European Journal of Engineering Education

This systematic literature review provides an overview of how higher education in engineering, in collaboration with industry, supports student transitions to work life. A qualitative content analysis of 36 articles published between 2013 and 2023 indicated that this collaboration provides numerous benefits for all stakeholders; however, challenges can impede or even halt those efforts. The reviewed articles address curricula, motivation, and professional aspects and demonstrate evidence of international research collaborations. Common collaboration patterns include problem-solving, product development, and assisting students in transitioning from academia to the professional sphere. While the benefits of collaboration are evident for all parties involved, challenges and hindering factors like time and resource constraints do exist. In the discussion, we introduce the six C’s: key factors for successful collaboration between higher education and industry; namely, clarity, communication, commonality, commitment, continuity, and confidence. A framework outlining potential success factors for higher education–industry collaboration is proposed.

The COVID-19 pandemic has forced most universities to shift from traditional face-to-face teaching to remote learning. This sudden transition has presented numerous challenges for institutions that were unaccustomed to remote work, particularly in the context of senior design projects in engineering. Therefore, this study aimed to identify the influencing factors and their relative importance in affecting team communication in senior design projects during remote work. The study used the Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) approach to measure the level of importance of each factor using pairwise comparison in a structured questionnaire. The survey was distributed among group leaders of senior engineering design projects and faculty members who supervised these projects. The study identified five influencing factors: interaction and relations, trust, technology, time, and working environment. The pairwise comparison revealed that interaction and relations were the most important factor in influencing the communication process during remote work. Based on the identified influencing factors, strategies to improve the effectiveness and collaboration of remote meetings were established, providing a roadmap for universities to better prepare for future disruptions and maintain effective communication within student teams during remote work. Furthermore, these findings could have implications for other areas of higher education and the broader workplace. ARTICLE HISTORY

Universities globally are called to educate collaborative and ethical engineers. In response, interdisciplinary problem-based learning is increasingly used to equip students with competencies needed to solve grand societal challenges. However, complex problem-solving in interdisciplinary teams can challenge students' existing beliefs and cause confusion. Our study examines these challenges through the lens of 'disorienting dilemmas' from transformative learning theory and investigates students' coping strategies. Through twenty-nine student interviews, we uncovered disorienting dilemmas related to self-identity, problem-solving, disciplinary perceptions, conceptual understanding, and collaboration. Additionally, based on varied cognitive and behavioural responses, we identified four coping strategies: integrating, investigating, negotiating, and withdrawing. Notably, we observed shifts in students' use of coping strategies. Our research advances transformative learning theory through its focus on shared learning and the recognition of diversity of coping strategies, thus providing insights for designing supports that guide students towards more constructive strategies and facilitate transformative learning. ARTICLE HISTORY

Future engineers are labelled entrepreneurial engineers, possessing business skills that enable them to perform effectively in various contexts. Entrepreneurship education is a key avenue for equipping engineering students with these skills, with a growing propagation in their curricula in recent years. Still, scholarly efforts are limited in this domain, particularly regarding the application of active and experiential learning methods, despite early studies highlighting their effectiveness in developing entrepreneurial competencies. This case study presents a course for engineering undergraduates based on active learning theories and methods. We offer a comprehensive view of their perceived usefulness, opportunities, and challenges from the perspectives of the students, educator, and entrepreneurship education experts. This study advances the discussion on the intricacies of active learning applications in entrepreneurship, contributes to the limited literature on engineering entrepreneurship education, and provide insights to educators and pedagogical designers to effectively incorporate active methods into their curricula.

This study explores the mental health perceptions, expectations for mental healthcare, and use of existing mental health services among international engineering students at a Western Canadian university. Employing a phenomenological qualitative approach, semi-structured interviews were conducted with 18 international undergraduate engineering students to understand their mental health challenges and service usage. The thematic analysis revealed three significant themes: students’ understanding of mental health; their experiences within the engineering programme, and recommendations to enhance and facilitate a positive mental health experience at the university. Findings suggest that mental healthcare for international engineering students should be responsive to the students’ unique needs, providing support and accessible services during their transition from their home countries and recognising the impact of the environmental and cultural factors on their experiences as members of the Faculty of Engineering and the broader university community.

