In recent times the need for educational research dedicated to engineering education has been recognised. This PhD project is a contribution to the development of engineering education scholarship and the growing body of engineering education research. In this project it was recognised that problem solving is a central activity to engineering. However, it was also recognised that the conditions for doing engineering are changing, especially in light of pressing issues of poverty and environmental sustainability that humanity currently faces, and as a consequence, engineering education needs to emphasise problem definition to a greater extent. One mechanism for achieving this, which has been adopted by some engineering educators in recent years, is through courses that explicitly relate engineering to social justice. However, creating this relationship requires critical interdisciplinary thinking that is alien to most engineering students. In this dissertation it is suggested that for engineering students, and more generally, engineers, looking at their practice and profession through a social justice lens might be seen as a threshold that needs to be crossed. By studying the variation present among students in three different courses at three different North American universities, the intention was to understand how students approach and internalise social justice as a perspective on engineering and/or develop their abilities to think critically. A conceptual model to frame the study was developed by combining elements of threshold concept theory and the educational research methodology, phenomenographic variation theory. All three of the courses studied operated on a similar basic pedagogical model, however, the courses were framed differently, with social justice in the foreground or in the background with the focus on, in one case, ethics and in the other, sustainability. All courses studied appeared to be successful in encouraging engineering students to engage in critical thinking and a similar general trend in the development of students’ conceptions of social justice was observed in each of the three courses. However, it does appear that if one is interested in developing an articulated understanding of social justice, with respect to engineering, that an explicit focus on social justice is preferable. / Thesis (Ph.D, Chemical Engineering) -- Queen's University, 2010-04-07 13:12:29.207

Ce document vise à étudier dans une perspective historiographique à la lumière de la théorie des champs de Bourdieu et les représentations sociales de Abric, les processus de configuration, augmentation et saturation de l'ingénierie industrielle comme "champ" d'apprentisage de la discipline en Colombie entre 1950 et 2000. A partir de l'analyse qualitative des entretiens avec les enseignants et des documents de programmes de génie industriel de trois des meilleures universités dans le pays: Universidad Nacional de Colombia à Medellin, Universidad Industrial de Santander à Bucaramanga et Universidad de Los Andes à Bogota.Avec l’instauration du capitalisme et le renforcement de l'industrie générés après la mise en oeuvre du modèle de développement dans les années 1950 qui a commencé la production massive et a déterminé le besoin de nouvelles formes de rationalisation du travail, de façon à permettre la description des métiers, temps et mouvement du travailleur, la mise en place précise du coût de chaque opération et l'établissement de standards de travail et de salaires de production. Par conséquence il y avait un boom économique prématuré en Colombie qui a motivé la division sociale du travail et la demande d'éducationen ingénierie industrielle a grimpé à devenir saturé, le processus de diversification et de stratification a marqué le développement de la discipline et de son camp de formation. Tout cela conduit à envisager la possibilité de nouveaux discours à repenser la discipline de nouveaux modèles de production tels que l'économie équitable et solidaire ou éco-économie. / This paper aims to investigate from a historiographical perspective in light of Bourdieu's field theory and social representations of Abric configuration processes, boom and saturation of industrial engineering as "field" to learn discipline in Colombia between 1950 and 2000 from the qualitative analysis of interviews with teachers and documents of industrial engineering programs from three of the best universities in the country : Universidad Nacional de Colombia in Medellin, Universidad Industrial de Santander in Bucaramanga and Universidad from Los Andes in Bogota. With the settlement of capitalism and strengthening industry generated after the development model implementation around 1950 that started mass production and determined the need for new rationalization work forms, such as, to permit description of trades measuring time and motion of worker, the precise establishment of cost operation and the establishment of work standards and production incentives. Consequently, there was an untimely business boom in Colombia motivated the social division of labor and the demand for education in industrial engineering soared to become saturated, the process of diversification and stratification marked the development of both the discipline and its training camp. All this leads to consider the possibility of new discourses to rethinking from new productions models such as equitable economy or eco-economy. / El presente trabajo pretende indagar desde una perspectiva historiográfica a la luz de la teoría de campos de Bourdieu y de las representaciones sociales de Abric los procesos de configuración, auge y saturación de la ingeniería industrial como “campo” de saber disciplinar en Colombia entre los años 1950 y 2000 a partir del análisis cualitativo de las entrevistas realizadas a los profesores y de los documentos de los programas de ingeniería industrial de tres de las universidades más importantes del país: La Universidad Nacional de Colombia en Medellín, la Universidad Industrial de Santander en Bucaramanga y la Universidad Los Andes en Bogotá. Con el asentamiento del capitalismo y el fortalecimiento industrial generados luego de la implantación del modelo de desarrollo alrededor de 1950 que dió inicio a la producción en masa y determinó la necesidad de adoptar nuevas formas de racionalización del trabajo, tales que permitieran la descripción de oficios, la medición de tiempos y movimientos del trabajador, el establecimiento preciso del costo de cada operación y el establecimiento de estándares de trabajo e incentivos de producción. Se produjo un intempestivo auge empresarial en Colombia que motivó la división social del trabajo y la demanda por educación en ingeniería industrial se disparó hasta llegar a saturarse, los procesos de diversificación y estratificación marcaron el desenvolvimiento tanto de la disciplina como de su campo de formación. Todo lo anterior conlleva a pensar en la posibilidad de repensar nuevos discursos para la disciplina a partir de nuevos modelos de producción, como la economía equitable y solidaria o la eco-economía.

