How do first-year engineering students experience ambiguity in engineering design problems: The development of a self-report instrument

Citation: Dringenberg, E., & Wertz, R. E. H. (2016). How do first-year engineering students experience ambiguity in engineering design problems: The development of a self-report instrument.Design is widely recognized as a keystone of engineering practice. Within the context of engineering education, design has been categorized as a type of ill-structured problem solving that is crucial for engineering students to engage with. Improving undergraduate engineering education requires a better understanding of the ways in which students experience ill-structured problems in the form of engineering design. With special attention to the experiences of first-year engineering students, prior exploratory work identified two critical thresholds that distinguished students' ways of experiencing design as less or more comprehensive: accepting ambiguity and recognizing the value of multiple perspectives. The goal of current (work-in-progress) research is to develop and pilot a self-report instrument to assess students' relation to these two thresholds at the completion of an ill-structured design project within the context of undergraduate engineering education. The specific research questions addressed in this study are 1) if the piloted self-report instrument can be used to identify discrete constructs, and 2) how these constructs align with prior qualitative research findings. The objective of this study was addressed using a quantitative exploratory research design. Items for the self-report Likert-scaled instrument were designed to distinguish student experience that either accept or reject the presence of ambiguity and the value of multiple perspectives. The instrument was disseminated to a total of 214 first-year engineering students. Exploratory factor analysis was used to identify the constructs that emerge from the self-report data, and these constructs were checked for alignment with the previously identified thresholds. The results of this investigation will be used to help advance progress towards an easily administered instrument able to assist engineering educators with the identification of students in need of intervention or explicit instruction related to critical aspects of learning engineering design. The instrument could also be used to track student growth over time, and, with further development, to provide evidence for ABET student outcomes. © American Society for Engineering Education, 2016

SciTech News Volume 71, No. 3 (2017)

Columns and Reports From the Editor.........................3 Division News Science-Technology Division....5 Chemistry Division....................8 Conference Report, Marion E, Sparks Professional Development Award Recipient..9 Engineering Division................10 Engineering Division Award, Winners Reflect on their Conference Experience..15 Aerospace Section of the Engineering Division .....18 Architecture, Building Engineering, Construction, and Design Section of the Engineering Division................20 Reviews Sci-Tech Book News Reviews...22 Advertisements IEEE..........................................

Engineering geology maps of the UK

School and university students of geology, engineering geology and geotechnical engineering generally have less knowledge of engineering geological conditions than those who have had experience of hands-on research or practice. In the UK, the number of geology, geoscience and earth science departments has reduced over the past 25 years. Engineering geology has a very weak academic base and geology is taught less to civil engineering students than previously

Evaluating groupware support for software engineering students

Software engineering tasks, during both development and maintenance, typically involve teamwork using computers. Team members rarely work on isolated computers. An underlying assumption of our research is that software engineering teams will work more effectively if adequately supported by network-based groupware technology. Experience of working with groupware and evaluating groupware systems will also give software engineering students a direct appreciation of the requirements of engineering such systems. This research is investigating the provision of such network-based support for software engineering students and the impact these tools have on their groupwork. We will first describe our experiences gained through the introduction of an asynchronous virtual environment ­ SEGWorld to support groupwork during the Software Engineering Group (SEG) project undertaken by all second year undergraduates within the Department of Computer Science. Secondly we will describe our Computer Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW) module which has been introduced into the students' final year of study as a direct result of our experience with SEG, and in particular its role within Software Engineering. Within this CSCW module the students have had the opportunity to evaluate various groupware tools. This has enabled them to take a retrospective view of their experience of SEGWorld and its underlying system, BSCW, one year on. We report our findings for SEG in the form of a discussion of the hypotheses we formulated on how the SEGs would use SEGWorld, and present an initial qualitative assessment of student feedback from the CSCW module

Personnel Training for High-tech Industries: The Experience of MEPhI Base Department ‘Semiconductor Quantum Electronics’

