Preparing engineering students for interdisciplinary practice in the workplace requires a meaningful understanding of interdisciplinary learning in engineering practice. Such an understanding could help to address the ongoing issues and concerns of the interdisciplinary learning of engineering students. The review of literature on interdisciplinary engineering education raises a major concern of the speculative approach to formulating learning outcomes of interdisciplinary engineering education, which results from the lack of understanding of how practising engineers engage in interdisciplinary learning in their workplaces. This thesis directly addresses this concern by providing the empirical evidence for a number of learning outcomes, and by identifying the associated learning practices found in three cases of interdisciplinary collaborations between engineers and life science practitioners. It also enhances the understanding of interdisciplinary learning in engineering practice by providing a detailed explanation of why engineers are more likely to engage in those learning practices and how they are more likely to achieve the learning outcomes. The main contribution of this thesis is in assembling the identified learning outcomes and the associated learning practices into one theoretical framework that embodies both the description and the explanation of interdisciplinary learning in engineering practice for a particular subclass – engineering for the life sciences. The framework describes interdisciplinary learning in terms of four epistemic practices and four learning outcomes. Additionally, it includes a contingent causal explanation for those practices and outcomes by validating the underlying causal relationships. The findings of this research could inform the formulation of learning outcomes and the deployment of learning practices in interdisciplinary engineering curricular. In addition, the generalisation of the findings to the education domain suggests practices that can help university students in their intellectual development.

<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>

Reports that call for change in engineering education date back to the Mann report (1918), but more recent reports like "The Engineer of 2020" (NAE, 2004), and "Lean Engineering Education," (Flumerfelt et al., 2015) describe the need for engineers who are creative leaders, who have sustainability and ethics skills. Two narrative threads emerge from these reports: that engineering education does not adequately prepare engineers with the skills needed for industry, and that preparation for industry is imperative in order to address problems in society. However, these threads conflict with research from engineering education, science and technology studies, and higher education. There may not be a gap between school and work (Modestino, Shoag and Balance, 2016), and if there is one, it might be a socio-cultural gap that is unreasonable for universities to accept the full responsibility of narrowing. More problematic is that establishing "preparation-for-work" as the purpose for education threatens the goal of preparing students for life outside of work and does not necessarily prepare them to act towards benefit for society. The goal of this study was to critique these narratives using narratives of newcomer engineers' lived experiences. I had two research questions: 1) Who are new engineers asked to be at work? 2) Who do new engineers choose to be in response? I answered these by constructing and analyzing narratives of 12 newcomer engineers, based on interviews collected as part of the Capstone to Work study (Paretti et al., 2021). Using the figured worlds framework of identity development (Holland et al., 1998), I investigated the structures of work, which constrained who newcomers could become, and newcomers' agency, which they used to improvise identities within those constraints. The structures of engineering work that I examined required newcomers to acclimate to ongoing practices at their companies, which did not conform to newcomers' expectations of creative engineering work. Newcomers were objectified: their value and identity was often defined in terms of how much money they made for their company. They were alienated: their engineering problems were rarely defined in terms of their societal impact. The faced sexism: they were denied respectable identities based on gender. In response, some newcomers sought the identity of "asset" for their companies. Other newcomers sought new jobs that would give them opportunities for creativity, growth or societal benefit. And some newcomers worked to create opportunities at their jobs to be who they wanted: leaders, engineers working for environmental benefit, whole persons outside and inside of work. The results of this study suggest limitations of preparation narratives: They do not account for objectification, alienation, and sexism that newcomers face. Engineers also may unfortunately be prepared with stereotypes that do not match the realities of engineering work. This study suggests that we need to educate engineers in a way that recognizes them as human and prepares them for these realities. It also shows us that socio-technical change requires change at the structural level and cannot be limited to changes in education. / Doctor of Philosophy / Reports like "The Engineer of 2020", and "Lean Engineering Education," describe the need for engineers who are creative leaders, and who have sustainability and ethics skills. Engineering education researchers and practitioners use these preparation narratives to justify their funding to grant-awarding institutions, to develop research agendas, and to align their education efforts with these national calls. Two threads emerge from typical preparation narratives: that engineering education does not adequately prepare engineers with the skills needed for industry, and that preparation for industry is necessary for engineering to address societal problems. These, however, conflict with research from engineering education, science and technology studies, and higher education. If there is a gap between school and work, it might be a socio-cultural gap that is unreasonable for universities to accept the full responsibility of narrowing. More problematic is that establishing "preparation-for-work" as the primary purpose of education threatens the goal of preparing students for life outside of work and does not necessarily prepare them to act towards benefit for society. This study critiques these narratives by referring to newcomer engineers' lived experiences and identity development. I had two research questions: 1) Who are new engineers asked to be at work? 2) Who do new engineers choose to be in response? I answered these by constructing and analyzing narratives of 12 newcomer engineers, based on interviews collected as part of the Capstone to Work study. Using the figured worlds framework of identity development, I investigated the structures of work, which constrained who newcomers could become, and newcomers' agency in becoming different kinds of engineers within those constraints. Newcomers were generally required to acclimate to ongoing practices at their companies, which did not conform to their expectations of creative engineering work. Newcomers were objectified: their value and identity was often defined in terms of how much money they made for their company. They were alienated: their engineering problems were rarely defined in terms of their societal impact. The faced sexism: they were denied respectable identities based on gender. In response, some newcomers sought the identity of "asset" for their companies. Other newcomers sought new jobs that would give them opportunities for creativity, growth or societal benefit. And some newcomers worked to create opportunities at their jobs to be who they wanted. The results of this study suggest limitations of preparation narratives: they do not account for objectification, alienation, and sexism that newcomers face. Engineers also may unfortunately be prepared with stereotypes that do not match the realities of engineering work. Engineers should be educated in a way that recognizes them as human and prepares them for the realities of work. The study also confirms that efforts for socio-technical change cannot be limited to educational changes, because of structural constraints.