A Educação em Engenharia pode ser definida como o ambiente de inserção da educação superior em engenharia com abordagem sistêmica, visando aprimorar a atividade docente, pois se discute tanto a formação do engenheiro, quanto o saber-fazer dos professores. O objetivo desse trabalho foi verificar que mudanças um processo de reforma curricular pode exercer no modelo de ensino do curso. O método de pesquisa foi um estudo de caso único em um curso de engenharia. Na coleta de dados foram realizados o levantamento dos fatores desencadeadores do processo de mudança, a descrição do processo de reforma curricular e a realização de entrevistas com o corpo docente. Na análise dos dados, utilizou-se o software NVivo® para a organização das falas dos professores e a técnica da análise de conteúdo. Os resultados mostraram que o objetivo geral dessa dissertação foi cumprido: a utilização do instrumento de mapeamento (blueprint) para fazer a síntese do processo mostrou-se eficiente; houve sensibilização dos professores, embora não a ponto de fazerem mudanças significativas nas suas práticas; e foram citados novas práticas de avaliação dos alunos e jogos em sala de aula como exemplos de alterações. Outro resultado relevante foi a proposição de diretrizes para futuras reformas curriculares na engenharia e a necessidade de se fazer novos ciclos de ação dentro do processo de mudança já iniciado no curso. Estas diretrizes devem ser validadas junto aos envolvidos, no futuro. / Engineering Education can be defined as the insertion of higher education environment in engineering with systemic approach, aiming to enhance the teaching activity, since there is a discussion not only about the formation of the engineer, but also about the know-how of teachers. The objective of this work was to verify what changes a process of curriculum reform can exert on the teaching model of the course. The research method was a unique case study in an engineering course. In data collection was carried out the survey of the factors that triggered the process of change, the description of the process of curriculum reform and the realization of interviews with faculty. In data analysis, a software was used for the organization of teachers’lines and, after, also the technique of content analysis. The results showed that the overall objective of this dissertation has been fulfilled: the use of a mapping instrument (blueprint) to make the summary of the process proved to be efficient; teachers were sensitised with the proposal, although not enough to make significant changes in their practices; and new practices for the evaluation of students and classroom games were cited as examples of changes. Another important result was the proposal of guidelines for future engineering curriculum reforms and the need to make new cycles of action within the process of change already started in the course. These guidelines must be validated by the involved in the future.

abstract: The higher education sector is always changing and seeks for robust methodologies to make education more effective and produce higher quality products which are the future professionals. While each student has different preference in learning, numerous forms of instructional strategies are adopted to engage students in varied ways. Existing literature has studied the impacts of various teaching strategies on students’ performance. Previous studies did not figure out if personal characteristics such as honestly, emotionality, etc. have any impacts on the students’ academic performance. This master thesis uses the detailed information gathered through surveying construction students and analyses such data to determine the relationship between various personal factors and understand if there is any relation between students’ academic performance and personal characteristics. This work has used HEXACO factor scales and Emotional Intelligence (EI) as a basis of its analysis. Results of this analysis indicated that there is no significant correlation between students’ academic performance and HEXACO and EI criteria. Although the analysis process tried to provide the most accurate and robust results, but findings could potentially be affected by a number of factors such as excluding some survey responses from data analysis due to confusing responses or being outlier. / Dissertation/Thesis / Masters Thesis Construction Management 2017

