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This study investigates differences in collaborative behaviors among undergraduate engineering capstone students through a behavioral sorting methodology. Using the Comprehensive Assessment of Team Member Effectiveness Behaviorally Anchored Rating Scale (CATME-B), 25 students from a senior-level interdisciplinary engineering capstone course sorted collaborative behaviors according to their observed frequency in collaborative experiences. The sorting revealed patterns worth further investigation across technical/task-oriented, process-oriented, and interpersonal/social dimensions of collaboration, with variations emerging between demographic groups. Technical behaviors showed consistent observation across the sample, while process-oriented and interpersonal behaviors exhibited notable variability. The initial results suggest that collaborative behaviors may be influenced by sociocultural dynamics, with students adapting their engagement strategies in response to identity-related and culturally situated contexts. This preliminary investigation indicates the need for further research to examine how students’ perceptions and attitudes toward collaborative behaviors influence their engagement in engineering group work; particularly focusing on the relationships between individual beliefs, group contexts, and behavioral choices. Such understanding could inform theoretical models of engineering collaboration and guide the development of evidence-based approaches to collaborative learning. 

The 2024 SEFI conference posed the question, “How can we ensure the highest quality of technical competence while at the same time ensuring that social and environmental responsibility is core to the identity of engineering graduates?” Identity formation is a complex process that has been theorized in many ways. In this workshop, I invited participants to consider Holland and colleagues’ theory of identity as a useful framework for reflecting on our how our participation in engineering education contributes to beliefs about what makes a “real” or the “best” engineer. This theory posits that within our classrooms, students are participating in a complex cultural practice through which they ultimately learn to identify (and be identified) as more or less of an engineer than others. Our everyday classroom practices ultimately function to co-construct 1) shared beliefs about what makes a “good” engineer, and 2) everyone’s relative position in a social hierarchy. Furthermore, identify development is theorized to include both social forces (i.e., rules and guidelines that influence how people behave in a social space) and individual agency (i.e., we are not just carbon copies of culture or norms because our actions shape the culture and norms). Understanding identity development as such empowers us to be intentional with our own participation in identity construction by providing theoretical entry points for conveying the value of social responsibility. The usefulness of this particular identity theory to ideate strategies for integrating social responsibility into students’ engineering identities has been corroborated by the empirical findings of our U.S.-based engineering education research. During this workshop, we utilized the theory to draw out existing or future concrete practices that each of us, given our unique global and institutional contexts, are motivated to enact in support of social responsibility as core to engineering. Specifically, our interactions culminated with answering the following question: What is one concrete way I can be intentional in how I participate in identity co-construction? Participant responses to this prompt are presented directly. 

The notion of being smart is a concept that underpins the culture of engineering classrooms. That said, it is a topic that is not discussed or addressed by educators directly. Through this special session, we aim to give light to the concept of smartness and the problematic and oppressive practices that result from it given the extent literature on the topic including our own research into the domain. With participants, we aim to generate practical approaches to addressing smartness that work in a variety of contexts to broaden participation in engineering via more inclusive classrooms. 

This project explores the collaborative skills occurring within engineering education and practice. While technical competence is crucial, collaborative skills are paramount in engineering enterprises, and current evidence suggests working in teams does not ensure the development of effective collaboration behaviors among engineers. Yet, lifelong learning requires engineers to navigate complex interactions within diverse design teams, emphasizing the need for a nuanced understanding of collaboration. To address this gap, our study aims to identify the least-performed effective collaboration behaviors in engineering capstone teams and explore the reasons behind this occurrence. This investigation is part of a larger study that employs the Reasoned Action Approach where we seek to uncover individual beliefs and factors influencing the performance of target behaviors. These insights serve as tools for engineers, students, educators, and managers to assess and enhance collaboration skills, fostering effective teamwork in engineering settings. Ultimately, this overarching goal of advancing professional formation in engineering distills into the key question: Why do individuals exhibit variations in performing effective collaboration behaviors in engineering teams? 

This project explores the collaborative skills occurring within engineering education and practice. While technical competence is crucial, collaborative skills are paramount in engineering enterprises, and current evidence suggests working in teams does not ensure the development of effective collaboration behaviors among engineers. Yet, lifelong learning requires engineers to navigate complex interactions within diverse design teams, emphasizing the need for a nuanced understanding of collaboration. To address this gap, our study aims to identify the least-performed effective collaboration behaviors in engineering capstone teams and explore the reasons behind this occurrence. This investigation is part of a larger study that employs the Reasoned Action Approach1 where we seek to uncover individual beliefs and factors influencing the performance of target behaviors. These insights serve as tools for engineers, students, educators, and managers to assess and enhance collaboration skills, fostering effective teamwork in engineering settings. Ultimately, this overarching goal of advancing professional formation in engineering distills into the key question: Why do individuals exhibit variations in performing effective collaboration behaviors in engineering teams? 

What does it mean to be “smart” in an engineering classroom? How do engineering students make sense of themselves a s smart enough to be engineers? The development of shared beliefs about what it means to be “smart” and where you rank compared to others is a result of smartness as a cultural practice. With the cultural practice framing, smartness i s not a noun – something that someone possesses a certain amount of, but rather it is a verb – something that is actively happening to and with others in context. The interactions between individuals result in shared beliefs about what it means to be smart. Specifically, when we participate in smartness as a cultural practice, we learn what is recognized as smart and our place in the relative hierarchy of smartness. 

