Characterizing engineering work in a changing world: Synthesis of a typology for engineering students' occupational outcomes

Characterizing Engineering Work in a Changing World: Synthesis of a Typology for Engineering Graduates' Occupational Outcomes

10.31224/osf.io/6yz37 ◽

2018 ◽

Author(s):

James N. Magarian ◽

Warren P. Seering

Keyword(s):

Literature Review ◽

Technological Development ◽

Engineering Practice ◽

Original Research ◽

Occupational Outcomes ◽

Underrepresented Groups ◽

Occupational Outcome ◽

Product Service ◽

Job Titles ◽

Engineering Work

The 21st century has brought an expansion in the variety of occupational roles associated with product, service, and technological development. As a result, it has become more challenging to assess the occupational choices of engineering graduates over time. This paper introduces an engineering graduates’ occupational outcomes typology designed to facilitate consistency among researchers who employ occupational outcome as a dependent variable in original research, such as in studies of underrepresented groups’ persistence in engineering. The typology is synthesized from the results of a systematic literature review aimed at establishing which work attribute(s) have most consistently united those practicing engineering. The review identifies “design responsibility” – responsibility for the outcomes of design implementation, inclusive of safety, ethicality, and general effectiveness of designs – as an enduring commonality among engineers. Subsequent stages of the review then uncover how this design responsibility has often manifested in engineering practice. Based on the literature review, we present a series of propositions that underpin general definitions of three types of occupational outcomes – engineering work, engineering-related work, and other work – showing how the types can be distinguished based on the nature of design responsibility associated with each. These definitions thus serve as the foundation for a stratified typology of occupations’ engineering-relatedness. We conclude by discussing how utilization of this stratified approach for measuring engineering graduates’ occupational outcomes can enhance transparency and consistency among studies that examine such outcomes. By building the typology upon a distilled notion of fundamental job responsibility, rather than upon job titles, it is our hope that the typology can serve in a meaningful, enduring occupational benchmarking capacity as new job titles, role formulations, or entire technology areas, come and go.

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First year engineering students: Perceptions of engineers and engineering work amongst domestic and international students

The International Journal of the First Year in Higher Education ◽

10.5204/intjfyhe.v6i1.272 ◽

2015 ◽

Vol 6 (1) ◽

Cited By ~ 2

Author(s):

Dawn Bennett ◽

Ranjna Kapoor ◽

Kaur Rajinder ◽

Nicoleta Maynard

Keyword(s):

International Students ◽

Engineering Students ◽

First Year ◽

Engineering Work

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“We’ve Always Been Engineers:” Indigenous Student Voices on Engineering and Leadership Identities

Education Sciences ◽

10.3390/educsci11110675 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 11 (11) ◽

pp. 675

Author(s):

Monika Kwapisz ◽

Bryce E. Hughes ◽

William J. Schell ◽

Eric Ward ◽

Tessa Sybesma

Keyword(s):

Leadership Development ◽

Indigenous Peoples ◽

Engineering Students ◽

Student Voices ◽

Indigenous Students ◽

Engineering Programs ◽

Engineering Knowledge ◽

New Directions ◽

Engineering Work ◽

University Experience

Background: How do Indigenous engineering students describe their engineering leadership development? The field of engineering has made only slow and modest progress at increasing the participation of Indigenous people; an identity-conscious focus on leadership in engineering may help connect the practice of engineering with Indigenous students’ motivations and values. Methods: This study utilized a grounded theory qualitative approach to understand how Indigenous engineering students at a U.S.-based university experience engineering leadership. We explored the experiences of four Indigenous engineering students through one interview and one focus group. Results: Students pointed out how Indigenous peoples had long engaged in engineering work before contact with European settlers, and they saw an opportunity for leadership in applying their engineering knowledge in ways that uplifted their home communities. Conclusion: In addition to ways that engineering programs can better support Indigenous students who aspire to become practicing engineers, our study pointed to new directions engineering programs could take to frame engineering work as providing a toolkit to improve one’s community to leverage a wider set of motivations for entering engineering among many different communities underrepresented in engineering, including Indigenous students.

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Perceptions of Prototypes: Pilot Study Comparing Students and Professionals

Volume 3: 19th International Conference on Advanced Vehicle Technologies; 14th International Conference on Design Education; 10th Frontiers in Biomedical Devices ◽

10.1115/detc2017-68117 ◽

2017 ◽

Cited By ~ 8

Author(s):

Carlye Lauff ◽

Daria Kotys-Schwartz ◽

Mark E. Rentschler

Keyword(s):

Pilot Study ◽

Design Process ◽

Design Education ◽

Mechanical Engineering ◽

Engineering Students ◽

Communication Tool ◽

Fundamental Part ◽

Engineering Work ◽

Recommendations For Practice ◽

Physical Elements

Just as design is a fundamental part of engineering work, prototyping is an essential part of the design process. For many engineering design courses, students must develop a final prototype as part of the course requirements. And in industry, engineers build multiple prototypes when creating a product for market. Although prototyping is core to design education, there is a lack of research on understanding the perceptions and usage of prototypes from both students and professionals. Without understanding students’ perceptions of prototypes, we cannot adequately train them. Likewise, without knowing how professionals use prototypes, we cannot translate these practices back to design education. This paper reports on the pilot study comparing the perceptions of prototypes between mechanical engineering students and professional engineers. The findings indicate that the interpretation of the term “prototype” varies between students and professionals. Specifically, these mechanical engineering students have a more narrow perception and identify prototypes as only having a few key elements, namely for building and testing functionality and feasibility of physical elements in a product. Comparatively, professionals have a broad perception of prototypes. They identify a wider range of attributes, including prototypes as a communication tool, an aid in making decisions, and a way to learn about unknowns throughout the design process. Many instructors in design education are cognizant of the importance of prototyping. However, we believe that students require explicit instruction about key concepts. It is not enough to just tell students to “prototype.” As design educators, we must be aware of the various roles of prototypes, and teach these concepts to students. We provide some immediate recommendations for practice, including a list of ten principles of prototypes to create similar mental models between students.

