The need for engineers in the workforce continues to grow. Filling this need requires recruiting future engineers to colleges and universities and retaining them through to degree completion. However, this is easier said than done. Universities are tasked with attempting to keep up with the demand for new engineers and companies are searching for new engineers to recruit. One avenue that has been established in the attempt to reach students for engineering is offering engineering or STEM classes in K-12 schools. This dissertation looked at engineering classes offered at the high school level. These courses were analyzed for relationships with the steps in producing new engineers – recruitment and persistence. Historical data was used to study the effect of high school engineering courses on engineering recruitment. The availability of engineering courses in Mississippi high schools was analyzed against the percentage of graduates from those high schools entering the largest engineering school in the state. The influence of high school engineering participation on engineering discipline selection was also studied using a nationwide sample of current undergraduate engineering students. This same survey sample was used to study two factors related to engineering persistence – persistence attitudes and engineering self-efficacy. Analysis found significant relationships between high school engineering courses and engineering recruitment. Engineering availability correlated to a higher percentage of students entering engineering. Participation in these engineering courses was also significantly associated with choice in certain engineering disciplines. However, once students have chosen their path in engineering and entered their undergraduate journey, the high school courses do not impact persistence factors. No relationships were found between high school engineering participation and persistence attitudes or overall engineering self-efficacy.

This research shows that the expansion of cooperative education programs and university-industry partnerships can help to address some of the problems that engineering education in Armenia is facing today. These problems include lack of connections between universities and industry, outdated curricula, shortages of funding for university staff and facilities, and limited success in helping students qualify for job-related demands of the global economy. In order to identify requirements for developing effective cooperative education programs in Armenia, this study analyzes the characteristics and features of highly successful cooperative education programs in the United States that might be applicable to the requirements of Armenian engineering education programs. The lessons learned from international best practices of cooperative education in this research, provide guidelines that can be used to expand cooperative education programs in Armenian engineering education.

The CAR (confront, address, replace) Strategy is an antiracist pedagogy aiming to drive out exclusionary terminology in engineering education. “Master-slave” terminology is still commonplace in engineering education and industry. However, questions have been raised about the negative impacts of such language. Usage of exclusionary terminology such as “master-slave” in academia can make students—especially those who identify as women and/or Black/African-American—feel uncomfortable, potentially evoking Stereotype Threat (Danowitz, 2020) and/or Curriculum Trauma (Buul, 2020). Indeed, prior research shows that students from a number of backgrounds find non-inclusive terminologies such as “master-slave” to be a major problem (Danowitz, 2020). Currently, women-identifying and gender nonbinary students are underrepresented in the engineering industry (ASEE, 2020) while Black/African-American students are underrepresented in the entire higher education system, including engineering fields (NSF, 2019). The CAR Strategy, introduced here, stands for: 1) confront; 2) address; 3) replace and aims to provide a framework for driving out iniquitous terminologies in engineering education such as “master-slave.” The first step is to confront the historical significance of the terminology in question. The second step is to address the technical inaccuracies of the legacy terminology. Lastly, replace the problematic terminology with an optional but recommended replacement. This thesis reports on student perceptions and the effectiveness of The CAR Strategy piloted as a teaching framework in the computer engineering department of Cal Poly. Of 64 students surveyed: 70% either agree or strongly agree that The CAR Strategy is an effective framework for driving out exclusionary terminologies. Amman Asfaw first presented certain portions of this thesis at the virtual 2021 American Society for Engineering Education (ASEE) Annual Conference and Exposition. The original publication’s copyright is held by ASEE (Asfaw, 2021); secondary authors included Storm Randolph, Victoria Siaumau, Yumi Aguilar, Emily Flores, Dr. Jane Lehr, and Dr. Andrew Danowitz.

In order for the United States to regain its global standing in science and engineering, educational and governmental organizations have started to re-emphasize science, technology, engineering, and math content in k-12 classrooms.While some preliminary research has been conducted on student and teacher perceptions related to engineering, there has been little research conducted related to teachers beliefs about the importance of engineering content in their classrooms and relatively few studies have investigated elementary teachers teaching engineering self-efficacy. Current studies have investigated the impact of professional development on teachers teaching engineering self-efficacy but these studies were conducted with limited sample sizes, for relatively short professional development timeframes, with a restricted sample and these studies did not include the implementation component of professional development. Research is needed to not only determine elementary teachers beliefs about the importance of engineering content in their classrooms, but to also investigate if these teachers levels of confidence (teaching engineering self-efficacy) can be increased by exposure to STEM-related professional development and the implementation of engineering activities in their classrooms. The research question in this study was to determine if scored responses from a pre-survey taken by teachers participating in an engineering-related professional development would differ from scored responses on two subsequent post-surveys following the professional development and following implementation on the teachers beliefs about the importance of teaching engineering content at the elementary level and the teachers confidence in the ability to teach engineering concepts at the elementary school level.While the teachers in this study generally had positive beliefs about the importance of teaching engineering at the elementary level, an investigation of the individual nine beliefs items from the survey indicated that they are less likely to consider engineering part of the basics and that it should be taught more frequently. One of the major conclusions from this study was that teachers teaching engineering self-efficacy can be significantly strengthened through participation in a week-long professional development series. Furthermore, while not statistically significant, the implementation of these activities into their classroom can also help improve teachers confidence in their ability to teach engineering-related activities.

