The purpose of this paper is to identify faculty perspectives on the integration of work-related issues in engineering education. A mixed methods approach was used to explore faculty attitudes towards work-related learning, to describe activities related to working life that have been introduced into the curriculum and to identify factors that…

This column presents ideas and techniques to enhance science teaching. This month's issue describes preservice elementary teachers learning engineering principles from engineers. Few elementary teachers have experience with implementing engineering into the classroom. While engineering professional development opportunities for inservice teachers…

This article examines the relationship between academic specialization and student exposure to a range of academic domains of knowledge. It uses a concentration measure--the Herfindahl-Hirschman Index--to investigate whether students who choose single majors or double major are more or less concentrated in nine domains of knowledge most…

In this study, I sought to identify differences in the views and understandings of engineering design among individuals along the learning-to-teach continuum. To do so, I conducted a comprehensive review of literature to determine the various aspects of engineering design described in the fields of professional engineering and engineering…

This dissertation presents multiple studies with the purpose of understanding the connections between undergraduate engineering students' motivations, specifically students' Future Time Perspectives (FTPs) and Self-Regulated Learning (SRL). FTP refers to the views students hold about the future and how their perceptions of current tasks are…

A set of studies is reported describing the demographics, outcomes, and motivations of students who start in engineering and switch their major to engineering technology. There has been extensive research in engineering persistence, but little focus has been given to the "T" in STEM. Most research combines technology with other science…

Piaget's classic work on cognitive development showed that engaging learners in critical discussions with peers about ideas that are "different" than theirs leads to deep conceptual understanding. Implementing such an approach in college-level STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Math) courses has some specific challenges: (a) Short…

Academic achievement is regarded an indicator of the success of individuals, schools, universities and countries. 'Success' is typically measured using performance indicators such as test results, completion rates and other objective measures. By contrast, in this article we explore students' subjective understandings and constructions of success,…

Systematic changes to higher education curriculum typically occur within the extended timeframes of formal curriculum review processes. Programmes need to be reviewed periodically for internal and external accountability or to determine whether the curriculum has lost its coherence due to the accumulative effect of continual small-scale changes.…

Background: While spending to prepare precollege students for engineering at universities increases, the number of engineering graduates continues to decrease, and attrition rates for engineering undergraduates remain high. Universities are motivated to understand the factors contributing to low retention of engineering undergraduates.…

Background: Studies have highlighted the importance for engineers of leadership, adaptability to change, and synthesis of multiple perspectives. Yet only a few studies and instruments have explored the operational definitions of these concepts for engineering undergraduates. Purpose: The goals of this research were to identify observable outcomes…

Synchrophasors, widely used in the monitoring and analysis of power systems, evolved from the phasor method presented by Charles Proteus Steinmetz in 1893. The phasor method is a mathematical method for solving linear sinusoidal steady-state circuits and time-varying electromagnetic fields. This paper traces the history and diffusion of the phasor…

Engineering education focuses chiefly on students' ability to solve problems. While most engineering students are proficient in solving paper questions, they may not be proficient at providing optimal solutions to pragmatic project-based problems that require systematic learning strategy, innovation, problem-solving, and execution. The…

This article describes a reverse-engineering project where female students take a part a hair dryer--giving them an opportunity to see the many different kinds of engineering disciplines involved in making a hairdryer and that they work together. Mechanical Engineer, Lyn Gome, describes her experience leading a group of middle school girls through…

Due to the high market demands for professional engineers in the Arab oil-producing countries, the appetite of Middle Eastern students for high-paying jobs and challenging careers in engineering has sharply increased. As a result, engineering programmes are providing opportunities for more students to enroll on engineering courses through lenient…