Science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education programs help to enhance the nation's global competitiveness. Many federal agencies have been involved in administering these programs. Concerns have been raised about the overall effectiveness and efficiency of STEM education programs. GAO examined (1) the number of federal…

This work develops a constructivist grounded theory describing the influence of family and those that serve a role similar to family on the academic decision making of undergraduate first generation in college (FGC) students majoring in engineering. FGC students, in this study, are students with neither parent having attained a bachelor's…

Problem solving skills and abilities are critical in life and more specifically in the engineering field. Unfortunately, significant numbers of South African students who are accessing higher education lack problem solving skills and this results in poor academic performance jeopardizing their progress especially from first to second year. On the…

In recent years major changes have been introduced into the system of higher education in the common European Higher Educational Area (EHEA). On account of the Bologna Process the EHEA is leading to greater compatibility and comparability of the systems of higher education and is making it easier for learners to be mobile and for institutions to…

Spatial skills have been shown to be important to success in an engineering curriculum, and some question if poor spatial skills prevent students from entering STEM fields or if students with weak spatial skills avoid engineering disciplines believed to highly spatially-oriented. Veurink and Hamlin (2011) found that freshmen students entering…

This study has been conducted to show that there is a recent trend in engineering colleges in India that students who are considered to be highly intelligent show poor academic performance during their 1st year. This article is proposed to examine the role of motivation factors such as teaching methods and learning material in the academic…

Students' perceptions of engineering have been documented through studies involving interviews, surveys, and word associations that take a direct approach to asking students about various aspects of their understanding of engineering. Research on perceptions of engineering rarely focuses on how students would portray engineering to others.…

Experiential learning pedagogy is taking a lead in the development of graduate attributes and educational aims as these are of prime importance for society. This paper shows a community service experiential project conducted in China. The project enabled students to serve the affected community in a post-earthquake area by applying their knowledge…

Values-engagement in evaluation involves both describing stakeholder values and prescribing certain values. Describing stakeholder values is common practice in responsive evaluation traditions. Prescribing or advocating particular values is only "explicitly" part of democratic, culturally responsive, critical, and other openly…

In this article we describe a curricular strategy that improves the full range of skillsets critical to capstone success. Improved Capstone (ICap) was developed and implemented across the thermo-fluids topical area in the undergraduate Mechanical Engineering Technology Program at the University of Hartford. ICap experiential courses sequentially…

The engineering profession continues to struggle to attract new talent, in part because it is not well understood by the general public and often viewed in a negative light. Therefore, engineering professionals have called for new approaches promote better understanding and change negative perceptions. One suggested approach is for engineering…

The current emphasis in K-12 education on science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) (Douglas, Iversen, & Kalyandurg, 2004; Sanders, 2009) creates many ways to partner engineering education with these fields. Therefore, it is appropriate to examine the commonalities these fields have with engineering education. Though much of the…

Engineering Management courses are added to a traditional engineering curriculum to enhance the value of an undergraduate's engineering degree. A four-year engineering degree often leaves graduates lacking in business and management acumen. Engineering management education covers topics enhancing the value of new graduates by teaching management…

The call for the integration of ethical considerations in the teaching of science is now firmly on the agenda. Taking as illustrative a science lesson in a pre-service teacher class, the authors consider the roles of STSE (science, technology, society and environment) and the increasingly influential heavily funded STEM (science, technology,…

This study sought to find student perceptions of how the engineering design process is learned and applied by pre-service teachers at the University of Georgia. The course description read "demonstration and hands-on learning, including problem solving, designing, construction and testing of prototypes, and activities that increase aesthetic,…