It has been said that engineers create that which never was. The university experience is a key component in preparing engineers who support the creation of products and systems that improve the world we live in. The way in which engineers have been trained in universities has changed throughout history in America, moving from an apprentice-like approach to the still-used engineer scientist. Some in industry and academia feel that this model of engineer preparation needs to change in order to better address the complexities of engineering in the 21st century, and help fill a perceived gap between academic preparation and 21st century industrial necessity. A new model for student preparation centering on engineering design called the Live Simulation Based Learning (LSBL) approach is proposed based upon the theories of situated learning, game-based learning, epistemic frames, and accidental competencies. This dissertation discusses the results of a study of the application of LSBL in a two term capstone design class in aerospace engineering aircraft design at Virginia Tech. It includes LSBL's impact on student professional and technical skills in relation to aerospace engineering design practice. Results indicate that the participants found the LSBL experience to be more engaging than the traditional lecture approach and does help students respond and think more like aerospace engineering practicing professionals and thus begin to address the "gap" between academia and industry. / Ph. D.

This report is an exploration of using aquaponics as a means to create a senior capstone design project in a K-12 setting. The relevant world issues related to food production and resource scarcity, as well as the need to integrate STEM subjects in a more interconnected way, justify this project as robust in a high school setting. The report gives details on the design and construction of a backyard aquaponic system, along with a discussion of the performance of this actual system. This experience informs the design of a curriculum for a high school engineering classroom which is presented in outline form. / text

Understanding the reasoning behind the low enrollment and retention rates of Underrepresented Minority (URM) students (African Americans, Hispanic Americans, and Native Americans) in the disciplines of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) has concerned many researchers for decades. Numerous studies have used traditional statistical methods to identify factors that affect and predict student retention. Recently, researchers have relied on using data mining techniques for modeling student retention in higher education [1]. This research has used neural networks for performance modeling in order to obtain an adequate understanding of factors related to first year academic success and retention of URM at Virginia Commonwealth University. This research used feed forward back-propagation architecture for modeling. The student retention model was developed based on fall to fall retention in STEM majors. The overall freshman year GPA was used to model student academic success. Each model was built in two different ways: the first was built using all available student inputs, and the second using an optimized subset of student inputs. The optimized subset of the most relevant features that comes with the student, such as demographic attributes, high school rank, and SAT test scores was formed using genetic algorithms. A further step towards understanding the retention of URM groups in STEM fields was taken by conducting a series of focus groups with participants of an intervention program at VCU. Focus groups were designed to elicit responses from participants for identifying factors that affect their retention the most and provide more knowledge about their first year experiences, academically and socially. Results of the genetic algorithm and focus groups were incorporated into building a hybrid model using the most relevant student inputs. The developed hybrid model is shown to be a valuable tool in analyzing and predicting student academic success and retention. In particular, we have shown that identifying the most relevant student inputs from the student’s perspective can be incorporated with quantitative methodologies to build a tool that can be used and interpreted effectively by people who are related to the field of STEM retention and education. Further, the hybrid model performed comparable to the model developed using the optimized set of inputs that resulted from the genetic algorithm. The GPA prediction hybrid model was tested to determine how well it would predict the GPA for all students, majority students and URM students. The root mean squared error (RMSE) on a 4.0 scale was 0.45 for all students, 0.47 for majority students, and 0.45 for URM students. The hybrid retention model was able to predict student retention correctly for 74% of all students, 79% of majority students and 60% of URM students. The hybrid model’s accuracy was increased 3% compared to the model which used the optimized set of inputs.

