Individual perceptions of advantage and disadvantage in accessing, undertaking and progressing in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) postgraduate taught study

Research looking at students’ perceptions of advantage and disadvantage in higher education (HE) has focused on two main areas; student learning and perceptions of the academic environment and large scale statistics looking at participation, progression and attainment through the lens of certain demographic groups at undergraduate level. However, there is no research exploring whether the individual within a demographic group or those with a range of characteristics (e.g. socioeconomic, generational, disability) consciously or unconsciously perceive those characteristics as advantageous or disadvantageous. This paper reports the findings from a small-scale research project carried out at three UK universities in geographically different areas across STEM disciplines exploring this

Emotions in engineering education

Contrary to common stereotypes, engineering education and practice are not purely rational activities. Emotions, just like cognition, play important roles in teaching, learning, and professional practice. Today, there is a nascent body of research exploring emotions in engineering education (EEE). However, much of the existing research does not adequately theorize emotions, and the range of theories and methods used is still relatively narrow. With this chapter, we hope to inspire more investigators to conduct EEE research and to explore currently underutilized theories, methods, and research foci. This chapter introduces the reader to the multidisciplinary field of emotion research, then focus specifically on EEE research. It describes different disciplinary and theoretical perspectives on emotions, as well as methods and methodologies for EEE research. Finally, the chapter covers dominant themes in the existing EEE literature, outlines important and promising areas for future research, and provides advice for researchers and doctoral students who plan to pursue EEE research

Assessing the Grit and Mindset of Incoming Engineering Students With an Emphasis on Gender

Engineering programs can be very demanding, particularly in the first years where students encounter new forms of highly challenging coursework. To better prepare and support students, educators must acknowledge non-academic factors, such as the role of self-beliefs and personal attributes. Education research suggests that students are more likely to give up and disengage from their studies when they lack grit or assume a fixed mindset. Previous studies suggest that female students are generally grittier but less confident when compared to male students. This paper presents the initial work of an ongoing study to explore self-confidence and motivations to study engineering of first year engineering students experiencing a new multi-disciplinary curriculum. A dataset collected via an online survey at the start of the academic year with 102 students was analysed. Gender comparisons were undertaken to explore the association between self-confidence and motivations with grit and mindsets

How Architecture and Engineering Students Conceptualize Design Creation: Report of a Pilot Study

This study uses phenomenographic research methodologies to identify qualitatively different ways engineering and architecture students conceptualize design creation; it seeks to discover if and how their conceptualizations of design creation relate to their conceptualizations of knowledge generation. This work extends prior research by King and Kitchener (1994) and others (Baxter Magolda, 1992; Belenky, Clinchy, Goldberger, & Tarule, 1986; Hofer & Pintrich, 2002; Perry, 1970) about the ways students develop increasingly sophisticated ways of: understanding and conceptualizing knowledge; sources of truth; how to evaluate various opinions and points-of-view; and ways to assess truthfulness and validity of new ideas. This project stems from the proposition that this development process manifests itself somewhat differently in fields that deal with physical sciences than in those grounded in the social sciences—the realm where these theories were established and defined. King and Kitchener (1994) have shown that conceptualizations of knowledge vary from one field to the next, yet little if any work has been done to assess and compare patterns of conceptualizations in the fields of architecture and engineering. Many national regulatory boards urge engineering to change its educational practices to elicit high levels of student engagement and self-directed learning, and achieve outputs more like those associated with architectural education. An extensive report by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching (Boyer and Mitgang, 1996) was conducted on behalf of the five organizations regulating the education and practice of architecture in the USA. That report described very high levels of student learning and engagement and recommended that the methods used to teach architecture be transferred for use in more fields. The current study provides additional understanding of this topic, identifying the various concepts that architecture students hold about knowledge and design as well as how these conceptualizations are both similar and different to engineering students’ conceptualizations. An outcome of this study is increased understanding about aspects of the learning experience and the learning environment that capture students’ attention and elicit their engagement. With this knowledge, educators can do more to encourage reflection, exploration, and self-directed learning among students. This is a work in progress, and the first phase has been a pilot study. This paper reports results of the pilot as well as the context, rationale, and design of the overall study. The pilot was the first step in a study seeking to provide new understandings: (1) spanning multiple professions; (2) identifying the various concepts that architecture and engineering students hold about the generation of new designs; and (3) describing how these conceptualizations compare within and between fields. The second phase will use phenomenographic methodologies to identify qualitatively different ways engineering and architecture students conceptualize knowledge and design. To date, the study has been designed and has gained approval to proceed from our ethics review board. Three pilot interviews have been conducted and these have been used to adjust the research design and widen the parameters for the sample group. The research team secured ethics approval for the proposed changes. This paper describes the overall design of the study and what was learned from the pilot interviews

Emotions in engineering education : Towards a research agenda

This Work-in-Progress research paper describes preliminary work on a research agenda for emotions in engineering education. Emotions play an important role for teaching and learning in engineering education, but research on the topic is scarce. To spur research in this area, the authors participate in an international collaboration that aims to map existing research, identify questions that are under-researched, and outline important questions for future research on emotions in engineering education. In this paper, we describe preliminary work that has been done in preparation of an international symposium during which a first draft of the research agenda on emotions in engineering education will be developed. At FIE 2020, we will present both this preparatory work and the agenda itself

Emotions in engineering education: Towards a research agenda

This Work-in-Progress research paper describes preliminary work on a research agenda for emotions in engineering education. Emotions play an important role for teaching and learning in engineering education, but research on the topic is scarce. To spur research in this area, the authors participate in an international collaboration that aims to map existing research, identify questions that are under-researched, and outline important questions for future research on emotions in engineering education. In this paper, we describe preliminary work that has been done in preparation of an international symposium during which a first draft of the research agenda on emotions in engineering education will be developed. At FIE 2020, we will present both this preparatory work and the agenda itself