What Does Hidden Curriculum in Engineering Look Like and How Can It Be Explored?

Villanueva, Idalis; Gelles, Laura A.; Stefano, Marialuisa Di; Smith, Buffy; Tull, Renetta G.; Lord, Susan M.; Benson, Lisa; Hunt, Anne Therese; Riley, Donna; Ryan, Gery W.

doi:10.18260/1-2--31234

Cited by 34 publications

(33 citation statements)

References 26 publications

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“…Second, our data only enables us to draw conclusions about students' espoused beliefs, which may or may not align with their more deeply-held or implicit beliefs. This is a limitation because we know that people are often unaware of their implicit beliefs, even though they inform our conduct in real-world settings (Connors and Halligan 2015;Smith 2016), and these more deeply-held beliefs can be transmitted through the hidden curriculum (Bejerano and Bartosh 2015;Polmear et al 2019;Villanueva et al 2018). Third, we also acknowledge that courses such as capstone design provide students with limited time to work on their projects and, therefore, might affect the decisions students make when working on their design projects.…”

Section: Limitationsmentioning

confidence: 98%

Empathic approaches in engineering capstone design projects: student beliefs and reported behaviour

Guanes

Wang

Delaine

et al. 2021

European Journal of Engineering Education

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Engineering design decisions have non-trivial implications, and empathic approaches are one way that engineers can understand and translate the perspectives of diverse stakeholders. Prior literature demonstrates that students must develop empathic skills and beliefs that these skills are important to embody empathic approaches in meaningful ways. However, we have limited understanding of the relationship between students' beliefs about the value of empathy in engineering decision making and how they describe their reported use of empathic approaches. We collected qualitative data through interviews with ten undergraduate engineering students in capstone design. We found that our participants espoused a belief that empathic approaches are valuable in engineering design decisions. However, while students considered diverse perspectives when describing how they made design decisions, their reported behaviour during design decisions did not demonstrate translation of their empathic understanding. Based on these findings, we provide recommendations to educators and researchers.

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Section: Limitationsmentioning

confidence: 98%

Empathic approaches in engineering capstone design projects: student beliefs and reported behaviour

Guanes

Wang

Delaine

et al. 2021

European Journal of Engineering Education

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…A series of emerging studies have revealed similar findings (e.g. Bakht 2018;Kovalchuk et al 2017;Lutz 2017;Paretti et al 2017;Villanueva et al 2018).…”

Section: Research On Engineering Workplace Transitionsmentioning

confidence: 68%

Transitioning to engineering practice

Trevelyan

2019

European Journal of Engineering Education

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Transition from education to practice can be troublesome for many earlycareer engineers because expectations, habitual work practices and values tend to conflict with realities of engineering workplaces. Emerging technologies referred to as 'Industry 4.0' or the 'fourth industrial revolution' have prompted many to argue for students to develop improved socio-technical skills. Understandings of practice emerging from contemporary research could help educators shape a new generation of engineers with more appropriate abilities to restore global productivity growth and transform economies to eliminate greenhouse emissions in a short enough time to limit human-induced global warming. However, so far, explicit curriculum reforms addressing graduate attributes and workplace skills have not resulted in significant employability improvements. This paper argues that assessment practices and curriculum gaps may be acting as an implied or hidden curriculum shaping student expectations and values. This paper proposes ways to overcome these curriculum deficits in higher education institutions and also workplace education interventions. These changes could help educate engineers about productivity improvement, commercial and social value generation, business requirements and entrepreneurship. Changes like these will be needed to achieve sustainable development goals, especially in developing countries.

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“…Future studies may also triangulate viewpoints of experienced instructors with that of senior management, novice teachers, instructional designers, and students to establish a more comprehensive understanding of the issues discussed. Work to explore the invisible curriculum, such as in the work of Villanueva et al (2018), can also be undertaken to uncover and establish the competencies within it and, in turn, help pave the way to bringing them into the forefront of engineering education.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Constructive alignment between holistic competency development and assessment in Hong Kong engineering education

Chan

Lee

2021

J of Engineering Edu

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Background: Holistic competencies comprise various holistic skills (e.g., communication) and positive values and attitudes (e.g., empathy). There have been increasing efforts worldwide to foster students' holistic competency development within engineering curricula. While recent studies indicate a positive shift, it remains unclear whether such efforts are driven by only a handful of individuals or more widely supported by systemic changes to constructively align competency development with the engineering curriculum. Purpose/Hypothesis: This study investigates the extent to which endeavors to promote holistic competency development in Hong Kong's tertiary engineering education are supported by a broader, constructively aligned curricular system. The three key components of constructive alignment developed by Biggs in 2003-intended outcomes, teaching activities, and assessment-form the conceptual framework guiding this study. Design/Method: This study conducted document analysis of 245 engineering courses and interviews with five engineering instructors from three Hong Kong universities. Results: Only 34 of 245 syllabi analyzed incorporated holistic competencies in their intended outcomes. These outcomes were associated with both traditional and experiential pedagogies but were not matched with direct or explicit assessments. Data show that program leaders' conceptions of holistic competencies, instructor's limited capabilities, and issues assessing competencies pose challenges to constructive alignment.Conclusions: Challenges for achieving constructive alignment and recommendations for addressing them are discussed. Our findings highlight the need to train all levels of engineering instructors in student holistic competency development, to acquaint instructors with industrial experiences and expectations, to develop top-down and bottom-up reforms to refine engineering curricula, and to provide increased recognition for teaching quality and efforts.

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What Does Hidden Curriculum in Engineering Look Like and How Can It Be Explored?

Cited by 34 publications

References 26 publications

Empathic approaches in engineering capstone design projects: student beliefs and reported behaviour

Empathic approaches in engineering capstone design projects: student beliefs and reported behaviour

Transitioning to engineering practice

Constructive alignment between holistic competency development and assessment in Hong Kong engineering education

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