Background: Undergraduate students consistently struggle with mastering concepts related to thermodynamics. Prior work has shown that haptic technology and intensive hands-on workshops help improve learning outcomes relative to traditional lecture-based thermodynamics instruction. The current study takes a more feasible approach to improving…

Contribution: This study demonstrates the effectiveness of a dedicated soft skills (SSs) course in an electrical engineering (EE) undergraduate program, showing improvements in students' appreciation and satisfaction of expressing most of these skills. Background: SSs, encompassing interpersonal and social competencies, are important for career…

Design processes can be decomposed into several steps, including information acquisition and application. Retrieving prior knowledge and experience is an important method of acquiring design information, thus designers' precedents retrieval styles reflect their design thinking. The obvious difference between industrial (ID) and mechanical design…

Background: Engineers are socialized to value rational approaches to problem solving. A lack of awareness of how engineers use different decision-making approaches is problematic because it perpetuates the ongoing development of inequitable engineering designs and contributes to a lack of inclusion in the field. Although researchers have explored…

This article proposes a method/framework to model and quantify engineer competencies from the point of view of students, teachers, and the market. Design/Methodology/Approach: As this work has a practical nature to solve a real problem related to engineering course design, the applied methodology was design science research (DSR). Limitations of…

Distance learning has become a necessity and a common practice, using electronic devices and the Internet to facilitate online classes and exams. One course in undergraduate electrical engineering is the Digital Signal Processing (DSP) course, which requires exposure to theoretical concepts as well as simulations. In this paper, we propose a…

Current views on the teaching of differential equations (DEs) are shifting towards the use of graphical and numerical methods. Motivated by recent research suggesting that puzzle-based learning (PzBL) can improve the teaching and learning of STEM subjects and by the lack of relevant studies for DEs, we designed two tasks--sophism and paradox--to…

Background: Training both pre - and in-service teachers who are capable of planning and enacting engineering design-based science instruction are critical for integrating engineering into K-12 science curricula. Purpose: This study investigates pre-service teachers' efforts to integrate engineering into their lesson plans. Sample: 13 pre-service…

Preparing engineering undergraduate students for the workforce is a goal of engineering programs. Engineering educators arguably provide students with conceptual understanding of engineering fundamentals; however, few studies focus on how knowledge of these concepts transitions into the engineering field. Concept inventories have been used in…

Engineering design decisions have non-trivial implications, and empathic approaches are one way that engineers can understand and translate the perspectives of diverse stakeholders. Prior literature demonstrates that students must develop empathic skills and beliefs that these skills are important to embody empathic approaches in meaningful ways.…

Machine learning (ML) is increasingly utilized in the development and assurance of safety-critical systems (SCSs) nowadays, much like other complex problems. Safety is the topmost priority in SCS, hence, developers who are working in this area must possess extensive knowledge of both ML and SCS. This article presents a methodical investigation…

Solving ill-structured problems is a complex task that is required of engineers who work in industry. To better prepare undergraduate engineering students for this complex task and their future professional careers, this paper provides an analysis of the results of research focusing on the study of problem-solving processes adopted by civil…

Contribution: Two general rules for calculating, in the time domain, step discontinuities of voltages and currents in electric circuits, combining physical principles and basic mathematical treatment. The two general rules, resulting from a formal method of analysis, provide a straightforward way to update the states of a circuit, immediately…

Background: Both learning and problem solving are major goals of complex problem solving in engineering education. The order of knowledge construction and problem solving in learning through problem solving, however, has not been explained in current literature. Objectives: To understand their relationships, this study compared the effects of…

When the ethical responsibilities of engineers are discussed in classrooms, the focus is usually on microethics, which concentrates on individual decision-making, rather than macroethics, that addresses broad societal concerns. Pandemics (e.g., COVID-19) and natural disasters (e.g., hurricanes, derechos) have presented unique opportunities to…