Results

1. First-Year Engineering Students’ Views of the Nature of Engineering:Characteristics of Good Engineers College of Education Department of Curriculum & Instruction Faik Ö. Karataş & Dr. George M. Bodner Purdue University Introduction Figure 5 illustrates students’ views about cognitive characteristics of a good engineer. Creativity and problem solving skills are two most mentioned ones. Why problem solving skills: Students viewed engineering as a problem solving activity. So, a good engineer must be good at it. “Problem solver-it is basically the job description!” “Good Problem Solving Skills-you must be able to solve challenging problems.” Why creativity and imagination: Students believed that creativity is necessary for innovative ideas and solutions and change the routine. “Creativity and imagination I feel are the most important because without them your possible solutions are limited.” “A good amount of creativity is also useful because new ideas are key in the engineering world.” As a result of scientific discoveries and innovative engineering designs, the world is more global than ever before. This process has brought many opportunities as well as challenges and problems to engineers. Engineering has become an inter- and multi-disciplinary field because of complexity of the contemporary problems (Creed et al., 2002). In response to these challenges, scholars and professional organizations have proposed many ideas about what the future engineers should gain and how they should be prepared for their future career (Fortenberry, 2006; Fromm, 2003; Guest, 2006; NAE, 2002; NAE, 2004; Wulf, 2002). As we discussed somewhere else (see Bodner, Karatas, & Rud, 2008) “whereas traditional science and engineering education programs produced graduates with the necessary technical knowledge, scientists and engineers who will be competitive in today’s workplace must also be effective communicators, team players, and understand the non-technical and human factors that affect engineering design (ABET, 2000). They will have to be able to work in interdisciplinary teams to serve a globally diverse customer base (Fortenberry, 2006; Fromm, 2003; Wormley, 2006). As industry shifts from large companies producing inexpensive commodities for the global market to small companies that produce innovative, customer-oriented, “branded” products, it is increasingly important for scientists and engineers to possess other skills, such as entrepreneurship (Creed et al., 2002; Becker 2006)” (p. 6). McCready (1998) claimed that students who aspire to become engineers need to be aware of what it means to be an engineer and how their education helps them realize this outcome. The skills and characteristics that are necessary for engineers are the sketch of some aspects of the nature of engineering (NOE). Student's responses regarding the characteristics of good engineers demonstrate what they expect to do after graduating from the college of engineering and provide evidence about students’ views of what it means to be an engineer. Data Collection and Analysis The data were collected by employing a 12-item open-ended questionnaire. However, we present results of the data from one question that is related to our current topic. “What characteristics are needed to be a good engineer? Explain why they are important.” Inductive content analysis was applied to students’ responses to the open-ended item to find themes and categories regarding students’ views of characteristics of a good engineer (Patton, 2002). As can be seen Figure 6, good communication skills and team-work ability were thought very important to be a good engineer. Why good communication skills: Students’ responses pointed out two main reasons: to share ideas with peers and explain the project to the client. “…effective communicators to talk with team members, get ideas across, and communicate in the business world…” “(C)ommunication skills in order to explain their ideas.” “Good Communication- you must be able to communicate with others in order to complete a task.” Results We found five main categories into which we could classify first-year engineering students’ views regarding characteristics of good engineers: personal characteristics, intellectual characteristics, social characteristics, background knowledge, and ethical characteristics. As can be seen in Figure 2, Hispanic-American students cited relatively more personal characteristics of engineers than other ethnic groups. Similarly, African-American students’ responses included more cognitive or intellectual characteristics as well as solid background knowledge to become an engineer. Caucasian students, on the other hand, focused on more social characteristics than other groups. Both Caucasian and Asian-American students demonstrated a similar trend regarding the ethical characteristics of engineers. Overall, only Caucasian students’ responses regarding the characteristics of a good engineer were above the average for all categories. Figure 6. Sub-categories for social characteristics Why team-work ability: Students believed that engineering work cannot be done by one person and engineers need to work with others to get the job done. “An engineer also needs to be able to work with others. It is next to impossible for one person to solve major problems.” “Teamwork because most likely you will never be working alone and you'll need the help of all of those around you.” Conclusions Figure 2. Main categories of characteristics of a good engineer by ethnicity • Five main categories emerged from the data: Personal, cognitive, and social characteristics, background knowledge, and ethical-moral values respectively in terms of total number of indication. Students emphasized personal and cognitive/intellectual characteristics (see Figure 2), but did not mentioned ethical characteristics as much. First-year engineering program should pay more attention in this aspect. • More female engineering students mentioned characteristics of a good engineer than male students in all main categories, but background knowledge. • Even though many students perceived communications skills as one of the characteristics of a good engineer, they only see communication in oral form. • Based on the data students viewed the nature of engineering as: • -Engineering strongly involves team work, thus it involves all team dynamics (communication, representation, leadership, and get along with each other). • -Inputs from all members of the engineering team is vital for a better solution. • -Engineering work requires creativity, imagination, and other higher intellectual abilities. • -Engineering work is complex and not straight forward. Thus, it involves failures. • -Engineering is a problem solving process. • -Engineering requires some background knowledge in natural sciences, mathematics, and related field. • -Work ethics are important in engineering because engineering products affect other people. As can be seen in Figure 3, relatively more female students mentioned about characteristics of good engineers in all categories except “background knowledge.” More male students believed that background knowledge is necessary to be a good engineer. Research Questions • What are the first-year engineering students’ views of characteristics of good engineers? • What aspects of the NOE do these characteristics point out? Figure 3.Main categories of characteristics of a good engineer by gender As can be seen in Figure 4, open-mindedness, patience, and dedication were believed three main personal characteristics that a good engineer should have. Why open-minded: Because engineers cannot stick on one thing. They need to open for criticism and fresh alternative ideas. “Open-minded- to look at different sides of a problem or solution is important because there could be better ways of solving a problem than sticking to one solution.” “An open mind is probably the most important because you have to listen to other people because your idea is not always the best, you need to be able to take criticism.” Why patient: Students believed that engineering problems are not easy and some attempts might not be successful. “(P)erserverance: sometimes your ideas don't work completely but you always need to keep trying.” “Also, engineers must be patient because failure is also a step that may have to be taken in order to learn.” Why dedicated: Students believed that without dedication and hard-work, an engineer cannot be successful. “(D)edication because if you don't put yourself forth into engineering and you don’t push yourself you won't succeed and you could possibly hurt others.” References Methodology Participants 114 participants were selected by applying a mixture of non-proportional stratified sampling and maximum variation sampling based on their ethnicity and gender to ensure a large span of variance in beliefs from a pool of 838 first-year engineering students who enrolled at a large Mid-West university. 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Lifelong learning for engineers: A global perspective, European Journal of Engineering Education, 31, 273-281. McCready, M. J. (1998), Defining engineers: How engineers think about the world, retrieved from http://www.nd.edu/~mjm/ on March 12, 2009. National Academy of Engineering, The engineer of 2020: Visions of engineering in the new century, Washington, DC: The National Academies Press, 2004. National Engineering Education Research Colloquies. (2006). Journal of Engineering Education, 95, 257-261. Patton, M. Q. (2002). Qualitative research & evaluation methods (3rd ed.). California: Sage Publication. Wormley, D. N. (2006). A year of dialogue focused on engineering education research, Journal of Engineering Education, 95, 179. Wulf, W. A. (2002). The urgency of engineering education reform, Journal of Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics Education, 3 (July-December), 3-9. Figure 4. Sub-categories for personal characteristics Figure 5. Sub-categories for cognitive characteristics Figure 1. Participants