Search results

The purpose of this paper is to establish greater understanding of changes in gender diversity at the undergraduate, graduate and faculty levels for a small engineering discipline, materials science and engineering (MSE), and how it may be related to different cultures across the variety of engineering disciplines.

The paper assesses publicly available data on the demographics of US MSE programs to explore expectations of correlation between increased gender diversity at the graduate level and among faculty versus undergraduate gender diversity.

The number and percentage of women increased substantially in graduate programs and within faculties whereas the percentage of women receiving bachelor's of science degrees in engineering (BSE) in MSE, and nearly all other engineering disciplines, was significantly lower in 2009 than in 2000. Diversity advances at graduate, postdoctoral and faculty levels in the interdisciplinary field of MSE, and likely other relatively young engineering disciplines, have been achieved via a continuous migration of individuals from other science and engineering disciplines as well as from international science and engineering programs.

The paper does not explore cause‐and‐effect, but rather provides a case study of trends occurring within a specific discipline. When evidence for a “leaky pipeline” is found within one generalized context (i.e. engineering), the assumption has been that every discipline (i.e. MSE, biomedical engineering) within that context has leaky pipelines that must be fixed. Given the present data, such assumptions may be inappropriate and perpetuate an understanding of how to improve gender diversity that is not helpful and, in fact, may be harmful to achieving diversity.

The paper provides an assessment of gender diversity for a smaller discipline and explores applicability of conventional pipeline models for career progression.

The teaching of sustainability to engineers will follow similar paths to that of environmental engineering. There is a strong feeling that environmental engineering is a discipline unto itself, requiring knowledge of chemistry, physics, biology, hydrology, toxicology, modelling and law. However, environmental engineering can also be encompassed within other disciplines; for example, solar and wind power are often taught in electrical or mechanical engineering; pollution control is taught in chemical engineering; and recycling technologies are taught in both chemical and mechanical engineering. The understanding of sustainability engineering, however, requires a greater maturity than that of most engineering disciplines. Although the basics of this concept can be understood by anyone, the ability to understand the complex systems which exist within the environment and society as well as the constraints on those systems is only beginning to emerge at the fourth year or graduate level. Moreover, the elements necessary to achieve sustainability are derived from all aspects of engineering and, like environmental engineering, all engineering disciplines have strong roles to play in achieving sustainability. However, there is also a fundamental discourse that can be taught as a discipline in sustainability engineering. Discusses aspects of such a programme and outlines the requirements for educating engineers in sustainability.

The purpose of this paper is to draw from the authors’ experiences, as women teaching Communication in a College of Engineering and mechanical engineering students’ evaluations, to highlight student resistance to both practices and bodies deemed “feminine.”

The authors examine how the masculine discipline of engineering might construct a learning environment that is incompatible with feminist ideals. This is illuminated when engineering students are required to learn communication skills from female instructors.

The authors’ analysis suggests that students’ resistance to communication instruction is gendered. Students often constructed hierarchical relationships where communication was considered “soft” in relation to the “hard” science of engineering instead of integral to the discipline and profession. Students resisted by expressing a lack of utility of information, devaluing feedback and instruction, degrading communication teachers, and questioning their bodies.

The paper discusses implications of a gendered educational context and suggests ways interdisciplinary instruction can be utilized to enhance gender diversity.

Although English for academic purposes (EAP) courses are vital components of engineering disciplines in the universities of Iran, studies investigating engineering students' English language needs are infrequent, and even more infrequent are studies comparing how the students of different engineering disciplines vary in their English language needs. Research demonstrates that students of different disciplines have different language needs, which requires competency in different language skills (Soruç et al., 2018). However, in the majority of Iranian universities, students of different engineering disciplines are taught similar subskills, through similar teaching methodologies and textbooks. With the twofold purpose of identification and comparison of the students' language needs and weaknesses, this study focuses on the perceptions of Iranian students of electrical, mechanical and chemical engineering at the undergraduate and postgraduate levels of their present language abilities and target-situation language needs.

Online surveys regarding language needs and self-assessments were completed by 194 undergraduate students and 189 postgraduate students studying at Sharif University.

While only educational level was found to have a significant effect on the perceptions of the respondents of their target needs, both educational level and discipline had a significant effect on the perceptions of the students of their present level of language proficiency. Furthermore, almost equal attention to the four language skills were considered necessary by the respondents, who also held that the number of credits devoted to the EAP courses was insufficient. A further finding was that the majority of the undergraduates required that the EAP courses be oriented toward English for specific purposes (ESP), whereas almost half of the postgraduates preferred that the EAP classes be geared toward general English.

Researchers have so far analyzed the language needs of students of a number of academic disciplines. This study adds to the existing literature of needs-analysis by comparing the engineering students' present abilities and target language needs. This study is different from the existing publications on language needs-analysis in two ways. First, through a comparative perspective, a profile of engineering students' language needs is obtained, which can serve as a new database for curriculum developers and material designers of engineering programs. Second, investigating whether the students' perceptions of their language needs are affected by their educational levels and disciplines is a topic for which there is little information at present.

The paper raises the question of a persisting masculine dominance in engineering disciplines and the reasons behind it. Rather than addressing gender‐specific socialisation as a cause of the under‐representation of women in engineering education, it aims to focus on the social and cultural practices of engineering itself, asking to what extent these practices are gendered and/or gendering.

The paper draws on ethnographic fieldwork carried out in two departments at a technical university in Switzerland: mechanical engineering and materials science. An exemplary piece of field data is analysed in order to generate relevant concepts for characterising and contrasting cultures in engineering disciplines. Results are discussed in the framework of Bourdieu's theory of the scientific field.