<p>Developing engineering talent in organizations has long been an issue for industries. Notably, with rapidly changing business models and flattened organizational structures, engineers are required to transition into managerial and leadership roles more quickly than ever before. Yet engineers and employers alike often characterize this as a difficult transition. Further, there remains a lack of empirical research on the nature of engineering managerial work practices. To address these issues, this dissertation aims to holistically uncover the experiences of recently transitioned engineering managers. Specifically, the study investigates the meaning-making and experiences of the participants’ transitional journeys and also addresses related questions such as what changes and challenges they face during the transition and how they navigate the challenges associated with the transition. The study is examined through the lens of work-role transition frameworks and models that emphasize the role of the individual in the transition.</p> <p>In order to address the research objectives, an interpretive qualitative study is employed. To explore and understand the lived experiences of recently transitioned engineering managers, I conducted semi-structured interviews with 16 newly transitioned engineering managers at a Telecom firm in the United States. The interviews were then used to develop narrative accounts of participants describing their journeys of transition. The interviews were also analyzed thematically to identify: a) specific patterns in how the participants experience and make sense of their transition to engineering managerial roles; b) changes experienced by engineers during the transition; c) challenges faced by engineers as they transition to managerial roles, and d) new skills developed by participants to navigate the transition. </p> <p>The findings suggest that most engineers struggled with the transition, especially during the early stages. This difficulty in part stems from the various personal changes that they experience as a result of the transition, changes related to their individual cognitive, physiological, and social aspects. Moreover, the transition experiences are also impacted by both the situational factors of the individual (e.g., demographics, career progression) as well as the organizational factors, including HR policies related to training and development, dual pathway offerings, etc. The findings in this study, in part presented as narratives, are expected to contribute to the field of engineering education and practice by providing insights into the experiences of engineering professionals taking up managerial and leadership roles. More specifically, the narratives are expected to serve as examples and provide inspiration for engineers at a variety of career stages. The thematic findings are also expected to help students, engineering educators, engineering leadership faculty, and industry affiliates understand and improve the managerial transition process and associated role expectations, which for the most part, remain largely unexplored. </p>