An association between spatial ability, particularly visualisation, and science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education has been repeatedly demonstrated over the past four decades. Understanding this relationship is of critical importance as substantial evidence illustrates the malleability of spatial ability and that the effects of associated training interventions transfer to desirable STEM outcomes such as improved educational performance and reduced attrition rates. There currently exists a number of theories as to why spatial ability relates to STEM, such as that the nature of STEM activity is inherently spatial. However, there is a need to better understand this relationship from a cognitive perspective. This research examined the hypothesis that spatial ability is predictive of short-term retention for declarative technical information associated with engineering curricula. An original investigation in an authentic educational setting found that visualisation and interest in the lecture material were significant predictors of short-term knowledge retention. This effect was then replicated in two subsequent conceptual replication studies. Based on this predictive finding, it is theorised that increases in spatial ability may support the elongation of the knowledge forgetting curve which would have significant implications for instructional design. ARTICLE HISTORY

Modernising engineering education demands integrating diverse perspectives through multidisciplinary, collaborative approaches. In developing countries, collaboration with stakeholders presents a significant challenge. This study aimed to develop a novel collective approach to establish priorities for modernising engineering education. A workshop was conducted by the Modernisation of Undergraduate Education Program at the Pontifical Catholic University of Paraná in a Southern Brazilian metropolis, with 63 stakeholders from various sectors (education, experts, government, industry, and civil society organisations). The workshop consisted of three rounds discussions, including two rounds with stakeholders of the same sector and one round with stakeholders of different sectors mixed in discussion tables. Each table, comprising 3–7 participants, aimed to reach a consensus. Several topics were addressed in the discussions, including curricularization of extension, updating outdated curricular bases, and integrating soft skills and entrepreneurship into engineering programs. The resulting goals emphasised the integration of engineering education with society and industry. Participants agreed on short to medium-term deadlines for achieving these goals. This approach connected stakeholders, fostering an extensive collaborative, multisectoral network supporting engineering education modernisation.

Internationalization is seen as one of the means of enabling engineering students to acquire skills, attitudes and also promote their employability. In this study, we investigate the effects of a six-month internship abroad on self-perceived employability, by: 1) observing the global effect of the internship abroad on factors related to self-perceived employability (SPE), 2) analyzing the effects depending on demographic and organization questions, 3) Verifying through clustering if the data can identify homogeneous groups of students based on SPE change, 4) predicting SPE positive change relating to the internship abroad. We conducted a quantitative study on SPE before and after the internship abroad, analyzed sample homogeneity (clustering), and assessed the internship's role in SPE change using logistic regression. Results show that: 1) Some factors have high/low level of influence on SPE; 2) demographic and organizational factors do not affect SPE change; 3) two homogenous groups appeared in terms of SPE change (a positive group and a negative group); 4) only social integration support predicts positive change in SPE for engineering students. The SPE of engineering students seems to be linked to wider range of perceived social support in their host country.

Research exploring the advantages and limitations of different laboratory modes on student learning is critical so that engineering instructors can design hybrid/blended laboratories to maximise student learning. However, limited research explores the impact of take-home laboratories on student learning. This article documents the impact that a take-home laboratory had on student perceptions of conceptual and professional learning across four European universities within the discipline of electronic engineering. Impact was evaluated through a student questionnaire that included Likert-scale and open-ended questions and was completed by 74 participants. The research extends what is known by revealing how take-home laboratories supported student understanding. Participants report that having flexible access and more time to build and test real circuits enhanced their understanding. Participants also reported that take-home laboratories supported the development of specific professional skills. Based on the student perspective, an implication of this research is that take-home laboratories can legitimately complement other laboratory modalities.

Transformative curriculum innovation is needed in engineering education programmes, to continuously keep up to date with developments in the professional and research disciplines, in society, technology and pedagogy, and in the characteristics and needs of its diverse students. To enable and facilitate such innovations, both the curriculum's design and its institutional organisation need to be easily adaptable. This paper introduces Curriculum Agility, a concept that has been developed between 2018 and 2023 in a series of focus group sessions with engineering education practitioners and experts. Throughout these co-creational and iterative sessions, Curriculum Agility was defined as a responsively organised education, with dynamic learning contents and flexible pedagogics and didactics, while all involved staff is continuously developing competency to deal with the necessary transitions. Ten principles of Curriculum Agility are presented to guide curriculum innovators at programme and course level towards continuous transformation that is desirable, feasible, and viable within their context.

