Journal of Civil Engineering Education

Civil engineering students in the United States rarely receive instruction about how their work affects social inequities. Indeed, research reveals that most engineering students lack critical consciousness and fail to recognize and analyze real social inequity challenges as they arise in engineering contexts. As history demonstrates, this can lead to engineering projects that exacerbate inequality, ignore community questions and concerns, or fail to consider the consequences of communities when assessing project success. A key component to addressing these issues includes educators’ ability to evaluate the critical consciousness (CC) of civil engineering students using survey approaches. Toward this goal, this research tested a critical consciousness scale for civil engineers (CCSCE). The CCSCE scale summarizes and factorizes 46 items that capture systems of oppression in civil engineering. The instrument included three indicators measuring critical consciousness (i.e., Critical Reflection: Perceived Inequality; Critical Reflection: Egalitarianism; and Critical Action: Sociopolitical Perception). The CCSCE scale was tested with 150 students at two universities in the United States. Exploratory factor analysis revealed a set of 15 items measuring critical reflection and action items. This study supports the development of concise measures of CC for civil engineers that is valid and reliable. The development of a CCSCE scale is vital for civil engineering education as it provides educators with an instrument to assess whether any educational interventions aimed at enhancing CC are indeed efficacious. The instrument can also be used to assess Accreditation Board of Engineering & Technology (ABET) learning Outcomes 2 and 4.

Abstract

Civil engineers and project managers must control and manage the project management discourse with the client and other stakeholders or risk slippages to time, cost, and programs. This paper explores how communicative choices and the representation of project requirements and engineering issues are intrinsic to effective civil engineering work. Using a social semiotic framework, the paper contributes to civil engineering learning by revealing how various engineering communications (e.g., schematic drawings, visual images) function in civil engineering contexts. The research builds upon civil engineering communication scholarship, highlighting the significance of representational choices for affecting engineering work. The social semiotic and multimodal-informed analysis clarifies processes of cognition, interpretation, and understanding at play when civil engineers interact with project stakeholders. The findings inform civil engineering education and the teaching of communication skills: communication composition being intrinsic to effective civil engineering work.

Practical Applications

The paper presents a framework for assisting and guiding civil engineers and project management professionals in the formulation and review of communicative resources (e.g., visual images; drawings, schematics) used in civil engineering and project management work. The social semiotic framework, validated through case study evidence from a hospital construction project, informs the teaching of civil engineering communication skills: communicative choices and the representation of project requirements and engineering issues being intrinsic to several aspects of civil engineering work, including risk management, stakeholder engagement, and planning and control. The theoretical insights address the role of authors and readers of sign communications in civil engineering work and clarify the processes of cognition and interpretation at play when engineers interact with other professionals and project stakeholders with various communicative resources. The paper adds to the body of knowledge concerning communication in civil engineering contexts and informs the teaching of communication skills for professional civil engineers.

Abstract

Civil engineering education must be updated to keep pace with the profession and move past a culture of disengagement where technical work is considered separate from societal impact. Civil engineering students need to engage with diversity, equity, inclusion, and justice (DEIJ) so they can understand the differential impacts of engineering on individuals from different groups within society. We aim to encourage the transformation of civil engineering education to produce engineers who will be prepared to meaningfully engage with society and advance justice in their future professional roles by providing examples of pedagogical change and analyzing student responses. In this study, we implemented new course assignments in an introductory civil engineering course and a Civil Engineering Materials course. In the introductory assignment, students were taught to draw systems models and asked to consider social and technical factors contributing to the Hurricane Katrina disaster. In the materials course, students completed preclass readings about a regional highway reconstruction project, including articles about neighborhood opposition to the project, and participated in an in-class discussion. We analyzed student submissions using qualitative content analysis. Students in both courses (33% introductory, 60% materials) described learning about the impact engineering designs had on the community. In the materials class, students were asked specifically about the impact of race and wealth on infrastructure decision making. Student responses showed a wide range in how students understood the history of the situation and dynamics of power and privilege. Errors and limitations in student responses point to specific ways the instructors can improve student learning. Our results demonstrate that the integration of activities about societal impact is possible in technical engineering courses, emphasize the importance of integrating social context and related DEIJ content into technical courses, and provide insights into what students perceived they learned from the activities.

Practical Applications

This article provides two examples of how engineering educators can incorporate the social context of engineering into their required technical courses. One example uses Hurricane Katrina to help students learn about system models that include social systems as integral parts and the other example uses a regional highway reconstruction project as a way to consider the Envision sustainability rating system. Analysis of student responses to these activities showed that students learned about the impact of social context on engineering work, and this information seemed novel to many students. Students were willing to engage with questions specifically about race and socioeconomic status, but their responses showed that they needed more historical background to understand how unjust conditions came to exist. Ultimately, changes to individual courses such as those described here will have limited impact on students, and civil engineering departments and majors need to reconsider the curriculum more holistically.