In-person engineering instruction relies on the availability of equipment and space. Cost, safety, and scheduling may pose barriers to conducting in-person labs. Virtual experiments may be used to enhance the student experience by, for example, incorporating pre-labs for in-person experiments and providing access to equipment that cannot be safely used in-person. Virtual learning is used in many fields, but there remain questions as to how it should be employed in engineering, an area largely reliant on in-person lab and classroom setups. Earlier studies reviewed the advantages of virtual labs such as demonstrating hard-to-observe phenomena and allowing unlimited trials. This project attempts to leverage these strengths by developing experiments on three virtual platforms: LabVIEW, MATLAB, and Unity. The first version of the Jet Engine Virtual Laboratory is developed in LabVIEW and implemented in UCF's Measurements 1 course during Summer 2020. Student feedback is sought using a survey that suggests positive reception and informs the creation of a MATLAB version of the Jet Engine Virtual Laboratory which is being implemented in Fall 2020. A Unity version of this experiment is in production. This project is expected to fuel the development of more virtual experiments that enhance engineering education at UCF and beyond.

<p>Novice engineers become engineering professionals through the process of professional socialization. An important dimension of professional socialization is moral formation, and engineering education contributes to the initial process of the moral formation of engineering students. However, engineering ethics education has mainly focused on teaching ethical issues and reasoning skills, and the limitation of such approaches has been often pointed out. This dissertation is the result of the exploratory investigations to obtain insights into engineering practitioners’ moral formation, which could eventually lead to knowledge for more effectively facilitating engineering students’ moral formation.  </p> <p><br></p> <p>This dissertation consists of four independent but related studies. The first study (Chapter 2) is a theoretical study to establish a new framework for engineers’ professional socialization, which includes moral formation. To create the framework, I synthesized the ideas of Durkheim, Kohlberg, Hoffman, and Haidt on moral formation, with Durkheim as a common thread, and argued that the moral formation process is influenced and promoted by social discipline, a collective process that utilizes cultural influences, with respect for individual differences.</p> <p><br></p> <p>The following three studies are empirical studies informed by the first theoretical study. The second study explored the political ideologies and moral foundations of engineers in the United States. I examined how engineers’ political ideologies are associated with their moral foundations and how engineers’ political ideologies and moral foundations vary across their employment sectors, organizational positions, and demographic attributes. Especially, the comparison across different employment sectors could provide insights for ethics researchers because the working environment, which can be informed by the dominant thoughts and attitudes of the members of the group, could potentially inform the contents of the social discipline. The third study examined the relationships between engineering professionals’ personality traits, moral foundations, and political ideology, and how these interact with their workplace organizational cultures. The knowledge about the relationships and interactions could provide insights on deepening the understanding of individual differences in the moral formation process. The fourth study explored engineers’ moral narratives, and I introduced four examples. The results showed that individual engineers’ moral narratives are intertwined with their life history as a person, although there are some different approaches to pursuing a moral life. </p> <p><br></p> <p>Each study in this dissertation independently contributes to enhancing the understanding of different aspects of engineers’ moral formation, which is a complex and multifaceted process where engineers’ individual characteristics and the culture of their organizations interact. While the influence of organizational culture on moral behavior has been studied by business ethicists, this dissertation appears to be the first to examine the role of organizational culture in the moral formation of engineers. I discuss the potential opportunity to design a new pedagogy based on this dissertation as future work.    </p>