Global concerns about the preparedness of engineering Ph.D. students for professional practice are not new. In the U.S., educational reform has focused on the research experiences of students to foster better preparation. Yet, little is known about which aspects of students’ research experiences are essential to prepare them for practice due to the heterogeneity of the experiences, and what opportunities they have in their research to practice being a professional. The goal of this study was to develop and initially validate an instrument that measures students’ perceptions of their research experiences utilizing an ontological theoretical framework that focuses on what it means to become a professional. This framework simplified the heterogeneity and allowed for the investigation of how the research experiences of engineering Ph.D. students are providing opportunities for students to practice being a professional. Four distinct phases of development were utilized to accumulate validity evidence for the instrument: a development phase that focused on question generation and review: an initial pilot test that centered on an Exploratory Factor Analysis on responses (n = 236) from a large Midwestern University; a second pilot test that centered on a Confirmatory Factor Analysis on responses (n = 215) from multiple universities; and a Group Analysis phase that tested statistical differences between groups. Three key results emanated from this work. First, the accumulated validity evidence justifies the intended use of the instrument as a research and program evaluation survey to assess engineering Ph.D. students’ research experiences for opportunities to practice being a professional. Second, the results suggest that, on average, students had fewer opportunities to work with professionals (i.e., take on others’ forms of practice) in their research experiences than other types of opportunities. Third, the results suggest that research experiences can be categorized into those that provide significantly more and significantly fewer opportunities for students to practice being a professional. Higher education tends to focus on the epistemological aspects of professional practice preparation, but utilizing an ontological approach can identify gaps in preparation. Implications of the opportunities identified in this study are discussed for faculty, students, other researchers, instrument users, engineering administrators, and national program administrators, with a focus on providing more opportunities to students to practice being a professional. The utilization of an ontological approach for engineering Ph.D. students’ research experiences, including tangible examples and a call for a new vision for U.S. engineering Ph.D. research experiences, are discussed.

<p>Despite generous funding, the current data shows slow-moving demographical changes in STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) fields, and little to no slowing in the decline of STEM-associated career interests in underserved communities (Leeker, Maxey, Cardella & Hynes, 2019). While a considerable amount has been written about the evaluation of formal pre-college STEM programs, little research has been carried out regarding the success of informal programs to encourage interest in STEM-related careers and develop skills needed to succeed in such environments. </p> <p>A common method of education for elementary school students is to use informal programs, usually with the help of professional mentors. To better understand such programs, the qualitative research that formulates this dissertation is a collective case study of after-school elementary robotics programs in Indiana, the United States, which successfully implemented the State Robotics Initiative (SRI) to provide hands-on STEM learning opportunities. This program relies on mentor expertise for after-school program instruction.<a> The purpose of this study is to investigate mentor involvement in informal STEM programs, including to answer the following research question: How do mentors impact student participants’ advancement of specific engineering skills, including problem-solving, critical thinking, teamwork, and communication?</a></p> <p>In this case study, the researcher collected documents, observed activities involving mentors and students, and interviewed mentors and students to determine how mentor involvement impacts students who participate in informal STEM programs. The researcher then conducted a holistic analysis of the data. To understand how knowledge of STEM skills gained from mentors impacts students, the researcher focused on a coding scheme to correspond with a framework developed by the Partnership for 21st Century Learning (P21). </p> <p><a>Themes, the outcome of coding, were developed by “layering the analysis” (Creswell & Poth, 2017), first by showing unique situations of each participant, followed by grouping by the program of these unique situations into comprehensive groupings. This resulted in three separate cases covering multiple participants that serve as examples of mentor impact of specific STEM skills learned by students in three robotics programs. </a></p> <p>While the results were not analyzed across cases, all programs sought to increase knowledge with students even though each program had a different background and reason for starting the robotics program. In addition, each program had very different demographics and cultural styles, but all showed the integration of STEM and robotics in an afterschool program, with emphasis on problem-solving. This dissertation includes an introduction, literature review, methodology, findings, and a discussion. Recommendations for educators and future researchers are also presented in a final chapter. </p>

