Engineering students’ sustainability approaches

Abstract

Sustainability issues are increasingly important in engineering work all over the world. This article explores systematic differences in self-assessed competencies, interests, importance, engagement and practices of newly enrolled engineering students in Denmark in relation to environmental and non-environmental sustainability issues. The empirical base of the article is a nation-wide, web-based survey sent to all newly enrolled engineering students in Denmark commencing their education in the fall term 2010. The response rate was 46%. The survey focused on a variety of different aspects of what can be conceived as sustainability. By means of cluster analysis, three engineering student approaches to sustainability are identified and described. The article provides knowledge on the different prerequisites of engineering students in relation to the role of sustainability in engineering. This information is important input to educators trying to target new engineering students and contribute to the provision of engineers equipped to meet sustainability challenges.

Measuring Students’ Motivation to Engage in Sustainable Engineering Practice

“…EESD research is often dominated by topics regarding inhibitors to change in engineering institutions and single case initiatives to embed SD topics in engineering courses [3]. However, some literature explores students' approaches towards sustainable engineering (SE) as opposed to SD [11,14]. This change in terminology signifies an increase in the depth of consideration of SD in engineering education (EE).…”

The Categorising Characteristics of Facebook Pages: Using the K-Means Grouping Method

“…Those with larger amounts of data can use the K-means cluster analysis within nonhierarchical cluster analysis. Lastly, when confronting large amounts of data, or those mixed with continuous and categorical variables, the two step cluster analysis is the best choice (Haase, 2014). This study applies the K-means clustering for the grouping analysis of Facebook pages.…”

“…The two step cluster analysis, however, first uses the hierarchical cluster analysis to decide the number of clusters, and then uses the nonhierarchical cluster analysis for grouping. Two step cluster analysis can conduct mixed analysis on continuous and related data, and present clusters with diverse quantity (Haase, 2014).…”

Assessing the “Wicked Sustainability Problem” – Literacy in Engineering Education

“…Engineering education has the potential to play an important role in preparing students to contribute to deal with problems such as WSPs 3,4 . In fact, problem solving activities already play an important role in engineering education 5 , and engineering students have been found to be highly motivated to contribute to address social and environmental problems 7 . To be able to contribute in this way, students need to develop WSP literacy, which we define as the ability to holistically and integratively understand and address WSPs while considering the normative context of sustainable development.…”