Integrating Service, Learning, and Professional Practice: Toward the Vision for Civil Engineering in 2025

Mostafavi, Ali; Huff, James L.; Abraham, Dulcy M.; Oakes, William C.; Zoltowski, Carla B.

doi:10.1061/(asce)ei.1943-5541.0000179

Cited by 18 publications

(14 citation statements)

References 16 publications

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“…The combined benefits from engineering service projects greatly increase the educational effects of such experiences in ways that traditional coursework learning do not. Mostafavi, Huff, Abraham, Oakes, and Zoltowski () discussed similar learning outcomes from Purdue's Engineering Projects in Community Service (EPICS) program.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 96%

“…Using Shuman et al's () division of five “technical” outcomes (a, b, c, e, and k) and six “professional” outcomes (d, f, g, h, i, and j), similar to the division by Colledge (), other researchers have found that engineering service participation fulfills professional outcomes in particular (Bielefeldt et al, ; Budny & Gradoville, ; Shuman et al, ). Although many have acknowledged the educational benefits of engineering service experiences, especially for developing professional skills, existing work has been either anecdotal, without empirical data (Amadei & Sandekian, ; Bourn & Neal, ; UNESCO, ), or small‐scale, focused on one university or organization chapter (Budny & Gradoville, ; Jaeger & LaRochelle, ; Mostafavi et al, ; Zornes & Kaminsky, ). Therefore, large‐scale empirical evidence for the learning outcomes associated with engineering service participation is needed.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Others have taken a qualitative approach to study engineering service outcomes. For example, Mostafavi et al () used a case study approach to investigate ABET outcomes and the American Society of Civil Engineering's Body of Knowledge outcomes (ASCE, ) in students engaged with EPICS. Using qualitative data and analysis that aligned students' experiences with learning outcomes, Mostasfavi et al (2013) found two main outcomes of the EPICS experience – “designing in a real‐world context” and “critical and reflective thinking” (p. 8) – both of which provided students opportunities to integrate technical and professional skills “synergistically” (p. 9).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Technical and Professional Skills of Engineers Involved and Not Involved in Engineering Service

Litchfield

Javernick‐Will

2015

J of Engineering Edu

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Background Engineers must acquire increasing technical and professional skills to meet pressing global challenges, but fitting training for these skills into already crowded curricula is difficult. Engineering service may provide opportunities to gain such skills; however, prior research about learning outcomes from such activities has been primarily small-scale, anecdotal, or lacking a comparison group.Purpose/Hypothesis We aim to understand whether self-reported learning outcomes differ between engineers involved and not involved with engineering service activities. Specifically, do the two groups experience and learn different technical and professional skills in their engineering activities?Design/Method We used a sequential mixed methods approach that began with interviews and focus groups with 165 participants and continued with a questionnaire administered to over 2,500 engineering students and practicing engineers both involved and not involved with engineering service. Analyses included variable-oriented qualitative analysis and multiple linear regression models to compare perceived technical and professional skills.Results Quantitative results show that engineers involved and not involved with engineering service report comparable perceived technical skills, and that those involved in engineering service report significantly higher perceived professional skills, even when controlling for age, gender, and grade point average. Qualitative results indicate that higher professional skills can be partially attributed to the realistic, complex, and contextualized learning experiences within engineering service activities.Conclusions Engineers involved with engineering service may gain strong professional engineering skills that do not compromise their technical skills. Thus, engineering service may help educate the type of engineers the field needs to confront pressing global challenges.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 96%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Technical and Professional Skills of Engineers Involved and Not Involved in Engineering Service

Litchfield

Javernick‐Will

2015

J of Engineering Edu

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“…This is not unique to public aff airs and administration programs. The positive infl uence of service learning has been seen in graduate business (Andrews 2007 ;Wittmer 2004 ), nursing (Cohen and Milone-Nuzzo 2001 ), engineering (Mostafavi et al 2013 ), and information-systems programs (Hoxmeier and Lenk 2003 ). Community-oriented service learning serves to further develop the practical skills developed in these specialized fi elds of study.…”

Section: Experiential Learningmentioning

confidence: 99%

Experiential Learning in MPA Programs: A Case for Complementarity between Internship and Service Learning Requirements

Gerlach

Reinagel

2016

APSC

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Experiential learning is a growing practice in higher education today. Master of Public Administration (MPA) programs use experiential learning to expose students to application and reinforcement of academic theories and concepts. This most often is accomplished through a required internship. This article argues for the addition of service learning requirements to MPA curricula. A complementary relationship between internship and service learning requirements yields four primary benefi ts: (1) further involvement of pre-service and in-service students in experiential-learning activities; (2) additional exposure to real-life application of course concepts; (3) better and more targeted classroom reinforcement mechanisms; and (4) additional community benefi t. Complementarity between internship and service learning requirements allows the best of each experiential-learning approach to augment the other. We contend that this produces better-prepared MPA graduates by exposing them to a more diverse set of immersive learning opportunities and application scenarios.

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“…Meyers and Jones (1993) suggested a few effective strategies in promoting active learning in college classroom, including informal group work, simulation, and case studies, etc. These strategies have also been adopted in some previous pedagogical studies in CE, for instance, simulation-based learning in Mosalam et al (2013), and case studies in Lewis et al (2014) and Mostafavi et al (2016). These different teaching and learning strategies would create varied learning environment and students' learning approach (e.g., deep learning and surface learning), which are correlated to their study success as found out by Salmisto et al (2017).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Incorporating Woodwork Fabrication into the Integrated Teaching and Learning of Civil Engineering Students

Zhang

Jin

et al. 2018

J. Prof. Issues Eng. Educ. Pract.

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As an alternative to the traditional structural analysis adopting computer-aided modeling and evaluation, this pedagogical research provided an integrated teaching and learning approach by mapping cognitive domains defined in Bloom's Taxonomy Theory in the newly launched course named Woodwork Fabrication and Analysis for second-year students. The course incorporated ancient Chinese woodwork tradition into the integrated learning activities involving engineering graphics, mechanics of materials, hands-on fabrication, and structural modeling/analysis. Aiming to compare the traditional and new courses in terms of their effectiveness in enhancing student learning of structural engineering subjects, both courses were designed to achieve consistent learning outcomes (e.g., to develop structural analysis skills). This study demonstrated student work in engineering drawing and structural analysis reflecting their critical thinking and active learning in the new course. Afterwards, students from both traditional and new courses were surveyed in terms of the overall satisfaction of their selected course, perceptions of the course effectiveness in enhancing civil engineering-related skills, and expectations of the course to their further study and work. With the student sample from the traditional course as the control group, the comparative study revealed that the integrated teaching and learning approach in the new course could lead to students' higher overall satisfaction and more positive perceptions of the course effectiveness in enhancing structural analysis-related skills. This pedagogical study would serve as a reference for other civil engineering educators in adopting integrated teaching and learning in lower-years' undergraduate education.

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Integrating Service, Learning, and Professional Practice: Toward the Vision for Civil Engineering in 2025

Cited by 18 publications

References 16 publications

Technical and Professional Skills of Engineers Involved and Not Involved in Engineering Service

Technical and Professional Skills of Engineers Involved and Not Involved in Engineering Service

Experiential Learning in MPA Programs: A Case for Complementarity between Internship and Service Learning Requirements

Incorporating Woodwork Fabrication into the Integrated Teaching and Learning of Civil Engineering Students

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