Journal of Civil Engineering Education

Early-career engineers leave the profession at high rates, and much remains unknown about why that is so. Consequently, there have been calls for more research to better understand newcomer engineers’ experiences and attrition. The purpose of this article is therefore to examine the experiences of newcomer engineers from different universities and engineering firms around the US. The research questions addressed are as follows: (1) How do newcomer engineers characterize engineering work? and (2) What insights can their characterizations provide about newcomer attrition from engineering careers? A longitudinal study was conducted with recent civil engineering graduates in the US. Three sets of semistructured interviews were conducted in 2019 and 2020. Open coding methods were used to answer the first research question. Based on those emergent findings, the data was then analyzed through the lens of expectancy-value theory to answer the second research question. Misalignments between subjective task values created and/or reinforced in school were a prevalent source of dissatisfaction. There was a need for participants to engage in occupational identity work to reconcile the meanings of engineering and align their identities as engineers with workplace realities. Implications for future research and the engineering education system are discussed.

Abstract

Despite the need to prepare engineers for leadership in the workforce, the civil engineering curriculum lacks formal leadership education. The limited focus on leadership in the curriculum raises questions of how and where students are developing leadership competencies. Social capital, the resources embedded in an individual’s social network, may play a significant role in the development of students’ leadership competencies. Yet little is known about how civil engineering students access and activate their social networks and what leadership-related benefits social capital provides. Using an asset-based approach and applying social capital theory, the present research investigated the role of social capital in leadership development of civil engineering undergraduates. In 14 semistructured interviews with students across the US, students identified several sources of social capital in their social networks. Students activated this social capital through observation and conversation with industry mentors, peers, family, and faculty; participation in out-of-class activities; and identification of leadership roles they could take on. Recommendations based on this work include facilitating safe and welcoming spaces where students can approach civil engineering faculty members and industry professionals with questions about their careers and futures.

Practical Applications

This study explored how civil engineering students develop leadership competencies to prepare for a career in civil engineering. Civil engineers require leadership development as they must make ethical, safe, and sustainable decisions to address future infrastructure challenges and design and construct large-scale projects. By interviewing 14 civil engineering students, we found further evidence that undergraduate civil engineering students are developing leadership competencies beyond the classroom. They are using various forms of social capital, in the form of interactions with industry mentors, peers, family, and faculty, that they tap into via their social networks and out-of-class activities. Findings from this work highlight the importance of educating civil engineering students on social capital and how to best access and activate it. Applications of this work include a call for civil engineering educators, mentors, and internship supervisors to shift conversations with students away from only the technical specifics of class or internship assignments and toward the importance of social networks and out-of-class activities. To have a better prepared future generation of civil engineers, civil engineering academics and industry leaders must seek to include students in conversations and decision making about professional preparation and leadership development.

Civil engineering, specifically transport engineering, is a continually evolving profession. Recent developments in technology have resulted in more automated and visual problem-solving techniques, involving the use of computer programs and simulation, as practitioners and researchers move away from traditional pen and paper approaches. Accordingly, teaching undergraduate university students the basic principles of transport planning, traffic engineering, and highway design effectively is fundamental to the sustainability of the profession. It also is a challenging and dynamic task for educators because enhanced accessibility to technology has changed the way students understand and learn the material being delivered at tertiary education institutions. This paper presents the development of, and feedback from, the implementation of a series of blended learning initiatives (interactive polling exercises, online quizzes, supplementary learning videos, and authentic real-world design project) within an introductory large class-size transport planning and geometric design subject. The process of developing the blended learning initiatives was documented to clearly highlight the benefits and challenges in the transformation process. In addition, qualitative student feedback and student performance between 2016 and 2018 were reviewed to understand the impacts of the transformation. The initiatives were well received; students valued self-paced learning and the exposure to real-world design exercises. From an educator’s perspective, blending made it feasible to deliver complex content whilst offering tailored learning opportunities across the cohort. Although further comprehensive experiments and statistically oriented research are necessary, this case study adds to a growing body of literature that indicates the potential value of blended learning initiatives, especially in the context of large class-size university subjects.

This article introduces eight instructional modules designed to create aha moments for students and help them gain clear insights on how geotechnical engineering principles are applied in the real world. Each module consists of (1) an interactive class demonstration using a physical model, (2) a whiteboard-style animation that provides the background and significance, and (3) a lesson plan. Video recording of the physical demonstration and whiteboard-style animation are combined into a single multimedia file and uploaded to YouTube for public access. Survey results show that the instruction modules facilitate students’ learning and stimulate their interests in geotechnical engineering.

As a learner-centered pedagogy, project-based learning (PBL) is recognized to improve students’ engagement and long-term learning effectiveness. The present PBL practices are based on instructor-defined topics and are assigned as a partial or full substitution of traditional assessments. Here, open-topic PBL as an opt-in activity is proposed and was applied to the teaching settings of engineering mechanics. The goal is to promote students’ learning outcomes while shaping an inclusive learning environment. The intervention was introduced to the sophomore course Statics and Dynamics as an extra-credit group assignment complementing traditional exams. Participation was voluntary, and the project topics were student-defined based on real-life examples. The learning outcomes were evaluated by comparing students’ improvements in exam scores between two study periods of the same semester, with the intervention applied only to the second. Results show that the intervention was successful overall and confirmed the positive influence of open-topic PBL on students’ exam scores. The intervention’s effectiveness was found to be gender-dependent; female students exhibited a higher participation rate and greater improvement on exams than their male counterparts. Moreover, lower-performing students before the intervention displayed a significant improvement after participation and contributed to a noticeable reduction in the class standard deviation. Keeping topics open and participation optional thus is recommended for PBL to account for students’ individual uniqueness and to offer the flexibility to strategize every student’s own learning approach suited to their unique situation.