A Educação em Engenharia pode ser definida como o ambiente de inserção da educação superior em engenharia com abordagem sistêmica, visando aprimorar a atividade docente, pois se discute tanto a formação do engenheiro, quanto o saber-fazer dos professores. O objetivo desse trabalho foi verificar que mudanças um processo de reforma curricular pode exercer no modelo de ensino do curso. O método de pesquisa foi um estudo de caso único em um curso de engenharia. Na coleta de dados foram realizados o levantamento dos fatores desencadeadores do processo de mudança, a descrição do processo de reforma curricular e a realização de entrevistas com o corpo docente. Na análise dos dados, utilizou-se o software NVivo® para a organização das falas dos professores e a técnica da análise de conteúdo. Os resultados mostraram que o objetivo geral dessa dissertação foi cumprido: a utilização do instrumento de mapeamento (blueprint) para fazer a síntese do processo mostrou-se eficiente; houve sensibilização dos professores, embora não a ponto de fazerem mudanças significativas nas suas práticas; e foram citados novas práticas de avaliação dos alunos e jogos em sala de aula como exemplos de alterações. Outro resultado relevante foi a proposição de diretrizes para futuras reformas curriculares na engenharia e a necessidade de se fazer novos ciclos de ação dentro do processo de mudança já iniciado no curso. Estas diretrizes devem ser validadas junto aos envolvidos, no futuro. / Engineering Education can be defined as the insertion of higher education environment in engineering with systemic approach, aiming to enhance the teaching activity, since there is a discussion not only about the formation of the engineer, but also about the know-how of teachers. The objective of this work was to verify what changes a process of curriculum reform can exert on the teaching model of the course. The research method was a unique case study in an engineering course. In data collection was carried out the survey of the factors that triggered the process of change, the description of the process of curriculum reform and the realization of interviews with faculty. In data analysis, a software was used for the organization of teachers’lines and, after, also the technique of content analysis. The results showed that the overall objective of this dissertation has been fulfilled: the use of a mapping instrument (blueprint) to make the summary of the process proved to be efficient; teachers were sensitised with the proposal, although not enough to make significant changes in their practices; and new practices for the evaluation of students and classroom games were cited as examples of changes. Another important result was the proposal of guidelines for future engineering curriculum reforms and the need to make new cycles of action within the process of change already started in the course. These guidelines must be validated by the involved in the future.

Atualmente, com a globalização da economia e a alta competitividade imposta por mudanças sociais, reforça-se de maneira inigualável a necessidade de se equacionar a questão da capacitação humana no que se refere à qualificação profissional frente às novas exigências. Essa necessidade é imposta pelos desafios diante de uma atuação competente estabelecida por novos padrões de qualidade e produtividade como única forma de atuação competitiva. Novos padrões de desempenho do trabalho, apoiados em critérios de multidisciplinaridade do conhecimento e multifuncionalidade de competências passam a ser exigidos não só dos produtos e serviços mas dos profissionais de engenharia, enquanto agentes de transformação tanto sociais como mercadológicas. Neste trabalho, abordam-se aspectos relativos à situação do ensino de engenharia e às novas exigências de atuação no cenário globalizado com o objetivo de propor uma estrutura de referência que permita avaliar a qualidade do ensino de engenharia em seus vários aspectos. / Nowadays, due to economy globalization and the high competitivity impose by social changes, the necessity of solving the question of human capacity concerning professional qualification facing the new exigencies is reinforced. Such necessity is imposed by the challenges of a competent performance established by new quality and productivity patterns as the only way of competitive performance. New patterns of performance at work based on criteria of multidisciplinarity of competences start to be required not only from products and services, but also from engineering professionals, while agents of social and market transformations. The present paper deals with the aspects concerning the engineering teaching situation and the new exigencies of performance in the globalized background in order to propose a reference structure witch allows evaluating the quality of engineering teaching in its several aspects.

