Engineering Commons^™

Teaching In Student-Centred Active Learning Spaces: How Relational, Pedagogical, Spatial, And Technological Aspects Intertwine And Affect The Learning Environment, Guri Sivertsen Korpås, Trine Højberg Andersen, Magnus Strøm Kahrs, Gabrielle Hansen, Kari Anne Flem Røren

Workshops

Higher educational institutions internationally have shown a growing interest in developing learning spaces that support student-centred learning approaches. For engineering education, this development aligns well with an increased emphasis on cross-disciplinarity and a system-thinking approach. However, research and our own experiences as teachers and evaluators of such learning spaces suggest that teachers who enter these learning spaces need support, as the complexity of the teaching situation becomes more apparent, compared to the traditional lecture hall. In this workshop, we will investigate this complexity together with the participants.

Participants can expect to leave the workshop with a better understanding of:

• a …

How To Use New Tools To Integrate Sustainability Into Engineering Teaching, Sarah Jayne Hitt, Jonathan Truslove, Cindy Cooper

Workshops

Recently, three projects have addressed the challenge that while many excellent resources on sustainability education exist, there aren’t many that explicitly guide engineering educators to integrate these into their teaching, or indeed that are intended to upskill engineering academics to be able to deliver this teaching. These projects are the Reimagined Degree Map project undertaken by Engineers Without Borders UK (sponsored by the Royal Academy of Engineering), the Sustainability Toolkit project undertaken by the UK’s Engineering Professors’ Council (sponsored by Siemens and the Royal Academy of Engineering), and the Engineering for One Planet Framework and two companion guides, co-created by …

Supporting Undergraduate Engineering Student Mental Health, Sarah Wilson, Karin Jensen, Jo-Anne Tait

Workshops

No abstract provided.

Empathy In Engineering And Ethics Education: Resources To Support The Engineering Education Global Community, Diana Bairaktarova, Inês Direito

Workshops

No abstract provided.

Exploring The Fabrication Lab Concept For Learning Sustainable Co-Innovation In Industrial Engineering Education – An Action Research Case From Austria, Selim Erol, Alice Grano

Research Papers

According to recent studies, cooperative innovation between universities and industry, especially with small and medium firms, is not as frequent as expected. Case-studies of regional innovation systems have shown that open access to state-of-the-art research infrastructure, services, skills and activities are needed to achieve long-term innovation partnerships. Co-innovation requires particular skills beyond technical knowledge, which are not always addressed in engineering curricula at university. Fab labs are a concept that potentially fosters students in the acquisition of such skills. In this paper, we describe our experiences in designing, building and running a fab lab as a new element for industrial …

Preparing Teachers For Culturally Diverse Engineering Classrooms: Sharing Experiences And Activities, Becky Bergman, Jan Van Maele

Workshops

No abstract provided.

A Crazy Little Thing Called Sustainability, Linda Steuer-Dankert

Research Papers

Achieving the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) set by the United Nations (UN) in 2015 requires global collaboration between different stakeholders. Industry, and in particular engineers who shape industrial developments, have a special role to play as they are confronted with the responsibility to holistically reflect sustainability in industrial processes. This means that, in addition to the technical specifications, engineers must also question the effects of their own actions on an ecological, economic and social level in order to ensure sustainable action and contribute to the achievement of the SDGs. However, this requires competencies that enable engineers to apply all …

Results Of Surveys Among Pupils, Students And Employers On Interests In And Contents Of Study Programmes In Civil Engineering, Geodesy, Environmental Sciences And Sustainable Mobility In Germany, Anke Lohbeck, Karsten Strauch, Markus Oeser

Research Papers

The shortage of skilled workers in the engineering sector threatens the development and sustainable transformation of the economy in Germany. In this context, the current de-cline in the number of first-year students in civil engineering, environmental engineering, geodesy and traffic engineering appears all the more alarming. Surveys which can provide basic data for the elimination of the shortage of skilled workers in engineering and the increase in the number of first-year students in the above-mentioned degree programmes were started surveys among pupils, students and representatives of state authorities in 2022. Furthermore, one of the surveys was used to analyse the …

Changes In Higher Education Communication Practices And Tools - Through The Pandemic Towards New Communication Models, Mikko Ilari Nurminen, Hannu-Matti Järvinen, Jarmo Viteli, Petri Rantanen, Mika Saari

Research Papers

The COVID-19 pandemic has significantly impacted traditional modes of communication in higher education institutions, leading to a shift towards remote communication and digital tools. This scientific paper examines the changes in higher education communication practices and tools resulting from the pandemic. The paper analyzes the challenges and opportunities presented by this shift and the ways in which teachers have applied communication models familiar from contact teaching to distance education. A previous review of published literature on adaptations in higher education institutions identified key factors for a successful transition to novel distance education communication practices and tools. These factors included effective …

