Do Engineering Students Learn Ethics From an Ethics Course?

The goal of the present research is to develop machine-assisted methods that can assist in the analysis of students’ written compositions in ethics courses. As part of this research, we analyzed Social Impact Assessment (SIA) papers submitted by engineering undergraduates in a course on engineering ethics. The SIA papers required students to identify and discuss a contemporary engineering technology (e.g., autonomous tractor trailers) and to explicitly discuss the ethical issues involved in that technology. Here we describe the ability of three machine tools to discriminate differences in the technical compared to ethical portions of the SIA papers. First, using LIWC (Language Inquiry and Word Count) we quantified differences in analytical thinking, expertise and self-confidence, disclosure, and affect, in the technical and ethical portions of the papers. Next, we applied MEH (Meaning Extraction Helper) to examine differences in critical concepts in the technical and ethical portions of the papers. Finally, we used LDA (Latent Dirichlet Allocation) to examine differences in the topics in the technical and ethical portions of the papers. The results of these three tests demonstrate the ability of machine-based tools to discriminate conceptual, affective, and motivational differences in the texts that students compose that relate to engineering technology and to engineering ethics. We discuss the utility and future directions for this research.Cockrell School of Engineerin

In Defense of the Liberal-Arts Approach to Technical Writing

Englis

Applying the real options theory for identifying flexibility in project delivery of health organisations

Healthcare is influenced by many uncertainties. Uncertainties affecting health organisations also influence real estate since this facilitates the primary process. Within real estate management, decisions have to be made today while there is little knowledge about the future. Therefore, flexibility is needed in the process of designing, constructing and operating real estate. A case study has been done to gain insight about how health organisations deal with flexibility. The real options approach is used to show what types of flexibility have been used, and that uncertainty can also generate opportunities. Of the five types of flexibility, only in two types real options were identified in the case study. These were stage, abandon, defer and scale within process flexibility and the options growth and switch within product flexibility. This is partly a result of the fact that the project in the case study is not further advanced than the preliminary design phase. Nevertheless it can be concluded that project managers already act as using real options. Consciously using this concept might create even more real options to be used in project management

Alternative Assessment in Engineering Language Education: The case of the Technical University of Madrid

This article describes a research project involving students from nine different engineering degrees at the Technical university of Madrid. The purpose of the project was to analyze the use of peer and self assessment and the students? attitudes toward alternative assessment procedures

Communication apprehension and students’ educational choices: An exploratory analysis of Spanish secondary education students

Purpose - The literature evidences the effects of communication apprehension (CA), defined as the level of fear and anxiety associated with either real or anticipated communication, on educational efforts and suggests that (via the perceived desirability of certain professions) it could affect vocational choices. The main objective of this paper is to investigate the link between CA and the vocational choice of secondary education students. Design/methodology/approach - Data were obtained from two sources: a self-administered questionnaire to measure the students’ CA levels and their academic preferences, and the vocational counsellors’ advice for these students. Findings - The results confirm the existence of a link between CA and both students’ vocational choices and counsellors’ advice. In general terms, apprehensive students tend to choose vocational education, whereas students with lower levels of CA prefer university for further education. Focusing on the latter, more apprehensive students tend to choose science degrees, which are perceived as requiring lower levels of communication skills. Research limitations/implications – Apprehensive students could be avoiding a path, with all the implications for their professional future, because it is perceived as frightening due to the apparent communication level required. As the literature notes, the links between CA and communication self-efficacy enables the development of educational interventions, resulting in a reduction of CA. Limitations include the use of a convenience sample in only one country. Originality/value - The scarce early literature has paid attention to occupational and educational choices in higher and further education, but there is no research focusing on the link between CA and preuniversity academic decisions

Quality of tender documents: case studies from the UK

Tendering is one of the stages in construction procurement that requires extensive information and documents exchange. However, tender documents are not always clear in practice. The aim of this study was to ascertain the clarity and adequacy of tender documents used in practice. Access was negotiated into two UK construction firms and the whole tender process for two projects was shadowed for 6-7 weeks in each firm using an ethnographic approach. A significant amount of tender queries, amendments and addenda were recorded. This showed that quality of tender documentation is still a problem in construction despite the existence of standards like Co-ordinated Project Information (1987) and British Standard 1192 (1984 and 1990) that are meant to help in producing clear and consistent project information. Poor quality tender documents are a source of inaccurate estimates, claims and disputes on contracts. Six recommendations are presented to help in improving the quality of tender documentation. Further research is needed into the recommendations to help improve the quality of tender documents, perhaps in conjunction with an industry-wide investigation into the level of incorporation of CPI principles in practice