Master of Science / Department of Biological & Agricultural Engineering / Stacy Lewis Hutchinson / In 2000, world leaders adopted the United Nations Millennium Declaration in hopes of drastically reducing the amount of people affected by poverty by 2015. One of the goals of the report pledged to “halve the proportion of people who are unable to reach or afford safe drinking water” (Juma, et al., 2001). For developing countries, where the water crisis is most concentrated, the achievement of this goal is nowhere close to being realized. With a world that is becoming increasingly interconnected, the ability to generate change on a global scale and in areas with the most need is attainable. The focus of engineering education today should prepare students to provide sustainable solutions worldwide. Engineering curricula, especially in regions of the world with standardized tests (e.g. United States and Canada) look toward preparing students for licensure. However, a need for more diversified, interdisciplinary education would benefit the future success of engineering designs. Knowledge of appropriate social, economic, and environmental needs must be considered to ensure sustainability and effectiveness of solutions. A case study focused on water quality tests located in Nyeri, Kenya enforces the importance of international pre-professional engineering experience. The study also demonstrates the need for increased efforts needed to achieve the drinking water target outlined by the Millennium Development Goals by 2015. In order for students to be successful, education must be targeted to cover both cultural and technological aspects of designing and especially the externalities associated with international design.

Faculty of Humanities School of Education 8802108f / Phenomenography is an area of research which focuses on identifying and describing the qualitatively different ways in which people understand phenomena in the world around them. In this research, a group of first-year chemical engineering students at the University of the Witwatersrand were interviewed in order to explore their perceptions of certain aspects of the learning context of their compulsory engineering course, Introduction to Process and Materials Engineering. The findings comprise descriptions of their different perceptions concerning the organization, content, teaching and assessment practices in the course as well as their perceptions of certain aspects of constructivism on which the course is based. Students’ perceptions which influence their approach to learning are categorized according to whether or not they encourage a deep approach to learning. Finally, the implications of these findings for future course development are discussed.

Who am I? I am a factory worker, who became a motor mechanic, an electronics technician, chartered engineer, project manager, university course director, associate dean and more recently a PhD student in education. I have a story to tell about lifelong learning from the perspective of the student, and a perspective on engineering education that is very different from many of my colleagues in academia. As my original research aim was to bring a different perspective to education, I also needed to take a different approach to research, and so I began my PhD with a grounded theory style approach, and a reflexive autoethnography of lifelong learning. Through my attempt to explore and justify my arguments for the autoethnographic method, I entered an epistemological rabbit hole that took me far away from the objective, quantitative world of engineering academia. However, through the autoethnographic process, I started to realise that my earlier experience of actually being a practising engineer was often qualitative and subjective, and seemed at odds with the quantitative, objective and theoretical world of engineering academia. I began to question why there was such an apparent disconnect between engineering education and practice, and this became the focus of part 2 of this thesis. This PhD thesis is in two distinct parts. Part 1 contains the autoethnographic elements described above, that led unexpectedly to the focus on engineering education through a Bourdieusian lens, via a number of other possible themes including motivation, social class, and distance learning. I begin part 2 by connecting my autoethnographic description of the disconnect between engineering education and practice, to similar accounts in academic, industrial and institutional literature. My main contribution to knowledge is the application of Bourdieu's theories of social reproduction to an exploration of how this disconnect has been maintained. As Bourdieu has positioned habitus as embodied history, I explore how the historic development of engineering has led to the separation of education and practice into distinct fields, which have in turn influenced the habitus of the agents within those fields. My main argument is that the habitus of the engineering academic is formed within a field where the valued forms of capital are based on scientific research and academic reputation, and this predisposes the academic to doxic beliefs about the nature of engineering that are not reflective of professional practice. However, I also contend that the engineering profession, in response to perceptions of societal attitudes to occupations and professions, also contributes to social reproduction through the cultural capital associated with academia and science.

The purpose of this study was to compare student motivation between two junior high level computational thinking based STEM curricular activities. These two activities were a newly developed quadcopter based curriculum and a VEX based curricular activity developed for Project Lead the Way’s Gateway to Technology – Automation and Robotics course. Student motivation was assessed using an assessment called My Class Activities which broke motivation into four constructs: interest, challenge, choice, and enjoyment. This study assessed students in three schools in a northern Utah school district. Students were assessed after receiving each curriculum. Assessment responses were then coded and analyzed. The results of this study suggested that though the junior high VEX curriculum was more challenging and offered students more choice than the quadcopter curriculum, the teacher delivering the curriculum had more to do with student motivation.