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Teaching Professional Integrity: An Empirical Study on Engineering Students

International Journal of Engineering Pedagogy (iJEP) ◽

10.3991/ijep.v10i3.12013 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 10 (3) ◽

pp. 98

Author(s):

Spyridon Stelios ◽

Alexandros Christodoulou

Keyword(s):

Professional Ethics ◽

Engineering Students ◽

Ethics Education ◽

Ethical Issues ◽

Ethical Responsibility ◽

Technological Education ◽

Professional Integrity ◽

Engineering Work ◽

Student Expectation ◽

Teaching Professional

In higher education there seems to be a ‘gap’ between the levels of undergraduate student expectation of being confronted by ethical issues in engineering work, and the amount of effective ethics education. Within this context, the purpose of this empirical research is to investigate engineering students’ views on two issues: a) How vital professional ethics are in their field, and b) whether they believe that professional ethics must be a part of the syllabus in their School. Findings indicate that teachers should make special reference to and strongly emphasize in class the value of an engineer's ethical responsibility. Furthermore, they need to spend a number of teaching hours on tackling problems in professional ethics as well as organize conferences, workshops, lectures and discussions, where the main speakers would be experienced engineers and academics. This way the technical and technological education incorporates more the responsibility of building professional integrity that can guarantee the much needed social goods of progress and prosperity, along with safety.

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“You Could Take 'Social' Out of Engineering and Be Just Fine”: An Exploration of Engineering Students' Beliefs About the Social Aspects of Engineering Work

10.18260/1-2--36539 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Robert Loweth ◽

Shanna Daly ◽

Leah Paborsky ◽

Sara Hoffman ◽

Steve Skerlos

Keyword(s):

Engineering Students ◽

Social Aspects ◽

The Social ◽

Engineering Work

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Engineering Work-and-Learn: Imperatives for Innovation

10.31219/osf.io/weqjf ◽

2020 ◽

Author(s):

Shalin R. Jyotishi

Keyword(s):

Case Studies ◽

Engineering Students ◽

Graduate Programs ◽

Engineering Curriculum ◽

High Quality ◽

Land Grant Universities ◽

Engineering Programs ◽

Engineering Work ◽

Innovative Work ◽

Industry Needs

This report by the Association of Public and Land-grant Universities, the National Center for Manufacturing Sciences, and the Lightweight Innovations for Tomorrow (LIFT) Manufacturing USA Institute captures four key imperatives for university faculty, administrators, and industry partners to innovate work-and-learn models to better prepare engineering students for work in industry. The four imperatives are: 1) Engineering graduates should have deeper understanding of how their role intersects with other processes and individuals in the workplace. 2) All engineering students should participate in high-quality and innovative work-and-learn experiences during their undergraduate and graduate programs. 3) Engineering curriculum must be responsive to evolving industry needs, including the needs of small, medium, and large employers. 4) Work-and-learn models should be more widely implemented in university engineering programs and not reliant on a small group of ‘champion’ professors or administrators. The report also presents recommendations for addressing these imperatives along with case studies on innovative practices from promising work-and-learn programs from around the country.

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The environmental knowledge and pro-environmental behavior of future engineers in Morocco

E3S Web of Conferences ◽

10.1051/e3sconf/202123400088 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 234 ◽

pp. 00088

Author(s):

Zakaria Ait taleb ◽

Mounia El Farouki ◽

Mehdi El Mejdoub

Keyword(s):

Engineering Students ◽

Environmental Behavior ◽

Environmental Awareness ◽

Environmental Knowledge ◽

Sources Of Information ◽

The World ◽

Engineering Work ◽

The Relationship ◽

Engineering Schools

During the recent decades, raising the level of environmental awareness has become one of the main social goals, which has reached a level of social and political consensus never seen before. Education can be the catalyst that changes people’s behavior regarding the environment (Zsóka et al., 2013; Schultz, 2014). Many studies have demonstrated a positive link between education level and pro-environmental behavior (Fernandez-Manzanal et al., 2007; Levine and Strube, 2012; Meyer, 2015; Monier et al., 2009). In Morocco, as in many countries of the world, human behavior towards the environment has been defective. However, the country has been taking a number of steps to protect the environment. There have been few researchers investigating the role of universities as agents contributing to environmental awareness, especially engineering schools. Engineering work has a significant effect on the world. The advent of engineers, engineering work, and engineering schooling is closely related to countries development (Downey and Lucena 2004, Downey and Lucena 2005). This paper aims to analyze the relationship between 3 factors: the sources of environmental issues, the acquired knowledge and the pro-environmental behavior to protect the environment. In order to do that, a survey of 141 engineering students has been assessed in 5 different engineering schools and the results have then shown that the sources of information is the internet and this source doesn’t lead to accountability of the individuals. Furthermore, the taken actions for the environment rarely include trash sorting, paper and meat consumption.

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