Can Students’ Self-Efficacy Beliefs Explain Academic Motivation And Career Intentions?, Anna-Kathrin Wimmer

Research Papers

In our technologized and increasingly complex world, jobs in STEM make a crucial contribution to innovation and sustainability. However, there are still many vacancies in this field. To tackle the shortage of professionals, it is even more important to successfully prepare qualified young people for engineering careers and foster competences that promote innovative and creative solutions. In addition to cognitive abilities, research has shown how self-efficacy, which describes confidence in one's own abilities to successfully overcome obstacles, can influence students’ motivation, interest and therefore academic and vocational training success. Studies show that people with a strong belief in their own …

The Role Of Earth System Literacy In Sustainability Education For Engineers, Sudeshna Basu

Research Papers

Engineers should be able to demonstrate sustainability competencies transcending their specialised discipline. But all cross-disciplinary sustainability competencies are not targeted adequately in engineering education and are often mismatched with competencies required by engineers in their professional roles. Future engineers should have an understanding of the environment alongside technical knowledge, with all engineering design and product showing consideration to sustainability. The study of the Earth system is relevant to the understanding of environmental issues and the interplay between the sub-systems of the Earth (atmosphere, geosphere, biosphere and hydrosphere) . Yet, integration of Earth system literacy in the engineering curriculum has received …

Should Teaching Guides Be Used As Indicators Of Gender Dimension In A University Degree?, Elisabet Mas De Les Valls, Marta Peña, Noelia Olmedo-Torre, Amaia Lusa

Research Papers

In order to achieve a truly equality society, universities are making significant efforts towards gender mainstreaming. One of the main pillars of this approach is the implementation of a gender dimension in teaching. To assess the degree of progress towards this goal, suitable indicators, both qualitative and quantitative, are desirable. Surveys could be used to gather students’ perceptions or educators’ efforts as indicators, but an underutilised source of information is available in the teaching guides. Teaching guides are understood as those open-access documents where the public can find a subject’s description, goals, and contents, among other universityspecific features.The aim of …

Are Engineering Teachers Ready To Leverage The Power Of Play To Teach Transversal Skills?, Siara Isaac, Yousef Jalali, Natascia Petringa, Roland Tormey, Jessica Dehler Zufferey

Research Papers

What conceptions do teachers hold about learning activities to develop students’ transversal skills? This qualitative exploration at a research-intensive engineering school draws on interviews and focus groups to explore teachers’ ideas about developing individual transversal skills. We frame our analysis with a model that distinguishes three phases for skill development: conceptual knowledge (knowing), procedural skills (doing) and meta-cognitive/emotional reflection (learning from doing). We are particularly interested in the potential for play to create favorable conditions for developing transversal skills by enabling (i) focused experiential learning, (ii) low-stakes experimentation, (iii) rapid feedback, (iv) opportunity for reflection.

Study Success And Failure Of Stem Students And The Connection To Their Learning Habits, Fabian Mumenthaler, Patrick Jermann, Cécile Hardebolle, Roland Tormey

Research Papers

With the educational expansion, ever more students start a tertiary degree. At the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, an engineering school, the number of bachelor students increased from 3’713 in 2010 to 6’330 in 2022. However, in Switzerland, a considerable number of students fail to achieve their first university degree – and failure rates are even higher at engineering schools. A weak mathematics background is often identified as the main reason for dropout. In this paper, we are interested to test whether inadequate learning habits are also responsible to some extent for first-year dropouts. To this end, we matched admission …

Sustainable Engineering Education Embedded Curricula Research Project, Anthony Edward Smith, Alfredo Soeiro, Ragna Ann Berge, Tamer Atabarut, John Atkinson, Patricia Caratozzolo

Research Papers

A previous conference paper with case study report findings began this research so as to inform and be of use to the International Association for Continuing Engineering Education (IACEE) institutions and its membership on the importance of embedding sustainability in all engineering education courses from the beginning to the end of the Degree and beyond into Continuing Engineering Education (CEE) . This present project continues to qualitatively research and investigate the extent to which and how Engineering Learning Curricula (ELC) incorporate and embed sustainability as central to the future work practice of all engineers. Specifically, as the project takes a …

Exploring The Reliability, Time Efficiency, And Fairness Of Comparative Judgement In The Admission Of Architecture Students, Lotte Van Den Heuvel, Nina Lotte Bohm

Research Papers

It is common in architecture education to quantify the quality of assignments into grades, often done by one or two teachers using rubrics. However, this can have several downsides. It suggests an objective preciseness that is debatable for the creative assignments in the field of architecture, and the assessment is dependent on the judgement of only one or two people. Comparative judgement (CJ) offers an alternative to rubric-based assessment by applying pairwise comparison to student assignments, resulting in a ranking instead of a grade.

