Search Results for
"Engineering education"

Graduates are exhorted to develop personal skills, qualities, and experiences that enable them to compete in the labor market (Moreau & Leathwood, 2006; McQuid & Lindsay, 2005). This graduate tracer study (GTS) creates an empirical portrait that describes the employment aspects of the graduates of a comprehensive university in the Philippines during the years 2001-2004 to identify policy imperatives for greater relevance of higher education curricula to industry needs and expectations. A sample of 540 randomly selected graduates representing various disciplines participated in this study. Data were gathered through a survey instrument developed by a pool of experts identified by the Commission on Higher education (CHED) in the Philippines. Data were treated in-depth through descriptive and inferential statistics. Graduates of the institution under study pursue advanced studies and other work-related training. The impressive employability profile of comprehensive university graduates to middle level management positions particularly those representing the social behavioral sciences, natural sciences, medical fields, engineering and technology and mass communication is brought about not by the academic honors of the graduates but through capabilities such as knowledge, skills and attitudes used in work places. There is a need to develop a more functional framework for employability where the diversity of fields of study offered in universities are linked to the diversity of employment is also discussed in this paper. © Korean Educational Development Institute 2008.

This article is concerned with the production and employment of technically skilled labour at the intermediate level in South Africa. Three differing labour market pathways to intermediate skilling are identified. These are: the traditional apprenticeship route, the new 'Learnerships' pathway (similar to the 'modern apprenticeship' schemes adopted in the UK) and finally, further education and training college programmes in engineering and related technical fields. It is argued that in sharp contrast to the highly structured conditions of the artisanal 'occupational labour market' of yesteryear, the three training pathways that operate in South Africa today possess few linkages with each other or with employment. In addition, as access to opportunities in the labour market have opened up politically for black South Africans since the advent of democracy in 1994, so access to employment after training has weakened for this social grouping because of the lack of structured linkages between these pathways and employment, and more generally, because of the failure of the 'new South Africa' to create meaningful pathways from school to work.

This paper presents a research project that charts the complex development of engagement and professional identities in a group of international students (including British students) on an MSc course in engineering. A detailed picture of the diversity of students' social, cultural and educational backgrounds at entry is placed against the development of students' own sense of what it means to be an Engineer in an international context. The case study was initiated by a concern for summative assessment outcomes in a number of the modules which were producing a notable bipolar marks distribution in students' final assessments. Students were either achieving highly in the module or clearly demonstrating an inability to work with the concepts and ideas of the module. The aim of the research was to investigate the detail and the nature of this outcome following the introduction of an intensified focus on tutors' own research, amongst other innovations. Through survey, observation and interview data the case study focuses on the sociocultural background to learning in engineering and presents a qualitative finegrained picture of how students build their competences and identities as professional Engineers through engagement with their tutors and their tutors' own research. The initial data on the backgrounds of students presented a fascinating picture of the effects of internationalisation on the composition of student groups in Higher education. Through the student interviews a picture of students constructing both their competences and identities emerged. The research presented to them by their tutors and that they engaged in themselves as part of the course was seen to be a significant factor in their learning and one that distinguished their learning experience in the UK from their previous learning. Students also placed emphasis on the social and personal factors that both supported them in their learning and motivated them to become Engineers in the first instance. Furthermore, early analysis of students' summative assessments indicated that there was a clear impact upon the proportion of students who had made a transition between weak engagement and failure and there was a growing engagement and achievement of threshold performance.

This chapter discusses evolution of the thinking of the Cognition and Technology Group at Vanderbilt about teaching, learning, assessment, technology, and instructional design under the broad heading of their extended work on the principles and practices of Anchored Instruction. It begins by stating a general set of ideas about the characteristics of powerful learning environments and the instructional design principles that are coupled to them. Then in subsequent sections it illustrates how features of the CTGV's evolving work on Anchored Instruction helped lead to and embody those principles. The subsequent sections begin by describing the earliest work on Anchored Instruction, the development of a set of multimedia instructional materials known as the Adventures of Jasper Woodbury. Later sections then describe work that pushed the ideas of Anchored Instruction in new and important directions that led to development of the SMART model and development of a general inquiry-learning model known as STAR.Legacy. An example of extending the Legacy instructional design model to higher education instructional settings is provided in the context of work in the VaNTH Center on bioengineering and biomedical engineering education. The chapter concludes with thoughts regarding what has been learned over time, challenges that remain in the areas of theory, research and practice, and the role of technology in the larger enterprise of connecting theory, research, and instructional design. © 2008 Springer-Verlag US.

ABET, ASEE, and the wider engineering community have long acknowledged the potential benefits of interdisciplinary education, including the opportunity to develop non-technical skills such as communication and teamwork while cultivating a broader awareness of the ethical, societal, historical, and environmental impacts of engineering work. Instructors have encountered many challenges in planning and implementing integrated courses, such as the difficulty of coordinating the teaching methods, content, and learning objectives of different academic disciplines in a finite and already overcrowded curriculum. This paper presents the goals, design approach, implementation, and selected outcomes of one integrated project-based course (using Paul Revere and other case studies to integrate materials science with the history of technology) and uses it to discuss the advantages of disciplinary integration, particularly with respect to improved student self-direction and contextual understanding. Assessments administered during and after class suggest that this integrated course successfully engendered high student motivation along with an increase in student aptitudes over the course of the semester without a corresponding loss of discipline-specific knowledge. The implementation of this integrated course and the evaluation of its outcomes are works in progress, and future assessments are being designed to shed additional light upon these issues. © American Society for engineering education, 2007.

