Background: For engineers who aim to address sustainability challenges, participating in transdisciplinary teams is key. Yet developing transdisciplinary knowledge, including systems thinking, metacognition, and empathic thinking, is not well supported in traditional engineering programs. Purpose: The extent to which selected learning activities…

Background: Sketching exists in many disciplines and varies in how it is assessed, making it challenging to define fundamental sketching skills and the characteristics of a high-quality sketch. For instructors to apply effective strategies for teaching and assessing engineering sketching, a clear summary of the constructs, metrics, and objectives…

Background: To create design solutions experienced engineering designers engage in expert iterative practice. Researchers find that students struggle to learn this critical engineering design practice, particularly when tackling real-world engineering design problems. Purpose/Hypothesis: To improve our ability to teach iteration, this study…

Background: There is clear consensus among influential education reports that an expansive range of intrapersonal (e.g., self-regulation) and interpersonal competencies (e.g., empathy) highly influence educational and career success. Research on teaching and learning these competencies is limited in engineering education. Purpose/Hypothesis: This…

Background: Developing self-directed learning (SDL) skills in engineering students is critical to support life-long learning. This research was conducted at Iron Range Engineering (IRE), an innovative, problem-based learning (PBL) engineering program, which has suffused the concept of metacognition throughout its curriculum. Purpose/Hypotheses:…

Background: Modeling and simulation practices have become commonplace in modern engineering, but in-depth research on the development of modeling and simulation expertise is needed to identify the learning processes involved in successfully acquiring these skills. Purpose: This study investigated student dimensions of expertise when engaged in…

Background: To avoid the spread of COVID-19, most engineering programs rapidly shifted to emergency online education, and prior research has associated online education with academic overload. Before the pandemic, engineering curricula were already packed with content and course assignments, so more studies should explore how the unprecedented…

Background: The use of metacognition is critical to learning, especially in fields such as engineering that involve problem-solving and difficult conceptual material. Due to limitations with current methodological approaches, new methods are needed to investigate engineering students' metacognitive engagement in learning situations that are…

Background: Technical, nonengineering required courses taken at the onset of an engineering degree provide students a foundation for engineering coursework. Students who perform poorly in these foundational courses, even in those tailored to engineering, typically have limited success in engineering. A profile approach may explain why these…