Beginning to Develop and Assess Engineering Judgment in an Introductory Geotechnical Engineering Course

Geotechnical engineering requires the application of engineering judgment to successfully interpret field conditions and come to an appropriate decision. To practice engineering judgment, engineers evaluate their initial impressions when presented with new information and learn from past failures. This much is implicitly understood, but how engineers accrue engineering judgment is highly debated and is a research area still in its adolescence. Members of industry posit that engineering experience is essential for competent engineering practice, but traditional engineering education practices need to be updated with opportunities to acquire such experience. Internships help some students obtain relevant experience that entry-level engineers need. Unfortunately, not all students have the opportunity to experience hands-on internships, especially during the pandemic. Defining engineering judgment in the context of practicing engineering does not always map to a useful tool for educators to generate curricular designs that target development of this skill in the classroom. This prompted the need for a new paradigm regarding engineering judgment in undergraduate learning. Using a qualitative systematic review, we identified an emergent theoretical framework for engineering judgment that is comprised of seven emergent competencies. This paper presents the use of this emergent framework to design, implement, and assess a design project in a sophomore-level introductory geotechnical engineering course at a small private research institute in the Northeast of the United States. If we want students to learn the competencies included within engineering judgment, we need an explicit definition. If we want to support faculty as they respond to evolving ABET criteria, we need evidence of the use of these assessment tools for a range of student products. This paper presents the use of a research-based instructional strategy for utilizing student-centered goals, activities, products, and assessments (GAPA) aimed at developing engineering judgment in an undergraduate classroom.