Industry is going through a ubiquitous technological renewal that determines the needed competencies of graduates and the content of educational programs offered by universities. Unfortunately, there is an imbalance between the education received and the entrance requirements for a graduate specialist in industry, in the research and development sector. One of the modern forms of interaction between enterprises and the university in the personnel training is the creation of the base department of the enterprise at the university. The article deals with the educational and scientific activity of the base department of the MEPhI ‘Semiconductor quantum electronics’. The base department trains personnel for high-tech industries with the master’s and post-graduate educational programs.     Keywords: personal training, base department, high-tech, semiconductor quantum electronic

EFFECT OF INDUSTRY EXPERIENCE WORKING PRACTICES AND RESULTS OF ENTREPRENEURIAL LEARNING INTEREST IN ENTREPRENEURSHIP ONLINE CLASS XII NETWORK COMPUTER ENGINEERING ENTIRE SMK NEGERI REGENCY KULON PROGO ACADEMIC YEAR 2012/2013

This study aimed to determine the effect of industry experience working practices and learning outcomes of entrepreneurship either individually or jointly to the online student interest in entrepreneurship class XII network computer engineering entire SMK Negeri regency Kulon Progo academic year 2012/2013. This research is Ex-post facto. The subject class XII student of Computer Engineering Network SMK 2 and SMK Negeri 2 Compassionate Nanggulan number of 64 students. Data retrieved using the method of documentation and questionnaires. The validity of the questionnaire instrument conducted by professional judgment through rational analysis and reliability testing using Cronbach Alpha formula. Testing the hypothesis with the Product Moment Correlation analysis and multiple regression analysis, which previously conducted test requirements analysis includes tests of normality, linearity, heteroskedastitas test, autocorrelation and multicollinearity test. The results showed that: (1). There is positive and significant correlation between experience of industrial work practices to students' interest in entrepreneurship class XII network computer engineering entire SMK Negeri regency Kulon Progo academic year 2012/2013, evidenced by the correlation coefficient rhitung> rtabel (0.258> 0.246) with the effective contribution of 2, 2% and Y = 39.708 +0.329 X1. (2). There is positive and significant correlation between entrepreneurship learning outcomes of the students' interest in entrepreneurship class XII network computer engineering entire SMK Negeri regency Kulon Progo academic year 2012/2013, with a correlation coefficient rhitung> rtabel (0.510> 0.246) with a contribution of 24.5% effective and Y = -50.155 +1.418 X2 (3). There is positive and significant correlation between experience of industrial work practices and entrepreneurial learning outcomes together toward student interest in entrepreneurship class XII network computer engineering entire SMK Negeri regency Kulon Progo academic year 2012/2013, with a correlation coefficient rhitung> rtabel (0.517> 0.246 ) with the effective contribution of 26.7% and Y = -51.516 +0.111 X1 +1.331 X2. Keywords : Experience indusrti Work Practice, Learning Outcomes Entrepreneurship, Entrepreneurship Interests Onlin

Microelectronics Process Engineering at San Jose State University: A Manufacturing-Oriented Interdisciplinary Degree Program

San Jose State University\u27s new interdisciplinary curriculum in Microelectronics Process Engineering is described. This baccalaureate program emphasizes hands-on thin-film fabrication experience, manufacturing methods such as statistical process control, and fundamentals of materials science and semiconductor device physics. Each course of the core laboratory sequence integrates fabrication knowledge with process engineering and manufacturing methods. The curriculum development process relies on clearly defined and detailed program and course learning objectives. We also briefly discuss our strategy of making process engineering experiences accessible for all engineering students through both Lab Module and Statistics Module series

Work placement reports: Student perceptions

Engineering students complete work placement reports after being on placement in industry, the aim is to increase work place learning and to increase students understanding about the placement, themselves, career direction and skills obtained. Third and fourth year engineering students perceptions on their report writing experience, academic feedback quality, and the effect of completing work placement reports on their learning and report writing ability, were surveyed. Third year students enjoyed the experience more than fourth year students and perceived greater benefits. Fourth year student opinion was mixed, reflecting greater experience and cynicism. Fourth year students rated feedback from academics higher than the third years, perhaps because their reports were more interesting for the academics. The fourth year students were more cynical on the benefits of reflecting and reviewing what they had learned, and many considered this was not important for being an engineer