Background: Collaboration--including coordination, communication, and teamwork--is crucial to engineering practice. However, engineering students are often perceived as lacking key collaboration skills at the time of graduation. Purpose: We used structuration theory to explore how differences between students and practitioners' collaboration…

We have implemented a jigsaw framework in our biomedical engineering capstone design course by overlaying strategic consideration groups across our design teams. Collaboration in design courses is usually focused within a design team with some peer feedback, but opportunities to work across teams are often limited. The purpose of this teaching tip…

As more entrepreneurial experiences are integrated into engineering programs, students are faced with new challenges they need help in managing. While previous research has identified entrepreneurial activities that engineering students struggle with, the antecedents of these difficulties have not been directly investigated. Drawing on an…

Background: Although open-ended projects are common in the first and final years of US engineering programs, middle-year courses tend to utilize simpler highly constrained problems. Such problems can elicit knowledge and social practices typical of school activity ("School World"), with limited applicability in real engineering work…

Research has indicated that interprofessional collaboration improves client outcomes, enhances work life, optimizes costs, and allows professionals to tackle complex situations with increased knowledge and creativity. However, the inherent barriers and challenges of developing effective interprofessional teams have been documented in the…

In engineering design, engineers must be able to think creatively, effectively toggling between divergent thinking (developing multiple novel ideas) and convergent thinking (pursuing an appropriate idea using engineering analyses). However, creative thinking is not emphasized in many undergraduate engineering programs. In this empirical study, we…

Background: Even among women who persist in the gender-imbalanced engineering fields, women on engineering design teams tend to take on non-technical roles. Understanding the mechanisms that inform this phenomenon is important for encouraging more women in STEM in order to close the gender gap. Although factors such as self-efficacy, task…

The increase in remote work in the Information and Communication Technology (ICT) industry has introduced the need for research into team collaboration platforms and education using a project-based blended learning approach. This study investigates the perceptions of ICT engineering students (N = 56) at Lapland University of Applied Sciences in…

A quick literature survey shows that Engineering education has been undergoing change since more than a hundred years ago, largely due to the needs of industry. The current drive for change is not very different and comes from the perception that Engineering graduates of today are not able to function effectively in the workplace. This is in part…

Building Information Modeling (BIM) allows the integration of work teams, collaboration, and the generation of intelligent parametric digital models. Therefore, because BIM is a collaborative working methodology, it is not possible to effectively teach BIM without the use of collaborative teamwork. Traditionally, teaching at universities has…

Problem-based learning is an active student-centred approach, which requires engineering students to work together in solving real-world problems. This study aims to review the incorporation of cooperative learning principles in an introductory first-year engineering course that aimed to develop students' group skills while working on…

Engineering education has seen a growing interest in how students regulate their learning as a group in interdisciplinary projects. This study adds to the current literature on social regulation of learning by conducting a comparative case study of three interdisciplinary group projects addressing real-world challenges. Semi-structured qualitative…

Background: During the onset of the COVID-19 crisis, universities rapidly pivoted to online formats and were often unable to adhere to the best practices of online learning highlighted in prior literature. It is well documented that a variety of barriers impeded "normal" educational practices. Purpose/Hypothesis: The purpose of this…

This study contributes to team science and competency development by comparing demonstrated teamwork skills by engineering students participating in disciplinary and cross-disciplinary team projects. Teamwork skills are key competencies necessary to solve complex technical challenges in the workplace. Despite prior efforts to enhance these…

Contribution: This study explores the elements engineering students perceive as important for developing their learner agency in the context of intercultural project-based learning (PBL) teams. Background: The concept of learner agency has recently gained prominence due to its relevance for student-centeredness, autonomy, self-regulation, and…