Group culture in materials science values individuality and plurality, hence leaving more scope for gender diversity; group culture in mechanical engineering values the subordination of individual needs to group norms and tends to reproduce features of homosocial male worlds. The results support the hypothesis that disciplinary cultures in engineering are gendered and have a gendering effect of their own.

Case studies in other disciplines and national contexts are needed to broaden the empirical basis of the argument.

Policies to achieve gender balance in higher education should not only aim at supporting women, but also at changing disciplinary cultures.

The paper presents a shift of focus from women's socialisation to gendering practices in engineering disciplines.

In the continuing endeavour to work towards ever better management, the engineering manager has a crucial role to play. The history of the engineer is reviewed and his/her possible present role in management is considered. Management objectives are outlined and defined and the specific role of the engineer emphasised. The best managers are leaders, in particular effective leaders of teams, and this is a management task well within the grasp of the engineer. The engineer′s specific training and initial experience give him/her special qualifications in this area. Indeed, there seems to be no reason why the engineer should not climb the management ladder right to the top, especially these days when technology is continually growing in importance. The demands made on the effective chief executive are outlined. It would seem that engineering management has come of age and that with the appropriate management training the engineer should be well capable of filling a senior management role.

This study has a scope limited to a specific course and changes integrated to the core of the KTH naval architecture master program. The students in the program have earlier experience from engineering applications in a general sustainability perspective and understand the basic concepts within sustainability. Therefore, to introduce further steps a new course module was introduced in 2018 focusing on safety management and social sustainability. The purpose of this study is to identify and document the pedagogic lessons for a course module where sustainable development (SD) is discipline-specific.

This study is a case study that qualitatively investigates the stainability effects of the implementation of the new course module. The course and program activities are compared to the results of a previous study in 2017 on the sustainable development learning elements (SDLEs) in the program and discussed in relation to more general SD initiatives.

From the analysis, it is identified that the perspectives presented were new to a substantial part of the students. This study also shows that the effects of the specific module here studied, with a focus on the skill of maritime social sustainability development, differ from more general sustainability literacy. The new perspective affected the thinking about the core of the students’ studies, ship design, in a way that general knowledge on sustainability has not. This was achieved with a combination of suitable tools and perspectives in combination with contextual knowledge and a frame of reference. The contextual knowledge and a frame of reference are here present in education as a result of relating the sustainability case to the core of the program.

The result relates the pedagogical change described to SDLEs and to the ambition of conceive, design, implement and operate approaches. This paper contributes to the literature by providing a discussion on how social sustainability can be implemented in engineering education and the role of integrated discipline-specific sustainability modules.

The purpose of this study is to better understand the nature of graduate training experiences in research groups and to identify factors that may lead to increased student retention and success.

Surveys administered at four US universities resulted in quantitative responses from 130 Master’s and 702 doctoral engineering students participating in graduate research groups. Missing data were imputed, and responses were weighted by gender, discipline, degree program and nationality. Exploratory factor analysis identified four factors describing research group experiences. Regression models were built for two outcomes: satisfaction with research group experience and intention to complete degree. Control variables included gender, discipline, degree program, nationality, year in program and institution.

Fifty-five per cent of the variance in satisfaction was described by a model including agency, support, international diversity and group climate. Sixty-five per cent of variance in intent to complete was described by a model comprising international diversity, agency and support. Several control variables were significant.

Agency and support in particular were the most influential predictors of both satisfaction and intention, suggesting that future efforts should emphasize stable funding, clear expectations, access to mentors and agency-building experiences to help students take an active role in their own success.

The purpose of this research is to understand the differences in information tasks as well as the pattern and use characteristics of information sources by postgraduate students in arts and engineering faculties in Nigeria's premier university, the University of Ibadan.

Data were collected from samples of 153 and 162 postgraduate students from engineering and arts/humanities respectively using a questionnaire. Data were collected on the tasks – popular, occupational and scholarly tasks – for which the students used identified sources.

Altogether popular tasks or everyday common activities dominate the information needs of the students, although more arts students required such information than engineering students. Arts and engineering students consulted interpersonal sources but arts students consulted the library in addition more than engineering students.

The research focused only on one institution, thus limiting the applications of the results to other institutions.

Discussion forums and similar opportunities for interpersonal interaction are useful for both faculties, but arts students should have forums in the learning environment to enable them to interact with their colleagues and experts.

There is no study in Nigeria focusing on the benefits of discriminating information services to students according to their disciplines.

Business skills, particularly in the areas of science, engineering and technology (SET) and small firm development are becoming increasingly important. The vocational skills student learns can be augmented by an understanding of how business operates as well as an appreciation that enterprise skills can be applied within an organisation i.e. acting as an “intrapreneur”. Universities prepare students for many of the “professions” such as medicine, engineering, law and accountancy. Many other disciplines such as healthcare, social sciences and the sciences also require a professional attitude to be adopted. However, new graduates generally begin their post‐university career in a form of apprenticeship where their professional skills are developed, often via a pre‐registration period before achieving, for example, for engineers, chartered status. After that stage is reached, and with a few years work experience, they may move on to form practices or partnerships of their own. Based on the principle that business skills development, particularly in the SET disciplines, is likely to have a positive impact on the competitiveness of existing SET organisations, as well as encourage the creation of new, innovative knowledge firms, this paper aims to document the experience of introducing and embedding entrepreneurship education into vocational disciplines at Heriot‐Watt University, with a key objective being to provide a model which other institutions may find useful.