Why a Testing Career Is Not the First Choice of Engineers

As software systems are becoming larger, more complex, and dependent on many third-party software components, the chances of their failure are increasing further. This calls for intense efforts to improve the quality of testing in the software development process

Engineering - young people want to be informed

Young people in developed nations recognise the contribution that science and technology make to society and acknowledge their importance now and in the future, yet few view their study as leading to interesting careers. Some countries are taking action to raise interest in science, technologies, engineering and mathematics and increase the number of students studying these subjects. One of the barriers to young people pursuing engineering is their limited or distorted perception of it - they associate it only with building and fixing things. Young people rarely encounter engineers, unlike other professionals, engineering has little or no advocacy in the media and there are few opportunities to experience engineering. Many of the pupils surveyed at the start of Engineering the Future, a three year EPSRC-funded project, wrote “don’t know what engineering is” and/or “would like more information”. This paper reports on work with researchers, policy makers and practitioners in Scotland to develop a sustainable model of activities and interactions that develops pupils’ understanding of the nature of engineering, embeds experiences of engineering within the school classroom and curriculum and promotes engineering as a career. After learning about engineering through the activities the pupils’ perceptions had improved. Almost all considered it important that young people know about engineering, because it is an essential part of everyday life and, in the words of one pupil - “If we know more about it, our minds wouldn’t stay closed to it. We would maybe take it up.

Can a five minute, three question survey foretell first-year engineering student performance and retention?

This research paper examines first-year student performance and retention within engineering. A considerable body of literature has reported factors influencing performance and retention, including high school GPA and SAT scores,1,2,3 gender,4 self-efficacy,1,5 social status,2,6,7 hobbies,4 and social integration.6,7 Although these factors can help explain and even partially predict student outcomes, they can be difficult to measure; typical survey instruments are lengthy and can be invasive of student privacy. To address this limitation, the present paper examines whether a much simpler survey can be used to understand student motivations and anticipate student outcomes. The survey was administered to 347 students in an introductory Engineering Graphics and Design course. At the beginning of the first day of class, students were given a three-question, open-ended questionnaire that asked: “In your own words, what do engineers do?”, “Why did you choose engineering?”, and “Was there any particular person or experience that influenced your decision?” Two investigators independently coded the responses, identifying dozens of codes for both motivations for pursuing engineering and understanding of what it is. Five hypotheses derived from Dweck’s mindset theory7 and others8,9 were tested to determine if particular codes were predictive of first-semester GPA or first-year retention in engineering. Codes that were positively and significantly associated with first-semester GPA included: explaining why engineers do engineering or how they do it, stating that engineers create ideas, visions, and theories, stating that engineers use math, science, physics or analysis, and expressing enjoyment of math and science, whereas expressing interest in specific technical applications or suggesting that engineers simplify and make life easier were negatively and significantly related to first-semester GPA. Codes positively and significantly associated with first-year retention in engineering included: stating that engineers use math or that engineers design or test things, expressing enjoyment of math, science, or problem solving, and indicating any influential person who is an engineer. Codes negatively and significantly associated with retention included: citing an extrinsic motivation for pursuing engineering, stating that they were motivated by hearing stories about engineering, and stating that parents or family pushed the student to become an engineer. Although many prior studies have suggested that student self-efficacy is related to retention,1,5 this study found that student interests were more strongly associated with retention. This finding is supported by Dweck’s mindset theory: students with a “growth” mindset (e.g., “I enjoy math”) would be expected to perform better and thus be retained at a higher rate than those with a “fixed” mindset (e.g., “I am good at math”).7 We were surprised that few students mentioned activities expressly designed to stimulate interest in engineering, such as robotics competitions and high school engineering classes. Rather, they cited general interests in math, problem solving, and creativity, as well as family influences, all factors that are challenging for the engineering education community to address. These findings demonstrate that relative to its ease of administration, a five minute survey can indeed help to anticipate student performance and retention. Its minimalism enables easy implementation in an introductory engineering course, where it serves not only as a research tool, but also as a pedagogical aid to help students and teacher discover student perceptions about engineering and customize the curriculum appropriately

Ontology (Science)

