Entering a new environment is challenging for everyone, including engineers. Despite national efforts to improve graduates' competencies, managers and other critical industry stakeholders consistently describe new hires as underprepared for practice. Nonetheless, as engineers move into their new organizations, they learn to participate in and contribute to their communities of practice. This period is the school-to-work transition, and the goal of this research is to gain a deeper understanding of the salient learning events that characterize individuals' trajectories from engineering student to engineering practitioner.
Using a multi-case approach, this study leverages weekly journals and semi-structured interviews to explore the experiences of recent engineering graduates as they enter the workplace and learn to engage in professional practice. Journal entries probed newcomers' perceptions of challenges, accomplishments, and significant learning events during the first 12 weeks of their jobs. Interviews expanded on journal findings and elaborated on participants' experiences. Analysis entailed the development and application of two complementary workplace learning frameworks from Jacobs and Park (2009) and Chao et al. (1994) that describe both the setting and content of salient learning experiences. Cross-case analysis enabled exploration across participants to examine trends and patterns within participants' experiential trajectories.
Findings point to several contributions and implications. First, the codebooks developed in this study were contextualized and operationalized for engineering workplaces, and have been refined to enhance descriptive precision and clarity. Second, journals provided thick, rich descriptions of events in ways that hold promise for future exploratory studies as well as formative assessment. Finally, results indicated that newcomer engineers engage in a wide range of learning environments throughout the school-to-work transition and describe learning along myriad socialization dimensions. In particular, workplace learning takes place in unstructured environments through routine tasks and along both technical and sociocultural dimensions. Given this learning, both industry and academic professionals should consider these dimensions as they design experiences and assess learning across organizations. Newcomer learning is challenging, but if we can gain a better understanding of how and what happens during it, we can more effectively develop efforts to enhance the transition—and therefore, practice—for future generations of engineers. / Ph. D. / Entering a new environment challenging for everyone, including engineers. Even though we know this to be true, engineers remain underprepared for the demands of modern practice. Still, engineering students do graduate and work in engineering jobs, and there is not necessarily evidence of engineers losing jobs on behalf of their reported lack of preparation. The school-to-work transition is thus a critical period for new engineers, and understanding the experiences that take place within it can help us improve the effectiveness of both engineers themselves and the organizations they enter. Given our relatively limited knowledge of this important juncture, then, the goal of this research is to explore the experiences and interactions of newcomers as they move from engineering student to engineering practitioner.
To do so, I followed 12 recent mechanical engineering graduates from graduation into the first 12 weeks of their jobs. I combined weekly reflective journal entries with semi-structured interviews to capture participants’ salient learning events. I developed frameworks which characterize the environment and content of salient learning events and provide an overview of the kind of learning trajectory each participant underwent. I also compiled results across participants to explore differences, similarities, and other patterns in participant experiences.
Overall, findings point to several contributions and implications. First, the codebooks developed in this study were refined to more specifically fit within engineering contexts and therefore provide more accurate descriptions of engineering learning. Second, reflective journaling holds promise for tapping into engineering learning that might be difficult to otherwise capture via traditional measurements or instrumentation. Finally, results indicate that newcomer engineers engage in a wide range of learning environments throughout the school-to-work transition and describe learning along myriad social and technical dimensions. Given this learning, both industry and academic professionals should consider these experiences as they design learning environments in the future. Newcomer learning is challenging, but if we can gain a better understanding of how and what happens during it, we can more effectively develop efforts to enhance the transition for future generations of engineers.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:VTETD/oai:vtechworks.lib.vt.edu:10919/78276 |
| Date | 28 June 2017 |
| Creators | Lutz, Benjamin David |
| Contributors | Engineering Education, Paretti, Marie C., Matusovich, Holly M., Kochersberger, Kevin B., Goff, Richard M. |
| Publisher | Virginia Tech |
| Source Sets | Virginia Tech Theses and Dissertation |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Dissertation |
| Format | ETD, application/pdf, application/pdf |
| Rights | In Copyright, http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/ |
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