A Educação em Engenharia pode ser definida como o ambiente de inserção da educação superior em engenharia com abordagem sistêmica, visando aprimorar a atividade docente, pois se discute tanto a formação do engenheiro, quanto o saber-fazer dos professores. O objetivo desse trabalho foi verificar que mudanças um processo de reforma curricular pode exercer no modelo de ensino do curso. O método de pesquisa foi um estudo de caso único em um curso de engenharia. Na coleta de dados foram realizados o levantamento dos fatores desencadeadores do processo de mudança, a descrição do processo de reforma curricular e a realização de entrevistas com o corpo docente. Na análise dos dados, utilizou-se o software NVivo® para a organização das falas dos professores e a técnica da análise de conteúdo. Os resultados mostraram que o objetivo geral dessa dissertação foi cumprido: a utilização do instrumento de mapeamento (blueprint) para fazer a síntese do processo mostrou-se eficiente; houve sensibilização dos professores, embora não a ponto de fazerem mudanças significativas nas suas práticas; e foram citados novas práticas de avaliação dos alunos e jogos em sala de aula como exemplos de alterações. Outro resultado relevante foi a proposição de diretrizes para futuras reformas curriculares na engenharia e a necessidade de se fazer novos ciclos de ação dentro do processo de mudança já iniciado no curso. Estas diretrizes devem ser validadas junto aos envolvidos, no futuro. / Engineering Education can be defined as the insertion of higher education environment in engineering with systemic approach, aiming to enhance the teaching activity, since there is a discussion not only about the formation of the engineer, but also about the know-how of teachers. The objective of this work was to verify what changes a process of curriculum reform can exert on the teaching model of the course. The research method was a unique case study in an engineering course. In data collection was carried out the survey of the factors that triggered the process of change, the description of the process of curriculum reform and the realization of interviews with faculty. In data analysis, a software was used for the organization of teachers’lines and, after, also the technique of content analysis. The results showed that the overall objective of this dissertation has been fulfilled: the use of a mapping instrument (blueprint) to make the summary of the process proved to be efficient; teachers were sensitised with the proposal, although not enough to make significant changes in their practices; and new practices for the evaluation of students and classroom games were cited as examples of changes. Another important result was the proposal of guidelines for future engineering curriculum reforms and the need to make new cycles of action within the process of change already started in the course. These guidelines must be validated by the involved in the future.

Engineering educators have called for research on how best to foster and assess the development of collaborative expertise, particularly around engineering design. Mental models are internal representations depicting understanding. The quality of mental models and their similarity amongst group members have been found to influence performance and group processes in a range of disciplines: For example, flight, military, medical, and business teams. The purpose of this thesis was to examine three attributes (content, structure, within-group similarity) of the mental models of first-year undergraduate engineering students hold about both collaboration and engineering design in the context of a course-based engineering design project. Participants were 251 undergraduate engineering students enrolled in a first-year engineering course. Mental models were measured using relatedness ratings. This exploratory study drew upon network analysis indices and used descriptive, correlational, and comparative statistical techniques. Findings indicate (a) monitoring was viewed as the least central collaborative idea represented in the engineering students’ mental models, (b) quality or expertise is indicated by the level of connection pruning in students’ mental models, (c) performance and the quality of mental models of collaboration are associated, and (d) within-group collaborative mental model compatibility was more related to performance than mental model overlap. This study contributes to engineering education by suggesting mental models of the collaborative process are an essential factor to consider when preparing undergraduate engineering students to engage in collaborative engineering design. / Graduate