Increasingly, in data-intensive areas of the life sciences, experimental results are being described in algorithmically useful ways with the help of ontologies. Such ontologies are authored and maintained by scientists to support the retrieval, integration and analysis of their data. The proposition to be defended here is that ontologies of this type – the Gene Ontology (GO) being the most conspicuous example – are a _part of science_. Initial evidence for the truth of this proposition (which some will find self-evident) is the increasing recognition of the importance of empirically-based methods of evaluation to the ontology develop¬ment work being undertaken in support of scientific research. Ontologies created by scientists must, of course, be associated with implementations satisfying the requirements of software engineering. But the ontologies are not themselves engineering artifacts, and to conceive them as such brings grievous consequences. Rather, ontologies such as the GO are in different respects comparable to scientific theories, to scientific databases, and to scientific journal publications. Such a view implies a new conception of what is involved in the author¬ing, maintenance and application of ontologies in scientific contexts, and therewith also a new approach to the evaluation of ontologies and to the training of ontologists

A Conversation With Harry Martz

Harry F. Martz was born June 16, 1942 and grew up in Cumberland, Maryland. He received a Bachelor of Science degree in mathematics (with a minor in physics) from Frostburg State University in 1964, and earned a Ph.D. in statistics at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University in 1968. He started his statistics career at Texas Tech University's Department of Industrial Engineering and Statistics right after graduation. In 1978, he joined the technical staff at Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) in Los Alamos, New Mexico after first working as Full Professor in the Department of Industrial Engineering at Utah State University in the fall of 1977. He has had a prolific 23-year career with the statistics group at LANL; over the course of his career, Martz has published over 80 research papers in books and refereed journals, one book (with co-author Ray Waller), and has four patents associated with his work at LANL. He is a fellow of the American Statistical Association and has received numerous awards, including the Technometrics Frank Wilcoxon Prize for Best Applications Paper (1996), Los Alamos National Laboratory Achievement Award (1998), R&D 100 Award by R&D Magazine (2003), Council for Chemical Research Collaboration Success Award (2004), and Los Alamos National Laboratory's Distinguished Licensing Award (2004). Since retiring as a Technical Staff member at LANL in 2001, he has worked as a LANL Laboratory Associate.Comment: Published at http://dx.doi.org/10.1214/088342306000000646 in the Statistical Science (http://www.imstat.org/sts/) by the Institute of Mathematical Statistics (http://www.imstat.org

Developing an enterprising spirit among engineering college students : what are the educational factors ?

The purpose of this chapter is to further what can be called the Entrepreneurial Spirit. Indeed these words, although widely used, have not yet been properly defined in the literature as to how it is created, and what precise aspects can be enhanced through teaching activities. It is a matter of suggesting hypotheses in order to build up a model of how an Entrepreneurial Spirit is engendered among newly trained engineers. Our chapter is divided into four section. The first deals with the question of the definition of the Entrepreneurial Spirit: How does it arise prior to the decision to set up a business? How can the components of an Entrepreneurial Spirit be defined? We suggest a dynamic model. The second section deals with the factors leading to an Entrepreneurial Spirit among young engineers: What is the relevance of the educational background ? What are the possible teaching method variables within engineering college training? The third section presents methodological features of our research. The fourth section presents early results about the projective dimensions of our model of engineering students in 2004. As a conclusion, we present theoretical and practical implications of our research.entreprising spirit, entrepreneurship education

Illinois Technograph v. 078, iss. 6 Mar. 1963

published or submitted for publicatio

'Girls into STEM and Komm mach MINT’: English and German approaches to support girls’ STEM career-related learning

European economies require STEM skilled people, yet compared with boys, girls demonstrate a tendency to reject some STEM study and STEM careers. This paper briefly reviews key factors that influence this phenomenon. It then introduces four examples of campaigns and initiatives that encourage girls to consider further participation in STEM in England and MINT in Germany as part of their career ambitions. Evidence of the impact of German initiatives is presented. It concludes that where there is a deliberate strategy linked with defined actions which tackle issues that are specific to girls, then gender imbalances can begin to change

Aerospace Technicians: We're Tomorrow-Minded People

Brief job-related autobiographical sketches of technicians working on NASA aerospace projects are presented. Career and educational guidance is offered to students thinking about entering the field of aerospace technology