In the chemical industry, judgements related to process safety hold the potential to lead to process incidents, such as chemical leaks and mechanical failures that can have severe consequences. Many of these judgements require engineers to juxtapose competing criteria including leadership, production, relationships, safety, spending, and time. For such judgements, numerous factors are at play, including our beliefs about ourselves and our intention to behave a particular way. As part of a larger research project funded through the NSF Research in the Formation of Engineers (RFE) program, we are working to investigate: 1) What do engineering students and practitioners believe about how they approach making judgements?, 2) how do they behave when actually making judgements?, 3) what gap, if any, exists between their beliefs and behavior?, and 4) how do they reconcile any gaps between their beliefs and behaviors? After completion of the first year of the project, we have interviewed fourteen senior chemical engineering students about how they believe they will approach process safety judgements in scenarios where they must juxtapose competing criteria. During our initial analysis to characterize students’ espoused beliefs about their approaches towards making process safety judgements, we identified an emergent finding about how they justify these beliefs. We present this emergent finding by answering the research question: How do undergraduate engineering students justify their beliefs about how they will make judgements in process safety contexts? When we asked students to provide reasoning for the beliefs they conveyed about how they will approach process safety judgements, we found that overwhelmingly, students used their lived experiences in different work settings to justify their beliefs. These lived experiences included engineering co-ops, internships, volunteer, and retail work. This emergent finding suggests that students’ lived experiences may be greatly informing their espoused beliefs about how they will approach process safety judgements. This paper will also briefly discuss implications for process safety educators on how they may incorporate lived experiences, or other ways of knowing, so students may develop more robust beliefs about process safety judgements. 

In the chemical industry, judgements related to process safety hold the potential to lead to process incidents, such as chemical leaks and mechanical failures that can have severe consequences. Many of these judgements require engineers to juxtapose competing criteria including leadership, production, relationships, safety, spending, and time. For such judgements, numerous factors are at play, including our beliefs about ourselves and our intention to behave a particular way. As part of a larger research project funded through the NSF Research in the Formation of Engineers (RFE) program, we are working to investigate: 1) What do engineering students and practitioners believe about how they approach making judgements?, 2) how do they behave when actually making judgements?, 3) what gap, if any, exists between their beliefs and behavior?, and 4) how do they reconcile any gaps between their beliefs and behaviors? After completion of the first year of the project, we have interviewed fourteen senior chemical engineering students about how they believe they will approach process safety judgements in scenarios where they must juxtapose competing criteria. During our initial analysis to characterize students’ espoused beliefs about their approaches towards making process safety judgements, we identified an emergent finding about how they justify these beliefs. We present this emergent finding by answering the research question: How do undergraduate engineering students justify their beliefs about how they will make judgements in process safety contexts? When we asked students to provide reasoning for the beliefs they conveyed about how they will approach process safety judgements, we found that overwhelmingly, students used their lived experiences in different work settings to justify their beliefs. These lived experiences included engineering co-ops, internships, volunteer, and retail work. This emergent finding suggests that students’ lived experiences may be greatly informing their espoused beliefs about how they will approach process safety judgements. This paper will also briefly discuss implications for process safety educators on how they may incorporate lived experiences, or other ways of knowing, so students may develop more robust beliefs about process safety judgements. 

This research paper focuses on comparing engineering students’ beliefs and behaviors related to making process safety judgements. Despite emphasis on process safety education, serious health and safety accidents in the chemical process industry continue to occur. Investigations of major incidents have reported that, in many cases, tension caused by the need to balance several competing criteria was the culprit. While there have been substantial improvements in process safety education, most efforts have focused on preventing incidents through safer design, while few have focused on making process safety judgements in situations that have competing criteria. This pilot study investigates (1) what are engineering students’ beliefs about how they would approach process safety judgements with competing criteria? and (2) what are students’ responses to differences between their beliefs and behaviors in process safety judgements with competing criteria? We interviewed three chemical engineering students to determine their beliefs about making judgements in process safety contexts with competing criteria. Next, the students played through a digital process safety game, Contents Under Pressure (CUP). In CUP, students make process safety judgements in a digital chemical plant setting, and the judgements they encounter include a variety of criteria juxtapositions. Upon completing CUP, students were asked to reflect on their criteria priorities as they believed they played CUP through an online survey. GAP Profiles were generated as a way to directly compare initial beliefs, gameplay, and reflection criteria priorities. Finally, students reconciled differences between their beliefs and behaviors through a semi-structured interview, prompting students to think about the cause of the observed differences. In the initial beliefs interviews, we identified themes tied to prioritization of competing criteria. Some students rationalized their prioritizations by aligning them with their perceived priorities of the company, while others overcomplicated proposed hypotheticals in an attempt to find an optimized outcome. None of the participants could understand the link between process safety judgements and relationships, so they tended to devalue this criterion in their prioritizations. After playing CUP, the students communicated a better awareness of how relationships influence process safety judgements. Following gameplay, all participants stated that in-game feedback was critical to the ways in which they made judgements during CUP. Some participants indicated that their behaviors in CUP were more representative of the way they would approach process safety judgements in real life than their responses in the initial interview. This result may suggest that students have difficulty accurately predicting how they will apply process safety criteria in judgements without practicing these priorities in context. Results of this pilot study indicate that using a game-based approach to practice judgements with competing criteria gives students an opportunity to gain awareness about their approaches to process safety judgements and any differences that exist with their formulated beliefs.