<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>

<p>The ability to make informed decisions is a skill considered as one of the 21st century skills and is crucial as part of the critical thinking and problem-solving process in science and engineering. Despite its importance, students (e.g., beginning designers) often struggle with making informed design decisions that are well supported by relevant scientific principles. It is not uncommon to see disconnection between students’ design decisions and their scientific knowledge. This type of disconnection is also described as the “design-science gap”. Different approaches such as scaffolding have been done in trying to bridge this gap, however there is still limited scaffold that could seamlessly help students connect their scientific knowledge to their design experiences, and consequently help them make scientifically informed design decisions. </p> <p>In this dissertation, we proposed argumentation as a scaffolding framework and investigated if the use of argumentation as a meaning-making scaffolding approach during scientific experimentation, facilitated students’ generation of informed design decisions while completing a CAD-based design challenge. Specifically, we looked at the impact of the argumentation scaffold on the quality of decision-making arguments made by students, the types of claims made by students and the types of evidence and reasoning they used to back up their claims, as well as their level of performance in a final design challenge. </p> <p>This study took place in a Physics for Elementary Education course in a Midwestern University in Indiana, USA. This study was part of a four-week unit that focused on the topic of heat transfer, as well as the practices of science and engineering design. The participants of this study included 54 groups of pre-service teachers (i.e., 2 to 4 students in each group) with a background in Elementary Education, from three academic semesters: Spring 2018, Spring 2019, Fall 2019. In this study, these pre-service teachers were divided into two conditions – with and without argumentation scaffold. The data analysis involved looking at the quality of students’ decision-making arguments, the types of claim, evidence, and reasoning they used, as well as their final design performances. </p> <p>The results of this study indicate that students in the argumentation condition were able to transfer their argumentation skills from science experimentation to design decision-making by demonstrating better ability to justify their decisions using relevant scientific evidence and reasoning, as compared to students without argumentation scaffold. Specifically, students engaged in the argumentation scaffold generated decision-making arguments of higher quality, devoted more attention to scientific principles when they made their decision claims, used more variety of combinations of evidence and reasoning to support their claims, utilized more scientific principles to back up their claims, as well as achieved slightly better performance in their final design in terms of fulfilling the size and energy consumption requirements. Implications from this dissertation include pedagogical scaffold and assessment materials that can be easily adapted by other educators, along with suggestions based on what we learned. In addition, findings and lessons learned from this study open door to more research opportunities such as expanding and adapting the scientific argumentation framework to better fit in an engineering design context. </p>

This diploma thesis deals with geometrical surfaces and their engineering aplications. The teoretic parts are focused on the definitions of basic concepts and mathematical descriptions of curves, surfaces and trans- formations. Further, the classification of geometrical surfaces is described as well as examples of their usage in technical practice with deep focus on screws, tools, gears and other parts of machines. The last part describes cre- ation process of four models for education. We used 3D printing technology and 3D modeling in Rhinoceros 3D software for the production of these mo- dels. Source codes and files with the 3D models can be found in electronic attachment. The thesis also includes photographic attachment with pictures of created models. 1

<p dir="ltr">The study investigated the epistemological gaps of Nigerian auto-repair technicians in Mowe, Ogun State Nigeria. The way their knowledge levels correlate with factors such as age, experience, education, and professional development pathways were analyzed. The study explored the conditions for bridging auto-repair epistemology. The study used a questionnaire based on the National Institute Automotive Service Excellence (ASE) 2021 study guide test questions. Fifty-four auto repair technicians were selected using purposive sampling. Correlational research design was used to explore the relationship between the knowledge of participants and age, education, experience, and professional development pathway. Logistic regression was used to analyze the data collected to determine the odds of how many ASE questions a participant answered correctly. The final logistic regression model excluded experience and professional pathways due to multicollinearity concerns. The results revealed negative correlations between age, elementary/high school education, and epistemology, while positive correlations were with higher education and epistemology. The discussion delved into nuances, challenging common beliefs, and proposed a composite apprenticeship model to bridge auto-repair epistemological gaps. Recommendations include revisiting the Nigerian education system and promoting a bidirectional, delocalized apprenticeship approach.</p>