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To understand factors that influence successful practitioner participation in meeting the course support needs of instructors, we utilized a survey to conduct an empirical analysis to model the critical success path of practitioners’ support for student development in practitioner-instructor collaborations. Our results indicated that student-related factors are significant and have a moderate influence. Also, instructor-related factors have a significant impact and large effect on student-related factors. Findings can inform the design and management of practitioners’ provision of instructors’ course support needs. These insights aid student development through practitioner-instructor collaborations. 

As a precursor to designing the ConPEC platform for stronger industry-academia collaborations, we investigated factors which instructors would consider when collaborating with practitioners to complement their pedagogical efforts. We found that instructors' considerations were influenced by students' preferences and bias, students' career and development, student learning outcomes, curriculum structure, as well as ethnic and gender diversity. Findings inform input for the design of web-based collaborative networks. Also, this study contributes to expanding literature on industry-academia collaborations for workforce development. 

To understand demographic variations and cater for varying user preferences, we evaluated instructors’ demographic variations on a web-based platform for connecting instructors with practitioners for student development. Both objective and subjective measures were adopted to investigate age- and gender-related differences in gaze behavior, task completion time, perceived cognitive load, perceived usability, and trust. Compared to male instructors, female instructors had higher fixation counts, longer task completion times, and statistically significant longer fixation duration. Female instructors gave higher usability and trust ratings but reported a higher cognitive workload. Compared to Generation Y instructors, Generation X instructors had longer fixation duration, higher fixation count, and statistically longer task completion time. Generation X instructors reported high cognitive load, lower usability, and trust ratings. The study also reveals demographic differences in parameters that instructors focused on while connecting with practitioners via a web platform. It is important that web designers consider gender and age differences and preferences, as well as other demographic variations, when designing web platforms. 

We designed and developed our web platform, ConPEC, to bridge the gap between instructors and practitioners in the construction industry. Subsequently, we recruited 20 construction instructors to interact with the ConPEC platform for evaluation purposes. Results showed the potential for ConPEC to enhance academic pedagogy by providing instructors with improved access to practitioners and fostering a blend of theory and practical knowledge needed in industry. Users perceived ConPEC as useful, user-friendly, and likely to be adopted. 

The construction industry is rapidly changing due to the greater adoption of innovations and technology. This has necessitated changes in the competencies that the industry demands from new graduates. For academia to meet the changing needs of the industry, the inputs of practitioners are needed to complement academic pedagogical efforts. This study leverages the potential of Web 2.0 to develop a web platform called ConPEC to facilitate instructor-practitioner collaborations for enhancing student learning. ConPEC is aimed at providing instructors with equitable access to practitioners, increasing the participation of practitioners in instructors' pedagogical efforts, and enabling greater interaction of students with their communities of practice (CoP). These could facilitate achieving a proper blend of theory and practice in construction engineering education as well as ensure that students possess the competencies that the industry demands. This study demonstrates the efficacy of design principles in designing information systems. This study also demonstrates the usage of the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) to explain and understand practitioners' acceptance of ConPEC. The findings reveal that practitioners perceived ConPEC to be useful, easy to use, and user-friendly. Practitioners’ behavioral intention-to-use ConPEC is significantly influenced by attitude toward usage, perceived ease of use, and trust. Trust also significantly influenced perceived ease of use. However, perceived usefulness has no direct significant influence on practitioners’ behavioral intention-to-use ConPEC. The study uncovers practitioners' acceptance behavior toward ConPEC which could be leveraged for further system development. The study also provides a framework that can be leveraged in diverse domains to develop similar initiatives aimed at addressing skill gaps in fresh graduates. 

The need to prepare students for the workplace, shortage of skilled labor, and fast-paced changes in the industry necessitate improvements in the pedagogical frameworks of educational communities. Practitioners are required to provide practical insights, rigor, and realism to complement academia pedagogic efforts in construction education. However, this is being plagued by several complexities. Leveraging advances in computational techniques, this paper presents the considerations of practitioners and instructors in workforce development collaborations as inputs for a graphical user interface of a technology-driven matching platform for connecting professional and educational communities. Practitioners’ considerations are students and specific course-support related, while instructors’ considerations are related to practitioner suitability, project, and company characteristics. The study contributes to human factors principles in user interface design as well as user-centered design principles by highlighting information requirements of a collaborative network of instructors and practitioners. The findings of this study also provide insights to enhance industry-academia collaborations. 

The construction industry has been a predominantly White/Caucasian Men community with a very low representation of women and people from traditionally marginalized backgrounds. Even though companies have been implementing Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) statements for many years, we still believe it is neither a diverse nor equitable field. To better understand how DEI statements declared by companies have been understood and recognized by employees, a survey was deployed nationwide to understand how professionals in the construction industry perceive their organization's DEI statements or policies. A complete data set was built from 249 participants. 75% identified themselves as men and 25% as women, and nobody identified with other gender identities. More than 80% of participants were White/Caucasian, 4% Black or African American, 4% Hispanic or Latinx, and 6% Asian. Participants are currently working in small (24%), medium (30%), and large (46%) construction and design companies located across The United States. Regarding the number of employees, companies are small, less than 99 employees; medium, between 100 and 499 employees; and large, more than 500 employees. Also, companies were grouped into four main types, building construction companies (67%), transportation construction companies (6%), special trade contractor companies (17%), and design companies (10%). For more than 65% of professionals in the construction industry who participated in this study, DEI was mainly related to proper representation of women and minoritized populations in the workforce; Merit-based transparent recruitment and promotion; equality, social justice, and nondiscrimination policy statement; and equitable payment and compensation. Other factors such as proper representation of women and minoritized populations at the top management level and payment structure transparency did not emerge from the results. We also found that 70% of professionals identified DEI statements in their companies and 30% of professionals did not identify or did not know about DEI statements. Looking at the company size, 85% of professionals in large companies identified DEI statements in their companies, but 71% and 42% of professionals in medium and small companies identified DEI statements in their companies, respectively. According to the company type, more than 80% of professionals working in design companies recognized DEI statements in their companies, but around 60% in construction and special trade companies. We can highlight that large companies have established policies and practices that result in better socialization and recognition of their DEI statements than medium and small companies. Also, construction and special trade companies need to strengthen their DEI statements and increase the representation of women and people from traditionally marginalized backgrounds. Results from this research give an idea about the current state of DEI in the construction industry and would contribute to the current effort to increase the diversity of the nation's construction workforce.