This research is a sequential explanatory mixed methods study seeking to understand the influences of mathematics self-efficacy (math SE) on the behavior and attitudes of engineering students with poor math preparation behavior and attitudes in their first college math courses. The quantitative phase of this research assessed the math SE of…

This is a reflective essay on my own experience while learning and teaching in multicultural classroom in higher education in the UK. It emphasizes the indispensable relationship between the two fields of teaching--learning and communication processes in such heterogeneous environment. The essay focuses on how, in such context, teachers are key…

Background: Engineering educators and practitioners increasingly value contextual competence. A psychometrically sound, practical, and useful scale for assessing undergraduate engineering students' contextual competence is needed. Purpose/Hypothesis: This article provides comprehensive evidence of the content, structural, discriminant, and…

Background: Research regarding international female engineering graduate students tends to be aggregated with that about the experiences of international students in the United States or as the struggles of female engineers in engineering disciplines. Therefore, this study was conducted to understand the unique experiences of international female…

Background: Concept inventories (CIs) are commonly used in engineering disciplines to assess students' conceptual understanding and to evaluate instruction, but educators often use CIs without sufficient evidence that a structured approach has been applied to validate inferences about student thinking. Purpose: We propose an analytic framework for…

This paper describes a new Web portal offering experimental labs for ubiquitous training of university engineering students in work-related risk prevention. The Web-accessible computer program simulates the noise and machine vibrations met in the work environment, in a series of virtual laboratories that mimic an actual laboratory and provide the…

Many university-level electrical engineering courses continue to use textbooks as curriculum scaffolds, prescribed texts, and/or reference volumes. Textbook reliance is even more pronounced in courses that teach foundational principles of the discipline, such as introductory circuit theory. This paper reports on the conceptual coverage of…

Understanding the advantages, risks, and financial costs of medical technology is one way that technologically literate citizens can make better-informed decisions regarding their health and medical care. A cascade of advancements in medical imaging technologies (Ulmer & Jansen 2010) offers an exciting backdrop from which to help students…

Can anonymous written feedback collected during classroom assessment activities be used to assess students' cognitive development levels? After library instruction in a first-year engineering design class, students submitted minute papers that included answers to "what they are left wondering." Responses were coded into low, medium and…

Quad charts are a genre frequently used in scientific and technical environments, yet little prior work has evaluated their potential for reinforcing technical communication fundamentals. This article provides background information about quad charts and notes the benefits of implementing quad charts in the classroom. In particular, introducing…

Engineering is not a subject that has historically been taught in elementary schools, but with the emphasis on engineering in the "Next Generation Science Standards," curricula are being developed to explicitly teach engineering content and design. However, many of the scientific investigations already conducted with students have…

To better understand the gap between recent graduates' communication abilities and employers' expectations, the authors surveyed software engineering professionals. They asked which of 67 communication abilities are unimportant for software engineers, which ones are learned on the job, which ones recent graduates are expected to have but lack, and…

This study explored the quality of arguments used by first-year engineering university students enrolled in a traditional physics course dealing with electromagnetic induction and related problem solving where they had to assess whether the electromagnetic induction phenomenon would occur. Their conclusions were analyzed for the relevance of the…

Laboratory-based instruction is a powerful educational tool that engages students in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) disciplines beyond textbook theory. This is true in mechanical engineering education and is often used to provide collegiate-level students a hands-on alternative to course theory. Module-based laboratory…

This paper presents the results of a study that sought to identify what companies mean by the word "leadership" when used a job descriptions for entry-level, full-time engineering positions. Seven years of job posting data was analyzed to first understand the frequency and use of the word "leadership" in job descriptions. Using…