This highly interactive special session has two goals: developing a deeper understanding of current research on engineering practice, and connecting and growing a diverse and vibrant scholarly community interested in this topic. There has arguably never been a more exciting time to examine engineering practice. In addition to a strong employment outlook for most engineering specialties, engineering careers are being reshaped and reimagined by rapid technological change, intensified globalization trends, new cross-disciplinary interactions, demographic shifts, and changing organizational structures. Colleges, universities, and organizations such as ABET, Inc., the National Academy of Engineering (NAE), and the National Science Foundation (NSF) are leading the charge to improve the alignment of engineering education with the demands of professional practice in response to these trends, potentially revolutionizing how current and future engineers are prepared as innovators, leaders, and change agents. Yet, not much is known about the diverse and multi-faceted realities of modern engineering practice and how this knowledge can be used to improve the education and training of engineers across career stages. Through presentations, networking opportunities, and group discussions, the special session will focus on using research on engineering practice to transform engineering education and the workforce.
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Research on engineering practice: Catalyzing a scholarly community.
This highly interactive special session has two goals: developing a deeper understanding of current research on engineering practice, and connecting and growing a diverse and vibrant scholarly community interested in this topic. There has arguably never been a more exciting time to examine engineering practice. In addition to a strong employment outlook for most engineering specialties, engineering careers are being reshaped and reimagined by rapid technological change, intensified globalization trends, new cross-disciplinary interactions, demographic shifts, and changing organizational structures. Colleges, universities, and organizations such as ABET, Inc., the National Academy of Engineering (NAE), and the National Science Foundation (NSF) are leading the charge to improve the alignment of engineering education with the demands of professional practice in response to these trends, potentially revolutionizing how current and future engineers are prepared as innovators, leaders, and change agents. Yet, not much is known about the diverse and multi-faceted realities of modern engineering practice and how this knowledge can be used to improve the education and training of engineers across career stages. Through presentations, networking opportunities, and group discussions, the special session will focus on using research on engineering practice to transform engineering education and the workforce.
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- Award ID(s):
- 1854814
- NSF-PAR ID:
- 10094399
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Proceedings of the Frontiers in Education (FIE) Conference
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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This highly interactive special session has two goals: developing a deeper understanding of current research on engineering practice, and connecting and growing a diverse and vibrant scholarly community interested in this topic. There has arguably never been a more exciting time to examine engineering practice. In addition to a strong employment outlook for most engineering specialties, engineering careers are being reshaped and reimagined by rapid technological change, intensified globalization trends, new cross-disciplinary interactions, demographic shifts, and changing organizational structures. Colleges, universities, and organizations such as ABET, Inc., the National Academy of Engineering (NAE), and the National Science Foundation (NSF) are leading the charge to improve the alignment of engineering education with the demands of professional practice in response to these trends, potentially revolutionizing how current and future engineers are prepared as innovators, leaders, and change agents. Yet, not much is known about the diverse and multi-faceted realities of modern engineering practice and how this knowledge can be used to improve the education and training of engineers across career stages. Through presentations, networking opportunities, and group discussions, the special session will focus on using research on engineering practice to transform engineering education and the workforce.more » « less
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null (Ed.)At the start of their work for the National Science Foundation’s Revolutionizing Engineering Departments (RED) Program (IUSE/Professional Formation of Engineers, NSF 19-614), RED teams face a variety of challenges. Not only must they craft a shared vision for their projects and create strategic partnerships across their campuses to move the project forward, they must also form a new team and communicate effectively within the team. Our work with RED teams over the past 5 years has highlighted the common challenges these teams face at the start, and for that reason, we have developed the RED Start Up Session, a ½ day workshop that establishes best practices for RED teams’ work and allows for early successes in these five year projects. As the RED Participatory Action Research team (REDPAR)--comprised of individuals from Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology and the University of Washington--we have taken the research data collected as we work with RED teams and translated it into practical strategies that can benefit RED teams as they embark on their projects. This presentation will focus on the content and organization of the Start Up Session and how these lessons learned can contribute to the furthering of the goals of the RED program: to design “revolutionary new approaches to engineering education,” focusing on “organizational and cultural change within the departments, involving students, faculty, staff, and industry in rethinking what it means to provide an engineering program.” We see the Start Up Session as an important first step in the RED team establishing an identity as a team and learning how to work effectively together. We also encourage new RED teams to learn from the past, through a panel discussion with current RED team members who fill various roles on the teams: engineering education researcher, project manager, project PI, disciplinary faculty, social scientist, and others. By presenting our findings from the Start Up Session at ASEE, we believe we can contribute to the national conversation regarding change in engineering education as it is evidenced in the RED team’s work.more » « less
