Professional competencies are explicitly identified in the primary learning outcomes for science and engineering degrees at many tertiary institutions.  Fulfillment of the requirements to equip our students with these skills, while formally acknowledged as important by all stakeholders, can be hard to demonstrate in practice.  Most degree awarding institutions would have difficulties if asked to document where in degree programs such competencies are developed. The work in this thesis addresses the issue of professional competencies from several angles.  The Open-Ended Group Project (OEGP) concept is introduced and proposed as an approach to constructing learning environments in which students’ development of professional competencies can be stimulated and assessed.  Scholarly, research-based development of the IT in Society course unit (ITiS) is described and analyzed in order to present ideas for tailoring OEGP-based course units towards meeting learning objectives related to professional competence.  Work in this thesis includes an examination of both the meanings attributed to the term professional competencies, and methods which can be used to assess the competencies once they are agreed on. The empirical work on developing ITiS is based on a framework for educational research, which has been both refined and extended as an integral part of my research.  The action research methodology is presented and concrete examples of implementations of different pedagogical interventions, based on the methodology, are given.  The framework provides support for relating a theoretical foundation to studies, or development, of learning environments.  The particular theoretical foundation for the examples in this thesis includes, apart from the action research methodology, constructivism, conceptual change, threshold concepts, communities of practice, ill-structured problem solving, the reflective practicum, and problem based learning. The key finding in this thesis is that development and assessment of professional competencies is not a pipe dream.  Assessment can be accomplished, and the OEGP concept provides a flexible base for creating an appropriate learning environment for this purpose. / <p>Felaktigt tryckt som Digital Comprehensive Summaries of Uppsala Dissertations from the Faculty of Science and Technology 738</p>

Engineering education is both academic, emphasising theory in a range of subjects, and professional, preparing students for engineering practice. Ideally, these aspects are also in a meaningful relationship in the curriculum, but the dual nature ideal is simultaneously a source of tensions. This theme is explored in the context of engineering education development, represented by the CDIO (Conceive, Design, Implement, Operate) approach. Cases on programme and course level illustrate how the dual nature ideal is pursued in the integrated curriculum. CDIO is also compared with PBL (problem/project-based learning), and opportunities to further emphasise research in the CDIO community are explored. Two critical accounts suggest widening the perspective from curriculum development per se, to the organisational conditions. First, the views of Carl Richard Söderberg (1895-1979) are compared with CDIO, showing considerable similarities in ideals, arguments, and strategies. This leads to a critique of the swinging pendulum metaphor. Then, experiences of unsustainable change leads to a model called organisational gravity, explaining the stability of programmes and implying two change strategies, with different availability, risks, resource demands, and sustainability of results. Refuting a rationalist view on organisation, an institutional logics perspective is used to analyse the tensions within engineering education. It is suggested that the logics of the academic profession dominates over the logics of the engineering profession, hence favouring “teaching theory” over “teaching professionals”. The integrated curriculum strategy is contingent on educators’ ability to unite theoretical and professional aspects in courses, and on the collegial capacity for coordination. Finally, the CDIO initiative is conceptualised as a field-level driver of institutional innovation, identifying some strategies for legitimacy. / <p>QC 20171108</p>

Computing education has struggled with student engagement and diversity in the student population for a long time. Research in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education suggests that taking a social, long-term perspective on learning is a fruitful approach to resolving some of these persistent challenges. A longitudinal study has been conducted, following students from two computing study programmes (CS/IT) over a three-year period. The students reflected on their experiences with CS/IT in a series of interviews. Drawing on social identity theory, the analysis has focused on describing participation in CS/IT, doing, thinking, feeling in relation to CS/IT, as negotiated among different people. Phenomenographic analysis yields an outcome space that describes increasingly broad ways in which the students experience participation in CS/IT over the years. Two further outcome spaces provide nuanced insights into experiences that are of increasing relevance as the students advance in their studies; participation as problem solving and problem solving for others. Problem solving defined as solving difficult (technical) problems seems predominate in the learning environment. Problem solving for others brings the user into perspective, but first in the human computer interaction (HCI) course in year three. Students react with scepticism to HCI, excluding HCI from computing, some are students who commenced their studies with broader interests in computing. Demonstrating (technical) problem solving competence is the most vital indicator competence in the two study programmes and the students adapt their reflections on who they are as computing students and professionals accordingly. People showing broader interests in computing risk being marginalised. I identify a gap between conceptions of computing as interdisciplinary and important for society and constructions of computing as technical. Closing the gap could improve retention and diversity, and result in graduates that are better prepared to contribute to societal development.

Upon IRB approval, a corpus of 1,192 texts consisting of three assignments written by a total of 1,736 first year engineering students was compiled, and 117 pedagogical materials were collected. Using an iterative quantitative-qualitative approach to written discourse analysis, instances of formulaic language (4- and 6-word sequences) were identified in the corpus; formulaic language was then coded for the rhetorical functions expected in problem statements as qualitatively identified in the pedagogical materials. Additionally, three discourse-based interviews were conducted with First-year Engineering Faculty. Interview data was coded for themes of effective communication and used to triangulate the findings from the corpus analysis.