This study explores the relationship between collaborative dynamics, expressed through observed leadership behaviour, and skills. It is based on the mechanical design activity of six dyads of students (post-secondary vocational training), composed of 11 boys and one girl, who are improving an existing mechanical system. Actions are studied using principal components analysis (PCA) and hierarchical clustering to identify collaborative dynamics in teamwork and their links with scores in standardised spatial tests. Results reveal two profiles of collaboration characterised by two leadership styles, typically identified as autocratic leadership and participative leadership. We highlighted a relationship between leadership posture and spatial skills level, although leadership style does not seem to depend on the spatial skills of the teammates. In addition, we have implemented a methodology based on the actions initiated, to identify leadership posture and leadership styles. This methodology could be complementary to the one currently used and based on questionnaires.

What do students learn if they participate in extracurricular projects? They produce an artefact or organise an event. Default they tell you 'a lot'. Zooming in requires some effort but then reveals that students do learn a lot. As compared to curriculum based courses they are allowed to specialise and set their own targets within the project setting. Does this translate into a regular curriculum? Maybe, at least it is a great source of inspiration!

Student socialisation into the norms and environment of their institution is a crucial process during their college experience. During the COVID-19 pandemic, these processes were disrupted, and little published research exists exploring comparisons of these student socialisation processes before and during the pandemic. Accordingly, we report on a quantitative study conducted at a large mid-western university in the United States, which compared survey data from 2018 to data collected in 2021. We operationalised student socialisation processes using Ashford and Black's proactive behaviours scale to explore how these behaviours and relevant socialisation outcomes changed from before to during the pandemic. The primary socialisation outcomes of interest were engineering identity and social capital. During the COVID pandemic, students reported lower levels of social capital. However, we simultaneously observed higher ratings of students' engineering identity. Next, using multivariate linear regression, we examined which proactive behaviours best predicted socialisation outcomes in both datasets. We found all proactive behaviours were significant predictors of social capital. Proactive behaviours did not influence student's sense of engineering identity. This study contributes to the growing literature on the pandemic's impact on engineering undergraduate students and how proactive behaviours are related to their socialisation outcomes. ARTICLE HISTORY

Architectural education encompasses a multidisciplinary curriculum including design, theory, history, technology, environmental considerations, urban planning, social aspects, and professional practice. This study aims to investigate the extent to which students can effectively integrate structural concepts into architectural design. This examination takes place within the framework of a third-year architectural design studio course, where students advance their design processes with input from architectural design instructors and experts in structural concepts. To facilitate this endeavour, a simple visual screening form was introduced to aid in the learning process. The study utilises a newly generated survey, namely 'Structural System Control Form', which is inspired by the rapid visual screening forms, to assess the students' comprehension of structural concepts during a 14-week architectural design studio. Employing a descriptive and correlational research approach, the study assesses the effectiveness of this integrated strategy in enhancing the students' understanding of structural principles. The findings revealed a notable development among students who participated in the integrated approach, highlighting the value of feedback and evaluation from instructors versed in construction. Furthermore, the use of simplified structural models in students' projects improved their understanding of structural concepts and their ability to incorporate them into their architectural representations. ARTICLE HISTORY

Self-knowledge is an important element of metacognition. It encompasses understanding one's own strengths and weaknesses and includes belief and self-assessment of one’s capacity to perform a task. Cognitive skills comprise a range of mental processes, such as attention, memory, problem solving, systems thinking, abstract thinking, and critical thinking, that are essential for acquiring and applying knowledge. The research described in this paper examined the ability for self-knowledge and cognitive skills of electronics students engaged in project-based learning. The study, which used quantitative and qualitative tools, involved 140 twelve-grade electronics students and explored the self-knowledge and cognitive skills they exhibited while executing their final projects. The correlation and paired-samples t-test between the students’ self-report questionnaire (indirect assessment of cognitive skills) and achievement test (direct assessment of cognitive skills) scores were examined to assess the students’ self-knowledge and cognitive skills. The findings revealed a significant difference between self-report questionnaire scores and achievement test scores, indicating that the students’ self-knowledge did not reflect their actual low level of cognitive skills. Measuring self-knowledge and cognitive skills in project-based learning is essential for assessing the effectiveness of the learning process, resulting in improved project outcomes and a firmer foundation for future academic and professional success.

