Decision making is central to the teaching of engineering, however, little has been written about the teaching decisions of engineering educators. By exploring the processes through which engineering educators make teaching decisions and the factors they consider, the authors can use decision making as a means to understand their teaching…

Decision making is central to the teaching of engineering, however, little has been written about the teaching of engineering educators. The authors believe that engineering educators can benefit from insights into how to better prepare for teaching decisions since they are faced with teaching-related decisions on a daily basis. The findings from…

The Institute for Scholarship on Engineering Education (ISEE) program is one element of the NSF-sponsored Center for the Advancement of Engineering Education (CAEE). Its primary goal is to build a community of engineering education scholars who can think and work across disciplines with an ultimate aim of improving the engineering student…

The purpose of the study was to examine how socialization processes (socialization tactics and proactive behavior) jointly affect socialization content (i.e., what newcomers learn) and adjustment. Longitudinal survey data from 150 business and engineering graduates during their first 7 months of work indicate that: (1) institutionalized…

While formats and conventions of scientific and technical writing vary from field to field, the transcendent requirement is precision, so that the work can be understood and, if necessary, reproduced. Science teachers undoubtedly tell students about the importance of precision in collecting data and analyzing results; what is less commonly…

Courses in product design are offered within the United Kingdom at the University of Brighton and the University of Sussex and in both cases are run within engineering departments alongside traditional engineering courses. This paper outlines some of the intrinsic pedagogic practices that are employed by these, and other, design courses. It…

In this paper, a study is presented in which engineering students at a Danish university developed Continuous Improvement (CI) and innovation capabilities through action research and experiential learning methods. The paper begins with a brief overview of the literature on CI and innovation, followed by an account of how the students designed and…

This article describes an intercultural workshop designed for American students from the University of Rhode Island's International Engineering Program who are going to Germany to work and to study. The activities and goals of the workshop are explained. The outcomes and findings show that participation in the pre-departure intercultural workshop…

In the last 25 years, A-level Mathematics syllabi have changed very considerably, introducing a broader range of application areas but reducing the previous emphasis on classical mechanics. This article describes a baseline survey undertaken to establish in detail the entry levels in mechanics for the cohort of students entering Engineering…

National Board of Accreditation (NBA), a body constituted by the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) is responsible for the accreditation of Technical education programmes in India. NBA evaluates the performance of engineering programmes quantitatively by assessing 70 variables grouped under a set of 8 predefined criteria, and…

Undergraduate students in professional education programs typically rate their clinical or practicum experiences as the most important component of their entire pre-service preparation. This essay addresses the value of students' views regarding the effectiveness of practicum programs. We summarize the views of 546 post-practicum students from…

Using data on upper-division students in the University of California system, we show that two distinct cultures of engagement exist on campus. The culture of engagement in the arts, humanities and social sciences focuses on interaction, participation, and interest in ideas. The culture of engagement in the natural sciences and engineering focuses…

The transportation field has for many years been dominated by engineers and other technical specialists. This article describes the Sustainable Mobility Learning Lab (SMLL), a Web-based tool designed to support classroom and university outreach activities to help initiate a more inclusive, nontechnical discussion about the role of transportation…

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the following question: To what extent would a nationally competitive scholarship program increase science, technology, engineering, or mathematics (STEM) degree awards to our "best and brightest"? This inquiry is prompted by a 2006 report of a National Academy of Sciences (NAS) panel, "Rising Above the…

This article describes a hands-on activity and demonstration developed at the University of Washington and further reined at the University of New Mexico. In this activity, the authors present a real-world problem to the student: Someone has an injured finger joint, and the students in the class need to design an implant to replace it. After…