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Designing a Curriculum to Broaden Middle School Students’ Ideas and Interest in Engineering As the 21st century progresses, engineers will play critical roles in addressing complex societal problems such as climate change and nutrient pollution. Research has shown that more diverse teams lead to more creative and effective solutions (Smith-Doerr et al., 2017). However, while some progress has been made in increasing the number of women and people of color, 83% of employed engineers are male and 68% of engineers are white (NSF & NCSES, 2019). Traditional K–12 approaches to engineering often emphasize construction using a trial-and-error approach (ASEE, 2020). Although this approach may appeal to some students, it may alienate other students who then view engineering simply as “building things.” Designing engineering experiences that broaden students’ ideas about engineering, may help diversify the students entering the engineering pipeline. To this end, we developed Solving Community Problems with Engineering (SCoPE), an engineering curriculum that engages seventh-grade students in a three-week capstone project focusing on nutrient pollution in their local watershed. SCoPE engages students with the problem through local news articles about nutrient pollution and images of algae covered lakes, which then drives the investigation into the detrimental processes caused by excess nutrients entering bodies of water from sources such as fertilizer and wastewater. Students research the sources of nutrient pollution and potential solutions, and use simulations to investigate key variables and optimize the types of strategies for effectively decreasing and managing nutrient pollution to help develop their plans. Throughout the development process, we worked with a middle school STEM teacher to ensure the unit builds upon the science curriculum and the activities would be engaging and meaningful to students. The problem and location were chosen to illustrate that engineers can solve problems relevant to rural communities. Since people in rural locations tend to remain very connected to their communities throughout their lives, it is important to illustrate that engineering could be a relevant and viable career near home. The SCoPE curriculum was piloted with two teachers and 147 seventh grade students in a rural public school. Surveys and student drawings of engineers before and after implementation of the curriculum were used to characterize changes in students’ interest and beliefs about engineering. After completing the SCoPE curriculum, students’ ideas about engineers’ activities and the types of problems they solve were broadened. Students were 53% more likely to believe that engineers can protect the environment and 23% more likely to believe that they can identify problems in the community to solve (p < 0.001). When asked to draw an engineer, students were 1.3 times more likely to include nature/environment/agriculture (p < 0.01) and 3 times more likely to show engineers helping people in the community (p< 0.05) Additionally, while boys’ interest in science and engineering did not significantly change, girls’ interest in engineering and confidence in becoming an engineer significantly increased (Cohen’s D = 0.28, p<0.05). The SCoPE curriculum is available on PBS LearningMedia: https://www.pbslearningmedia.org/collection/solving-community-problems-with-engineering/ This project was funded by NSF through the Division of Engineering Education and Centers, Research in the Formation of Engineers program #202076. References American Society for Engineering Education. (2020). Framework for P-12 Engineering Learning. Washington, DC. DOI: 10.18260/1-100-1153 National Science Foundation, National Center for Science and Engineering Statistics. (2019). Women, Minorities, and Persons with Disabilities in Science and Engineering: 2019. Special Report NSF 17-310. Arlington, VA. https://ncses.nsf.gov/pubs/nsf21321/. Smith-Doerr, L., Alegria, S., & Sacco, T. (2017). How Diversity Matters in the US Science and Engineering Workforce: A Critical Review Considering Integration in Teams, Fields, and Organizational Contexts, Engaging Science, Technology, and Society 3, 139-153.more » « less
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null (Ed.)Amidst growing concerns about a lack of attention to ethics in engineering education and professional practice, a variety of formal course-based interventions and informal or extracurricular programs have been created to improve the social and ethical commitments of engineering graduates. To supplement the formal and informal ethics education received as undergraduate students, engineering professionals often also participate in workplace training and professional development activities on ethics, compliance, and related topics. Despite this preparation, there is growing evidence to suggest that technical professionals are often challenged to navigate ethical situations and dilemmas. Some prior research has focused on assessing the impacts of a variety of learning experiences on students’ understandings of ethics and social responsibility, including the PIs’ prior NSF-funded CCE STEM study which followed engineering students through the four years of their undergraduate studies using both quantitative and qualitative research methods. This prior project explored how the students’ views on these topics changed across demographic groups, over time, between institutions, and due to specific interventions. Yet, there has been little longitudinal research on how these views and perceptions change (or do not change) among engineers during the school-to-work transition. Furthermore, there has been little exploration of how these views are influenced by the professional contexts in which these engineers work, including cultures and norms prevalent in different technical fields, organizations, and industry sectors. This NSF-supported Ethical and Responsible Research (ER2) study responds to these gaps in the literature by asking: RQ1) How do perceptions of ethics and social responsibility change in the transition from undergraduate engineering degree programs to the workplace (or graduate studies), and how are these perceptions shaped or influenced?, and RQ2) How do perceptions of ethics and social responsibility vary depending on a given individual’s engineering discipline/background and current professional setting? This paper gives an overview of the research project, describing in particular the longitudinal, mixed-methods study design which will involve collecting and analyzing data from a large sample of early career engineers. More specifically, we will present the proposed study contexts, timeline, target subject populations, and procedures for quantitative and qualitative data collection and analysis. We will also describe how this study leverages our prior project, thereby allowing unique longitudinal comparisons that span participants’ years as an engineering undergraduate student to their time as an early-career professional. Through this project, we aim to better understand how early career engineers’ perceptions of social and ethical responsibility are shaped by their prior experiences and current professional contexts. This paper will likely be of particular interest to scholars who teach or research engineering ethics, social responsibility, and professional practice.more » « less
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