Joachim Walther

The competence dilemma in engineering education: Moving beyond simple graduate attribute mapping

Abstract A decade ago, major reviews of engineering education in Australia and the USA resulted in a new, outcomes-based approach to program accreditation in engineering. These outcomes are based on a set of Graduate Attributes derived to meet the perceived needs of industry into the future. However, recent reports suggest that engineering graduates may not have the competencies required for contemporary practice, even though program outcomes have been designed to meet the stated needs of industry. This observable gap between education and practice points to a set of underlying causes that we call the competence dilemma in engineering education. This paper reviews the fundamental assumptions on which outcomes-based education is built, in a way that was not considered at the time of the earlier changes to program accreditation. It also critically examines the nature of this perceptual gap between the Graduate Attributes that universities are striving to produce in their graduates and the competencies needed in practice in order to perform satisfactorily in industry. This entails the inclusion of the students’ attitudes and self-concept in the conception of professional competence. This analysis of this competence dilemma suggests a more holistic view of competence formation. On this basis, the paper presents the results of an exploratory study into identifying alternative ways in which students’ competence is formed and influenced in education. The analysis of the empirical study leads to a multi-scale systems model of engineering competence, where the attitudes and self-image are located on a meta-level, and organise and contextualise the individual’s particular set of competencies in a specific work situation. At a time when authorities in both countries are reviewing the operation and success of outcome based education in engineering, this paper points to an evidence-based way forward to address the competence dilemma.

Engineering Education as a Complex System.

This paper presents a theoretical basis for cultivating engineering education as a complex system that will prepare students to think critically and make decisions with regard to poorly understood, ill-structured issues. Integral to this theoretical basis is a solution space construct developed and presented as a benchmark for evaluating problem-solving orientations that emerge within students’ thinking as they progress through an engineering curriculum. It is proposed that the traditional engineering education model, while analytically rigorous, is characterised by properties that, although necessary, are insufficient for preparing students to address complex issues of the twenty-first century. A Synthesis and Design Studio model for engineering education is proposed, which maintains the necessary rigor of analysis within a uniquely complex yet sufficiently structured learning environment.

Steam as Social Practice: Cultivating Creativity in Transdisciplinary Spaces.

12 In the wake of the economic recession and increasing competition from developing economies, science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education has emerged as a national priority. To art educators, however, the pervasiveness and apparent exclusivity of STEM can be viewed as another instance of art education being relegated to the margins of curriculum (Greene, 1995). Taking a different perspective, we find it helpful to look past STEM as a vehicle for promoting economic growth and international competitiveness and view it as a means toward overcoming the compartmentalized disciplinary approach to education (Holley, 2009). Considered in this way, STEM is about collaboration. In an educational setting, this means taking subjects that have previously been taught in isolation and weaving them into an integrated curriculum—a transdisciplinary endeavor that has the potential to lead to exciting and unexpected outcomes that can transcend the traditional goals of disciplinary education to address questions of social practice. Recently there have been calls to expand STEM education to include the arts and design, transforming STEM into STEAM in the K-20 classroom (Maeda, 2013). Like STEM, STEAM education stresses making connections between disciplines that were previously perceived as disparate. This has been conceptualized in different ways, such as: focusing on the creative design process that is fundamental to engineering and art (Bequette & Bequette, 2012); emphasizing the role of creative and synthetic thinking to enhance student interest and learning in science and mathematics; and showing the value in exploring the science and mathematics that underpin different artistic techniques (Wynn & Harris, 2012). In this article, we describe how a collaboration between art education, engineering, and landscape architecture led us to conceptualize STEAM as a social practice that reflects concerns for community engagement and ecological sustainability. Figure 1. An engineering student explains how art offers a different modality of ‘doing’ in a Transdisciplinary Design Studio. OOur nation’s success depends on strengthening America’s role as the world’s engine of discovery and innovation... And that leadership tomorrow depends on how we educate our students today—especially in science, technology, engineering, and math [STEM].

Qualitative research on psychological experience: A starting point for using interpretative phenomenological analysis

This special session invites academic researchers to temporarily adopt the commitments of interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA) in order to gain insight into psychological experiences in engineering education research. In this session, we will introduce participants to IPA as a methodology that is committed to understanding the lived experience of particular phenomenon while also recognizing that the researcher plays an interpretive role in generating such understanding. The participants will gain an introduction to doing IPA to systematically interpret a transcript through multiple iterations of understanding a text. This experiential learning session will be vibrant with focused activities of conducting qualitative analysis and reflecting on the process. Additionally, we will connect the intentional, analytic processes that are practiced to more holistic principles related to quality in interpretive engineering education research. The expected outcome of this session is that participants will have a robust foundation to begin or advance their inquiries using IPA or other forms of qualitative research.

Seeing Experiences of Interdisciplinarity Through Student Artwork

This paper explores visual response methods as a representation of student learning in a college-level interdisciplinary curriculum integrating art and engineering. The visual response methods, specifically visual journals and postcards, are examples of authentic assessment and alternative data collection methods embedded in a mixed-methods (qualitative dominant) practitioner research case study. In the paper, we focus on different means for analyzing these visual responses (e.g., through hermeneutic analysis, document analysis, and narrative analysis) and deliberate the contribution of diverse analysis methods to the researchers’ understanding of students’ experiences of interdisciplinarity in this course.

Exploring shame in engineering education

Individual experiences of inclusion or exclusion are increasingly recognized for their relevance in relation to attracting and retaining diverse students in engineering programs. Referring to this emerging body of work, this article explores the emotion of shame as a psychological and sociological construct that might underpin student experiences of inclusion, exclusion, or belonging in engineering majors. To begin unpacking this underexplored concept in the engineering context, we draw on literature from psychology that conceptualizes shame as a construct of emotion with dynamics that greatly affect an individuals perceived experience. We also examine sociological perspectives on shame that attend to how this emotion exists in an intersubjective reality between an individual and his or her social context. Finally, we review the sparse literature in engineering education that explicitly mentions shame and examine a larger body of literature that suggests how engineering student experiences that can be understood as phenomena related shame. This survey of the literature points to the importance of considering shame in engineering education and, in its synthesis, provides the theoretical basis for future empirical studies.