Abstract
The transportation engineering field is currently experiencing a profound transformation driven by technological evolution, which highlights the importance of preparing students for the types of careers that will be available to them in the future. Although transportation engineering programs in the United States are typically at the graduate level, the majority of existing research has focused on undergraduate courses. This study focuses on master’s-level transportation engineering curricula, with the goal of investigating how changes in employment opportunities and day-to-day work responsibilities of transportation engineers over the coming 5–10 years will inform the topics that graduate-level curricula should include to set students up for future success. The study consists of in-depth interviews with a range of academics and practitioners and subsequent analyses of interview transcripts using thematic analysis methods. Seven themes were derived, pertaining to three categories: future opportunities, identified skills, and program structure observations. The three thematic categories are not independent, and their interactions with one another hold information that can lead to recommendations for the design of transportation engineering master’s programs.
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Data Availability Statement
Some or all data, models, or code generated or used during the study are proprietary or confidential in nature and may only be provided with restrictions (e.g., anonymized data): The interview recordings cannot be shared since they contain identifying information, and respondents agreed to be interviewed on the condition of anonymity. Anonymized interview transcripts may be provided by the corresponding author upon reasonable request with appropriate IRB approvals. No other data, models, or code were generated as part of this research project.
Acknowledgments
The authors would like to thank Mark R. McCord and Rabi G. Mishalani from the Ohio State University for their valuable feedback and comments during the study. Furthermore, the authors would like to thank the study participants for their time and for their insightful interview responses.
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Information & Authors
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Published In
Journal of Civil Engineering Education
Volume 147 • Issue 3 • July 2021
Copyright
© 2021 American Society of Civil Engineers.
History
Received: Mar 5, 2020
Accepted: Nov 25, 2020
Published online: Feb 18, 2021
Published in print: Jul 1, 2021
Discussion open until: Jul 18, 2021
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