Includes bibliographical references / The interplay between structure and agency: How Academic Development Programme students 'make their way' through their undergraduate studies in engineering. This study explores and seeks to explain the ways in which a group of Academic Development Programme (ADP) students 'made their way' through their studies in engineering at the University of Cape Town. Underpinned by Bhaskar's realist philosophy of social science, the study uses Margaret Archer's morphogenetic realist social theory to explore the interaction between the university (social and cultural relations) and the students (agential relations). Data was generated through a series of three interviews with each of 12students in the fourth year of their studies and through an analysis of selected university documents. Margaret Archer's morphogenetic approach, which allows for the temporal analytical separation of structure, culture and agency, provides methodological and analytical tools to investigate interactions between their respective emergent properties. It posits that structure and culture predate the actions of agents who transform it. As such, structural and cultural emergent properties condition the situations in which agents find themselves. Furthermore, agents' personal emergent properties, such as corporate agency and reflexivity, allow them to deliberate on their courses of actions. Key to this theoretical approach is the notion that structure and culture do not act in a deterministic way; their properties can only become powers when they are activated by agents' projects. With regard to structure, it was found that the combination of a fragmented curriculum, a shortened examination period, and unfavourable examination timetables all served as potential constraints to students' projects. With regard to culture, it was found that the ideas of mainstream students and lecturers about ADP students exacerbated such ADP students' experiences of marginalisation and exception. Moreover, the study found that the mainly black student enrolment of the Academic Support Programme for Engineering in Cape Town (ASPECT) was experienced by students as racial prejudice. While the findings suggest that students thus found themselves in extremely constrained circumstances, they were also found to have exercised corporate agency and different modes of reflexivity to overcome some of their constraining circumstances. Following an analytical process of retroduction, the study suggests that the ADP, although it facilitated students' entry into the university, simultaneously positioned them within a situational logic of constraining contradiction and as such exacerbated their experiences of exception. Moreover, it is argued that, although the university has made major structural changes to accommodate students from disadvantaged educational backgrounds, the ideas that shape the ADP space perpetuate the view that these students have an educational' deficit'. In conclusion, the study suggests that higher education should reconsider the idea of separate programmes, as their inherent situational logic appears to work against some of their fundamental goals, which are to facilitate redress and to widen participation.

<p>Ongoing efforts seek to develop engineering students into entrepreneurially minded engineers. Often, work to achieve that goal relies on theories drawn from entrepreneurship research from business disciplines to develop interventions and ground research on engineering entrepreneurship education. However, despite repeated warnings by multiple scholars, there has been limited evaluation of whether such theories are appropriate to design interventions or understand the development of students’ entrepreneurial expertise. Theories of entrepreneurship developed in the field of entrepreneurship typically make several assumptions or research design choices pertinent to their usefulness in education. Those assumptions include assuming those studied make no errors, building expert-comparative rather than expert-novice theories, and mythicizing and reifying certain types of entrepreneurs. One such theory, the <i>Theory of Effectuation</i>, is representative of these assumptions as well as being commonly used in entrepreneurship education as a model of correct decision-making. Prior studies have used the Theory of Effectuation to compare experts and students and track students’ growth, but have presumed error free reasoning by both experts and students.</p> <p>My dissertation focuses on empirically evaluating the appropriateness of one assumption from the Theory of Effectuation when applying the theory to engineering students’ decision-making. The assumption I focus on is what errors engineering students make when working on typical early stage entrepreneurship decisions. The existence of such errors would call into question whether the Theory of Effectuation, which does not allow for such errors, can usefully describe engineering students’ decision-making. Interpreting the resulting errors can also help educators inform educators about pre-existing knowledge and beliefs that students bring to entrepreneurship classrooms. This can enable the design of more effective research studies and interventions to improve the state of the field</p> <p>To do so, I completed a verbal protocol study with engineering students at two universities. The verbal protocol used is based on one previously used to develop the Theory of Effectuation and asks participants to think aloud while making decisions typical of an early-stage entrepreneurial venture. I then coded the transcribed data from those protocols for conceptual errors related to business and management concepts. A thematic analysis of the results showed several consistent patterns of errors. Those included misinterpreting market research data as representative of their company’s financial performance, misunderstanding and using faulty analogies to analyze different outside investment options, and perceiving that they would personally receive all proceeds from a company’s sale. In general, two overarching patterns emerged – overestimating the value of their venture and overestimating their control.</p> <p>I end by interpreting the results through three existing areas of literature to provide new knowledge to engineering entrepreneurship educators. First, the patterns of errors appear similar to other misconceptions in that a potential alternative ontology that students rely on may exist in mythicization work, however more evidence is necessary to formally establish that the patterns of errors are in fact ontological miscategorizations. Second, the patterns of errors are strikingly similar to the myths about entrepreneurs that have been identified in media and research that reports on entrepreneurs. This suggests a specific source of students’ preconceptions about entrepreneurship that educators should actively engage with. Third, the findings validate existing theoretical critiques of how entrepreneurship theory is used in engineering education. Specifically, theories developed in entrepreneurship literature appear to be a poor fit for engineering education research because of their embedded assumptions.</p>