This paper presents the results of a study comparing student learning in an inquiry-based and a traditional course in biotransport. Collaborating learning scientists and biomedical engineers designed and implemented an inquiry-based method of instruction that followed learning principles presented in the National Research Council report "How People Learn" (HPL). In this study, the intervention group was taught a core biomedical engineering course in biotransport following the HPL method. The control group was taught by traditional didactic lecture methods. A primary objective of the study was to identify instructional methods that facilitate the early development of adaptive expertise (AE). AE requires a combination of two types of engineering skills: subject knowledge and the ability to think innovatively in new contexts. Therefore, student learning in biotransport was measured in two dimensions: A pre and posttest measured knowledge acquisition in the domain and development of innovative problem-solving abilities. HPL and traditional students' test scores were compared. Results show that HPL and traditional students made equivalent knowledge gains, but that HPL students demonstrated significantly greater improvement in innovative thinking abilities. We discuss these results in terms of their implications for improving undergraduate engineering education. © 2007 Biomedical engineering Society.

As Technical education strains to find a niche in the educational market place, are teachers suffering from a crisis of confidence? How comfortable are they with the ever-changing curriculum, with the subjects they are teaching and the reasons why they are teaching them? The broadening of the Technical curriculum in secondary schools to include Practical Craft Skills has proved popular with some teachers, while others perceive a drift back to a purely skills based curriculum along with a further deterioration of the status of Technical departments. This paper explores the present state of Technical education in Scotland through the analysis of an online survey of 95 practising teachers and an investigation of employers' entrance requirements for apprenticeships in the engineering and construction industries. The results indicate a degree of conflict among staff regarding the role of Technical education, coupled with limited recognition for Technical subjects among employers. © 2007 Springer Science+Business Media, Inc.

Traditional engineering instruction is deductive, beginning with theories and progressing to the applications of those theories. Alternative teaching approaches are more inductive. Topics are introduced by presenting specific observations, case studies or problems, and theories are taught or the students are helped to discover them only after the need to know them has been established. This study reviews several of the most commonly used inductive teaching methods, including inquiry learning, problem-based learning, project-based learning, case-based teaching, discovery learning, and just-in-time teaching. The paper defines each method, highlights commonalities and specific differences, and reviews research on the effectiveness of the methods. While the strength of the evidence varies from one method to another, inductive methods are consistently found to be at least equal to, and in general more effective than, traditional deductive methods for achieving a broad range of learning outcomes.

A capacity for self-directed, life-long learning is often cited as a critical skill for tomorrow's engineers. The student response to high levels of self-directed learning, however, is not always positive, particularly in introductory level courses. Some students enthusiastically embrace the control over their learning in open-ended situations. Other students, however, become frustrated and disheartened, and ask to be returned to a comfortable state of structure, guidance, and traditional learning. The self-directed knowledge acquisition in technical disciplines has historically been a controversial approach that deserves our close examination, as some students cite self-direction as a positive contributor to learning, while others report decreases in learning due to student control. In this paper, we explore the issues surrounding student directed learning in a project-based introductory materials science course. We present preliminary data on the student responses to open-ended projects and self-guided learning, with particular emphasis on the development of and changes in attitudes and self-perceptions of learning throughout the semester. Possible causes of student responses to self-directed learning are considered, and particular attention is focused on student comfort in self-directed environments and its relation to learning processes. © American Society for engineering education, 2006.

A synthesis of nearly 2,000 articles to help make engineers better educators While a significant body of knowledge has evolved in the field of engineering education over the years, much of the published information has been restricted to scholarly journals and has not found a broad audience. This publication rectifies that situation by reviewing the findings of nearly 2,000 scholarly articles to help engineers become better educators, devise more effective curricula, and be more effective leaders and advocates in curriculum and research development. The author's first objective is to provide an illustrative review of research and development in engineering education since 1960. His second objective is, with the examples given, to encourage the practice of classroom assessment and research, and his third objective is to promote the idea of curriculum leadership. The publication is divided into four main parts: Part I demonstrates how the underpinnings of education----history, philosophy, psychology, sociology----determine the aims and objectives of the curriculum and the curriculum's internal structure, which integrates assessment, content, teaching, and learning. Part II focuses on the curriculum itself, considering such key issues as content organization, trends, and change. A chapter on interdisciplinary and integrated study and a chapter on project and problem-based models of curriculum are included. Part III examines problem solving, creativity, and design. Part IV delves into teaching, assessment, and evaluation, beginning with a chapter on the lecture, cooperative learning, and teamwork The book ends with a brief, insightful forecast of the future of engineering education. Because this is a practical tool and reference for engineers, each chapter is self-contained and may be read independently of the others. Unlike other works in engineering education, which are generally intended for educational researchers, this publication is written not only for researchers in the field of engineering education, but also for all engineers who teach. All readers acquire a host of practical skills and knowledge in the fields of learning, philosophy, sociology, and history as they specifically apply to the process of engineering curriculum improvement and evaluation. © 2005 Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc. All rights reserved..