We used a mixed methods approach to compare the reliability, time efficiency, and fairness of CJ …

How Do Teachers Respond To Sustained Change?, Roger Hadgraft, Franziska Trede, Monika Rummler

Research Papers

Higher Education is facing profound shifts. Employers seek graduates who can work effectively with others in rapidly changing contexts, defined by globalisation, diversity, digitalisation, climate change, complexity, a European war, and a recent global pandemic. The latter caused an instantaneous switch to online learning, where academics were forced to conduct their normally face to face classes through video conferencing tools. The calls for sustained change are challenging academics to rethink their traditional teaching roles and to develop new understandings of future-oriented learning methods and goals for their students. This paper describes the research we have conducted into how academics have …

An Embedded Intervention To Support The Development Of Student Feedback Literacy, Kurt Coppens, Lynn Van Den Broeck, Naomi Winstone, Greet Langie

Research Papers

Feedback literacy is an emerging concept. It is seen as an individual competency that facilitates taking an active role in contemporary feedback processes. As such, it is a valuable skill not only in the classroom, but also in students' future professional lives. This paper reports on a qualitative study of a learning intervention embedded in a lab series, aimed at developing first-year engineering students’ feedback literacy. The intervention consists of a short e-learning module, a one-hour workshop, and two peer feedback assignments. The design of this interventional study is based on the comparison of an experimental group with a control …

Engineering Science Students’ Self-Regulation: A Baseline, Shan Tuyaerts, Tinne De Laet, Lynn Van Den Broeck, Greet Langie

Research Papers

Today’s society is characterized by swift technological advancements. Engineers cannot solely rely on what they learned at university, as new technologies pop up quickly. They need to participate in lifelong learning (LLL) in order to keep up with the state-of-the-art. Self-regulation is a core competency for lifelong learning that can be used as a proxy for it in an educational context. This study aims to establish a baseline for engineering students’ self-regulation. Their levels are measured by the Self-Reflection and Insight Scale (SRIS), consisting of three subscales: need for self-reflection, engagement in self-reflection, and insight. 1128 students enrolled at KU …

Disruptions To The “Modeled Minority” In Engineering: Why Do Some Asian American Students Leave Engineering?, Michelle Choi Ausman, Qin Zhu

Research Papers

Asian American students are the largest non-White racial group in US undergraduate engineering, but they are often labeled as the "model minority." This stereotype confines them to STEM majors, limiting their access to diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs. Little attention has been given to why some Asian American students leave engineering. To address this gap, a pilot study using semi-structured interviews aims to explore the reasons behind their decision to leave the field or change their major. The study seeks to contribute to engineering education scholarship by promoting more inclusive learning environments for Asian American students and providing recommendations …

Sustainability Engineering Education – An Outlook On Uk Higher Education Providers, Maria Livada, Nikos Chrysanthopoulos, Nicolau Iralal Morar

Research Papers

The aim of this paper is to assess the extent to which United Kingdom (UK) universities are incorporating sustainability into their engineering curricula. To achieve this, data from the Universities and Colleges Admissions Service (UCAS) and university websites were analysed using a text mining approach. The findings reveal that UK higher education providers are gradually increasing their offerings of Sustainable Engineering (SE) courses at both undergraduate and postgraduate levels. The most prominent sustainability themes integrated into engineering curricula are energy, design, and construction. Furthermore, the analysis of courses and their modules shows that 50% of UK postgraduate sustainable engineering courses …

Experiences And Learning Outcomes Of Using Virtual Reality In Building Services Engineering Education, Juho Posio, Petteri Maljamäki, Marko Haavikko, Tauno Tepsa, Heli Väätäjä

Research Papers

Virtual Reality (VR) is a promising learning environment in vocational and higher education as it enables learning by doing. We developed a digital twin (DT) for learning the most common maintenance procedures of an air-to-water heat pump using game engine technology, targeted for students and professionals in the building services engineering industry. 22 HVAC (heating, ventilation and air conditioning) students participated in a user study to evaluate their experience with the DT, their usage preferences, and learning outcomes. Results of an online posttest questionnaire show that participants found the use of the DT easy and useful for learning maintenance procedures, …

Teamwork Skills Development In Engineering Education: A Holistic Approach, Callum Kimpton, Nicoleta Maynard

