This study seeks to explore whether a combination of traditional teaching methods with project-based learning (PBL) activities can improve the student learning experience in an engineering course of soil mechanics. As an alternative to the traditional type of assignment that consisted of several textbook problems, a project-based assignment was…

Employers in the engineering sector require certain standard of English proficiency among their employees as the language is widely used for numerous job scopes. In order to understand the current demand of the civil engineering industry on the use of the English language in the workplace, this study was conducted on 20 undergraduates of the Civil…

The general problem is that while technical engineering firms today require entry-level, full-time engineers to possess leadership skills, companies have failed to indicate which leadership competencies are most important in their recruitment and hiring process. This study's contributions could have implications for the long-term career prospects…

Developing honors opportunities for students in engineering programs can be difficult, and the experience at the University of Pittsburgh is no exception. Often these students' degree requirements are so demanding that their opportunities for participating in honors experiences are severely limited. In each of the two semesters of their freshman…

The term "entrepreneurial mindset" is often included in the program objectives of engineering entrepreneurship programs. However, the definition of the term has been argued and debated by many in the community and in the literature, leading to challenges with how to best design assessment of engineering entrepreneurship programs. The…

Genetic modification (GM) science has received considerable pushback from consumers despite the research finding GM products are safe for consumption. This may be partly due to the disconnect between consumers and farms since most consumers are disconnected from the farm by at least three generations. The largest consumer population is composed of…

To be technologically and engineering literate, people should be able to "make" or produce quality solutions to engineering design challenges while recognizing and understanding how to avoid hazards in a broad array of situations when properly using tools, machines, and materials (Haynie, 2009; Gunter, 2007; ITEA/ITEEA, 2000/2002/2007).…

This paper reports the results of a study of engineering students' approaches to an open-ended design problem. To carry out this, sketches and interviews were collected from 9 freshmen (first year) and 10 doctoral engineering students, when they designed solutions for orange squeezers. Sketches and interviews were analysed and mapped with a…

Documentation of ideas and the engineering design process is a critical, daily component of a professional engineer's job. While patent protection is often cited as the primary rationale for documentation, it can also benefit the engineer, the team, company, and stakeholders through creating a more rigorously designed and purposeful solution.…

K-12 standards and curricula are beginning to include engineering design as a key practice within Science Technology Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) education. However, there is little research on how the youngest students engage in engineering design within the elementary classroom. This dissertation focuses on iteration as an essential aspect…

International graduate students serving as teaching assistants constitute a major component of the teaching of undergraduate students at U.S. universities, particularly in engineering. Prior literature on these international teaching assistants (ITAs) generally characterizes their linguistic experiences as challenges. This characterization can be…

In the secondary and high school science program implemented in Turkey in 2018, the importance of engineering and design skills is underlined under domain-specific skills. The purpose of this study, in which case study method, one of the qualitative research methods, is used to examine the engineering design skills of high school students within…

Background: This study focuses on probing preservice technology teachers' cognitive structures and how they construct engineering design in technology-learning activities and explores the effects of infusing an engineering design process into science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) project-based learning to develop preservice…

Background: Few tools or rubrics exist to assess the quality of integrated STEM curricula, and existing tools focus on checklists of characteristics of integrated STEM. While such instruments provide important information about the presence and quality of certain curricular components, they do not assess the level and nature of integration of the…

ABET accreditation has become a well-known standard for academic programs not only in the U.S. but also across the globe. Instantiating the processes to systematically improve the quality of programs is a daunting task for higher education institutions. In this contribution, we provide a detailed process-based framework that can assist aspiring…