<p>The act of engineering is synonymous with design. It is a skill that is inherently understood by experienced engineers, but also one of the most difficult topics to teach. For many years, Engineering Design and Graphics has been a required first year course for all engineering students at McMaster University. The course has taught hand-sketching, 3D solid modeling, system simulation, 3D rapid prototyping, and culminated in a design project in gear train design that requires a combination of the core course topics. Students chose their own three-member teams, and lab sections were randomly assigned one of three modalities for completion of the design project: Simulation (SIM) where they produced and verified a design using a simulation tool, Prototyping (PRT) where they used a 3D printer to create a working plastic model of a design, or Simulation and Prototyping (S+P) where they used both tools to complete a design.</p> <p>The design process used in the project represents Kolb's Experiential Learning Cycle (through Concrete Experience, Reflective Observation, Abstract Conceptualization, and Active Experimentation) as well as Bloom's Taxonomy providing opportunities for Cognitive, Affective and Psychomotor skill development.</p> <p>This study examines student self-efficacy and performance outcomes between design project modalities that include simulation and 3D printing. It is hypothesized that students who complete a design project using the Simulation and Prototyping (S+P) modality will show the highest scores in both categories.</p> <p>To measure self-efficacy, a new scale for Engineering Design Self-Efficacy was developed and validated. The project groups were surveyed before and after the completion of the design project. Data collected as part of the study included project individual, project group, and project total grades as well as final course grades. Statistical analysis for survey and performance data was completed using ANOVA to test for differences between the modalities.</p> <p>Results indicated an overall increase in self-efficacy from the start of term to the end of term for all design project modalities. Performance scores for project group and project total grade were highest for students in the Simulation (SIM) modality. There were no significant differences between the modalities for self-efficacy, project individual grade, final exam or final course grade.</p> <p>Based on the findings, engineering course designers with the goal of increasing self-efficacy, professional engagement, and performance should consider supplementing courses with experiential learning exercises such as simulation and prototyping. This study will be relevant for engineering course designers and instructors looking to add simulation or rapid prototyping to first-year engineering design courses.</p> / Master of Applied Science (MASc)

<p dir="ltr">The fluid power industry faces a growing gap between the evolving job requirements and the knowledge and skills possessed by engineering graduates. The study evaluates the potential of virtual reality (VR) as an innovative educational methodology to bridge the gap and enhance fluid power training for mechanical engineering technology students. The research compares the learning experiences and outcomes between a replicated VR fluid power lab and a traditional physical hands-on lab. The VR simulation of a fluid power lab was developed, allowing students to interact with virtual models of key components like gear pumps, pneumatic cylinders, and pressure relief valves. Quantitative and qualitative data was collected through surveys assessing students' task load, overall experience, and perceptions after completing the physical and VR labs. The NASA Task Load Index was used to measure and compare the workload in both lab environments. The results indicate that while the VR lab lacked the tactile realism of the physical lab, it provided several advantages. Students appreciated the ability to visualize internal components, access exploded views, and interact with equipment in novel ways within the VR environment. The multimedia resources and self-directed nature of the VR lab were also noted as benefits. However, technical glitches, unintuitive controls, and physical discomfort detracted from the VR experience for some participants. The study highlights the potential of VR to enhance fluid power education by providing an immersive, scalable alternative to traditional labs. Integrating VR with hands-on learning helps overcome space and equipment limitations while better preparing students for industry roles.</p>

Published Article / The need to increase the number of quality engineering graduates, graduating from South African Universities, informed this study. Based on the findings from the baseline study, conducted prior to the present study, this research seeks to evaluate (using a static, non-equivalent, group design) the effect of Constructionist Computer-Aided Instructional Learning Model (CCAILM) approach, used in some South African Universities, for studying fluid mechanics in mechanical engineering classes. This new learning model is derived from constructionist learning theory, media-affects-learning hypothesis and multiple representation principle. The results of the data analysis indicate that CCAILM learning approach enhances the learning of fluid mechanics in mechanical engineering classes.

Many researchers in engineering education have studied the engineering curriculum, employability, industrial training, generic skills and gender issues. From a wide spectrum of study, there is a gap around issues of interpersonal skills and enterprise skills in engineering education that has not been studied. Previous study has shown that there is unemployment amongst graduate engineers in Malaysia. This study aimed to assess whether the suggested lack of interpersonal and enterprise skills competencies cause unemployment amongst engineering graduates in Malaysia. This study also intended to appraise whether engineering undergraduates have received a quality work placement appropriate to their learning, knowledge and employability skills and also to create awareness about interpersonal and enterprise skills competencies amongst engineering undergraduates, higher education educators and employers in Malaysia. This study intended to create awareness about the importance of interpersonal and enterprise skills amongst engineers. A mixed method of questionnaire survey and interview was used to access data from final year engineering students and employers in Malaysia. Results from the study have provided evidence that interpersonal and enterprise skills are not a major contributor to unemployment of engineering graduates in Malaysia. This study has created new awareness of the subject that will allow the enhancement of the engineering education curriculum. This study has demonstrated that when interviewing companies for the purposes of research into curriculum it is necessary to have full awareness of their culture and ways of working.