This study deals with the factors which were responsible for the origin of personnel functions in a selected group of industrial organizations in the State of Utah. Although material is available concerning the factors which affected the establishment of personnel functions in the United States in general, there is little information regarding these factors in any one region. For this reason, an area study should be of value. The purpose of this survey was to study the personnel departments in some of the more highly developed industrial organizations of the state of Utah and determine: (1) the factors responsible for the establishment of personnel functions; (2) when these functions were introduced; and (3) what general conclusions could be drawn regarding the factors affecting the origin of personnel functions in the State of Utah on the basis of this survey and background material. The factors affecting the establishment of personnel functions in a particular region need to be carefully considered because industries tend to cluster within a certain region. If data are available as to what factors affect personnel practices within that particular area, then efforts can be made to encourage and direct the initiation and expansion of the activities which are more important to industries needing these services.

The purpose of this research was to investigate the differences of using problem decomposition and problem recomposition among dyads of engineering experts, dyads of engineering seniors, and dyads of engineering freshmen. Fifty participants took part in this study. Ten were engineering design experts, 20 were engineering seniors, and 20 were engineering freshmen. Participants worked in dyads to complete an engineering design challenge within an hour. The entire design process was video and audio recorded. After the design session, members participated in a group interview. This study used protocol analysis as the methodology. Video and audio data were transcribed, segmented, and coded. Two coding systems including the FBS ontology and “levels of the problem” were used in this study. A series of statistical techniques were used to analyze data. Interview data and participants’ design sketches also worked as supplemental data to help answer the research questions. By analyzing the quantitative and qualitative data, it was found that students used less problem decomposition and problem recomposoition than engineer experts in engineering design. This result implies that engineering education should place more importance on teaching problem decomposition and problem recomposition. Students were found to spend less cognitive effort when considering the problem as a whole and interactions between subsystems than engineer experts. In addition, students were also found to spend more cognitive effort when considering details of subsystems. These results showed that students tended to use dept-first decomposition and experts tended to use breadth-first decomposition in engineering design. The use of Function (F), Behavior (B), and Structure (S) among engineering experts, engineering seniors, and engineering freshmen was compared on three levels. Level 1 represents designers consider the problem as an integral whole, Level 2 represents designers consider interactions between subsystems, and Level 3 represents designers consider details of subsystems. The results showed that students used more S on Level 1 and 3 but they used less F on Level 1 than engineering experts. The results imply that engineering curriculum should improve the teaching of problem definition in engineering design because students need to understand the problem before solving it.

The dominant pedagogy for engineering educations still remains chalk and talk despite the large body of education research that demonstrates its ineffectiveness. Traditional approaches to structural engineering education place a heavy emphasis on lecture-based delivery of the theories of structural analysis and the behaviour of common constructions materials. Design projects are given varying emphasis at different institutions, but are frequently left to the final year of the course. Assessment weighting often heavily favours examinations over project work. In recent years, the engineering profession and the bodies responsible for accrediting engineering programs have called for change in assessment and teaching practices.This study proposed that the use of design projects in structural engineering is an effective method of learning that models industrial practice. Projects enable students to understand the synthesis of structural analysis, material behaviour and availability, constructability and economic reality that occurs in the professional practice of structural engineering. To examine effectiveness of project-based learning in structural engineering a case study was undertaken in a third year undergraduate course of a civil engineering program in South Australia.This thesis first provides some background to structural engineering and current practice in structural engineering education. Project-based learning as applied to engineering is also examined. The case study design and data collection are then discussed. The study was developed around a conceptual framework for educational evaluation that differentiates between the intended, implemented, perceived and achieved curriculum. The intended curriculum, defined as the original vision underlying a curriculum, was developed through a literature review that considered the requirements of industry and ++ / engineering accreditation bodies. The degree to which the intended curriculum was successfully implemented in the course was evaluated through video-tapes of lessons, journal records and interviews. The actual learning experiences as perceived or experienced by the students, was evaluated through student journals, interviews and two questionnaires, one of which was also administered to a senior structural engineering industry group to enable a comparison between the student and industry groups perceptions of the importance of certain skills in the engineering profession. The achieved curriculum, defined as the resulting learning outcomes of the students, was also examined. The thesis concludes with a discussion of the findings of the study as well as their significance and limitations and then considers the possible extensions of project-based learning to other areas of engineering and some of the issues that will need to be addressed for this to occur.