Research Papers

Engineering is a profession grounded in teamwork with the need for engineering students and professionals to possess the ability to integrate their work efforts seamlessly and effectively towards a common goal. This in turn necessitates the need for a comprehensive, tailored, and relevant overarching conceptual framework to be constructed to ensure that our subsequent generations of engineers are equipped to efficiently tackle existential societal problems including anthropogenic climate change and the multi-faceted nature of sustainable development. This paper motivates, details, and presents a conceptual framework for implementing successful engineering teams in tertiary engineering projects. The emergent conceptual framework presented is …

Sense Of Belonging Among Technology Students In Finland, Susanna Bairoh, Johanna Naukkarinen

Research Papers

This paper examines Finnish technology students’ belonging in technology. The phenomenon is studied at the level of the field (belonging in the field of technology) and at the level of institution (belonging in one’s study community). The data were collected within the annual student survey conducted by a professional organization for academic engineers in 2022, and analysed statistically. Results suggest that men strongly experience they belong in technology while women express some doubts, and non-binary respondents are even less certain of their belonging. Gender differences in belonging in the field of technology are more prominent than those of belonging in …

Help Them Grow – The Eng-Ist Tool - Supporting Students’ Personal Development Process To Stimulate Lifelong Learning, Una Beagon, Aimee Byrne, Caitriona Depaor, Lynn Van Den Broeck, Rani Dujardin, Sofie Craps, Johanna Naukkarinen

Workshops

No abstract provided.

‘There’S A Machine On The Team’: Employers’ Perspectives On Graduate Employability In Digitised Workplaces, Chris. Winberg, Simon Winberg

Research Papers

The implementation of interconnected digital and cyber-physical technologies across engineering fields is changing the nature of professional work. These new forms of work present both technical and social challenges; it is therefore timely to consider the implications of the digital transformation of work for engineering education. In this study the focus is on the technical and social skills that employers have identified as desirable for productive work practices in digital/cyber-physical environments. The research question guiding the study is: What technical and social skills do employers in digitised/cyber-physical workplaces value in engineering graduates? The study drew on Legitimation Code Theory’s Specialization …

Soft Skills Of Engineering Students, Nael Barakat, Aziz Shekh-Abed

Research Papers

Soft skills are a combination of personal qualities and interpersonal abilities that enable individuals to work effectively with others, communicate clearly, and collectively solve problems. Soft skills are required for effective problem-solving and decision-making. Soft skills, such as communication, teamwork, and empathy, are essential for developing a collaborative culture that encourages high order thinking and building relationships. By developing these soft skills, engineering students can improve their chances of success both in their academic pursuits and in their future careers. The goal of the study was to evaluate soft skills among engineering students, to provide insight to educators that can …

Employment Pathways For Emerging Talent: Evaluating The Certificate In Computer And Data Science (Cds), Andres Felipe Salazar Gomez, Aikaterini Bagiati, Gillian Walsh, Lana Cook, Admir Masic

Research Papers

This research paper presents the results of the first evaluation of the learning experience, challenges and opportunities of the Certificate in Computer and Data Science (CDS). Specifically, it evaluates two different real-life experiential learning opportunities (ELOs): supervised internships and self-guided projects.

MIT Emerging Talent, an initiative that expands upon the efforts of the MIT ReACT (Refugee Action Hub), provides talented learners a platform to advance their skills, leverage their expertise, access a professional career, and become leading change agents in their communities. The CDS is a 12 month-long online learning program that opens education to employment pathways for emerging talent, …

Innovating Pedagogy, Space And Technology In A South African Engineering Classroom, Fatima Mohamed Darsot, Zach Simpson

Research Papers

The use of technology has become ubiquitous in higher education; however, many university teachers, particularly in the global South, are not confident with using technology when teaching. As a result, engineering curricula often maintain the predominance of “chalk and talk” modes of pedagogy, which often leave students disengaged from what they are learning. Technology offers access to new modes of teaching and learning, but needs to be used in pedagogically meaningful ways. Lecturers are required to teach in innovative ways, using innovative technologies, but are required to do so in classrooms designed and built many decades ago. This is problematic …

Academic Procrastination In Engineering Students, Pascal Wilhelm, Jarick Nijman

Research Papers

Procrastination is a common phenomenon in students in higher education. To voluntarily delay an intended course of action despite expecting to be worse off for the delay can affect academic performance, cause study delay, but also lead to frustration and stress. This study set out to explore students’ beliefs about what causes procrastination, the extent to which online education and the use of digital devices affects their level of procrastination, and their coping mechanisms and ideas about the kind of support a study program can offer to mitigate the effects of procrastination. Focus group interviews were conducted with first-, second- …