow-up interviews around the following core questions: to what extent do programme directors possess a deep understanding of the subject of sustainable development? Which are the core competencies in sustainable development that programme directors identify as important for their engineering students to acquire during their basic training? To what extent are those competencies integrated into engineering education today and what kind of support do programme directors receive from their department to integrate these competencies into the curriculum? Findings: Programme directors believe that learning for sustainable development is important mainly based on their personal convictions. However, out of 10 potential learning objectives extracted from the literature, only four-six are implemented in degree programmes. Learning objectives and activities are not always aligned, as students are required to learn about interdisciplinary collaboration without working with students from other faculties. The programme directors receive some support from the department, but they express a need for additional support. Examples of support that they suggest are faculty training, efficient teaching material and incorporation of sustainability in the quality assessment instruments for degree programmes. Originality/value: This study is the first comprehensive, national survey of what programme directors think about sustainability in higher education. Their views are important in the attempt to accelerate the integration of sustainability in higher education curricula. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: This paper aims to deal with the skills for sustainable development in engineering courses. The main objective is to identify which competences should be developed in these courses to contribute to the resolution of conflicts related to sustainability, as well as the means used by universities for their development. Design/methodology/approach: The research is divided into two strands: a theoretical and an empirical one. Concerning the theoretical part, the webibliomining method was adopted, to select the articles that were relevant to the theme, and 22 works were selected. Regarding the empirical study, structured questionnaires were applied to 30 specialists in the field, aiming at validating the competencies found in the literature. Findings: In the literature, eight main competencies required to the engineering professional, related to sustainability, were found. The empirical study showed that some competences are considered more relevant than others by the interviewees. Practical implications: The competencies verified in the present study and the relative relevance between them found in the empirical study can contribute to the engineering courses that wish to develop the sustainable behavior of the engineers in their professional or daily life. Originality/value: The originality of the work consists in presenting to engineering students and teachers as well as professionals of the market and the government the competencies that can contribute to the formation of an engineer capable of bringing adequate solutions to the conflicts of sustainability in the twenty-first century. This paper also presents learning teaching methodologies indicated for this purpose. No other works were found with these results. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]