Self-efficacy has been linked to academic performance, motivation, and progression within engineering degree programs. Such associations are context specific, and an understanding of sources of self-efficacy is paramount to guiding policy and practice enhancements. We sought to understand the self-efficacy beliefs held by 1st year engineering students on a common entry program in Ireland prior to their choosing of a field of engineering to pursue for the remainder of their undergraduate studies. A mixed-methods survey design was adopted. Self-efficacy was quantitatively measured at the beginning and end of the participants second semester using the scale developed by Mamaril et al. (Mamaril, N. A., E. L. Usher, C. R. Li, D. R. Economy, and M. S. Kennedy. 2016. "Measuring Undergraduate Students' Engineering Self-Efficacy: A Validation Study." Journal of Engineering Education 105 (2): 366-395. https://doi.org/10.1002/jee.20121.). Data was gathered pertaining to general and three distinct domains of engineering self-efficacy. In the post-survey, open questions were added to capture qualitative insight regarding participants' views on the sources of their beliefs. A partial replication of the results of Mamaril et al. (Mamaril, N. A., E. L. Usher, C. R. Li, D. R. Economy, and M. S. Kennedy. 2016. "Measuring Undergraduate Students' Engineering Self-Efficacy: A Validation Study." Journal of Engineering Education 105 (2): 366-395. https://doi.org/10.1002/ jee.20121.) was observed suggesting possible contextual impacts on specific dimensions of student self-efficacy. Female students began the semester with significantly lower tinkering skills self-efficacy to male students, with female students general engineering self-efficacy increasing statistically more over the semester within a CDIO module. Qualitative findings indicate context-specific gendered experiences perceived as impacting student self-efficacy. ARTICLE HISTORY

Additive manufacturing (AM) and 3D printing (3DP) offer unique opportunities for experiential learning and practical application in engineering education. In developed countries, AM is integrated into engineering education to train mechanical engineers. However, existing research has not investigated the integration of AM and 3DP into higher education in developing countries. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with students and educators from mechanical engineering programs in Vietnam to examine AM usage in engineering education. Our study revealed that no curricula or policies to integrate AM into classrooms exist in the participating institutions. Engineering schools are attempting to introduce 3DP to students through short courses, but educators have inadequate training. The lack of consistent communication among institutions has hindered the growth of 3DP education. Therefore, to meet the standards of Industry 4.0, it is crucial to have policies and funding in place to promote AM growth among first-year engineering students.

Sociotechnical thinking (STT) has recently emerged in response to technical-social dualism. It is defined as the ability to identify, address, and respond to both social and technical dimensions of engineering. As the number of publications on STT increases, so does the need to map the literature. This paper provides a scoping literature review of STT in engineering education, focusing on research purposes, methodologies, findings, and potential gaps. Our examination of 25 papers indicates that research on STT in engineering education covers a variety of purposes and methodologies. Key findings in the literature provide a better understanding of students’ demonstration of and barriers to developing STT, the intersections between STT, engineering identity and culture, characteristics of STT, challenges and opportunities for teaching STT, and how prior knowledge and emotional connections can facilitate students’ development of STT.

Despite the growing interest in emotions in engineering education, empirical research on incorporating them into engineering ethics education is limited. Therefore, we designed this experimental study to assess how different methods for integrating compassion into engineering ethics cases influenced the intensity of compassion associated with the protagonists of the cases. We utilised modified versions of the Engineering and Science Issues Test (ESIT) cases, employing three methods to intensify compassion associated with the cases’ protagonists: (i) implicit induction, (ii) explicit expression, and (iii) through the description of severe consequences. The participants (n = 415), predominantly engineering students (90%), were divided into one control group and three experimental groups. Results indicated that all three methods increased the intensity of compassion in the cases. However, the implicit method had a relatively weaker impact than the other two methods which had similar effects on the intensity of compassion. Other emotions did not seem to be impacted by the changes. This study provides valuable insights into effective methods to increase the intensity of compassion in engineering ethics cases without affecting other emotions.