At the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, The Citadel transitioned from a face-to-face to an emergency online modality. We conducted a study to track changes in self-directed learning readiness (SDLR) among engineering students during the Spring 2020 semester, including trends based on demographic, performance, and cognitive load factors. SDLR was measured using the Self-Directed Learning Readiness Scale (SDLRS). Cognitive load was measured as perceived workload across dimensions of mental demand, temporal demand, effort, frustration, and performance using the Task Load Index (TLX). Participants also provided written narratives on learning strategies used during emergency online instruction and/or participated in focus groups. Among 206 undergraduate engineering students, we observed a small but significant increase in SDLR. The academic year may have been an important factor impacting student development during the pandemic, with first- and second-year students showing greatest gains in SDLRS scores. Participants who indicated gains in SDLRS scores generally reported higher perceived workload and increase in a moderate number of workload dimensions. Participants with gains in SDLRS scores reported lower temporal demand, which aligned with written narratives of improved personal organization and time management skills. While the rapid switch to emergency online learning was a source of frustration, the unusual disruption may have provided students with an opportunity to develop SDLR. As few prior engineering education interventions yielded a significant increase in SDLRS scores, we propose that planned online learning experiences may be strategically designed to encourage development of SDLR.

This research describes a case study of an integrated human–computer interaction (HCI) course for construction engineering students using project-based learning and experiential learning cycle methods. To help engineering students keep pace with the increasing use of information technology (IT) in the construction industry, educational institutions have started to add IT-related courses to their civil engineering curriculum. However, these courses usually focus more on fundamental knowledge and technical skills such as programming and system development, and the design of HCI, which plays one of the most critical roles in the IT field, has been rarely discussed in current training programs. Therefore, this research developed a HCI course that focuses on helping students cultivate nontechnical skills, such as communication and teamwork. The developed course was implemented as a graduate-level course at the National Taiwan University of Science and Technology. Based on the feedback collected from students, the HCI course did help them identify real problems through interacting with potential users and developing corresponding solutions using IT. Students also felt that such a learning package did help them gain tangible experience identifying real problems by interacting with potential users, brainstorming possible solutions with their peers, and developing corresponding solutions by using new technologies.

Experiential learning through active exploration can play a vital role in fostering critical thinking and problem-solving skills in engineering education. However, the complex nature of the construction industry in the 21st century cannot afford an education through trial and error in a real environment. This case study aims to promote experiential learning in construction engineering education by designing, implementing, and empirically evaluating a novel gamified pedagogy that directs students to discover systematic solutions for fundamental construction engineering problems. The game-based pedagogy was implemented in the context of construction project scheduling. The proposed pedagogical method and its gamified elements are designed based on the constructivism learning theory and are grounded in state-of-the-art literature through research-based instructional strategies and conceptual frameworks. A scenario-based interactive game, called Zebel, was developed using the Unity game engine. Using a series of preassessment and postassessment instruments, the method was implemented and evaluated in a graduate-level course for construction planning and scheduling to collect empirical data. The outcomes of this case study indicated that the pedagogy successfully guided students with no background and prior knowledge in construction scheduling to discover the fundamental concepts and systematic solutions for the given problems. Although the focus of this study is on construction scheduling, the proposed pedagogy based on active exploration in an interactive game environment can be adopted in other contexts in construction education.

The cave automatic virtual environment (CAVE) can provide a large-scale immersive and interactive virtual reality (VR) learning environment, which is suitable for the navigation of visualized learning objects and communication among teachers and students. Its applications have gained attention in the field of architecture, engineering, and construction (AEC). This empirical study aimed to examine the effects of the CAVE-VR learning environment on enhancing students’ perception of essential building elements compared with the traditional learning environment and explore the factors influencing students’ technology acceptance of this teaching innovation. Initially, the study developed teaching materials related to essential building elements on the CAVE-VR system and implemented the teaching innovation in an undergraduate course, Introductory Construction Technology and Materials. A two-round comparison was adopted in this study to evaluate the effects of the innovative learning environment created by the CAVE-VR system and the traditional learning environment using slides projected on the whiteboard. Two in-class quizzes were designed to test students’ comprehension of essential building elements; a questionnaire survey, which was devised based on the cognitive load theory and technology acceptance model, was utilized to evaluate students’ attitudes toward the learning experience. According to the descriptive and statistical analysis of the quiz results and questionnaire survey responses, the findings of this empirical study are as follows: (1) for the first-round implementation, it was found that students learning through the proposed CAVE-VR environment attained an enhanced perception of the building elements compared with students learning through the slides; for the second-round implementation, it was detected that the perception of building elements of students learning through the CAVE-VR environment for a second time was significantly enhanced compared with students learning through the CAVE-VR environment for the first time; (2) based on the descriptive analysis of students’ responses to the questionnaire survey, most students held a positive technology acceptance attitude toward the immersive CAVE-VR learning environment and experienced a moderate level of cognitive workload to complete their learning tasks, facing few difficulties in interactive operations; and (3) according to the statistical analysis of the feedback of students from different learning programs, Higher Diploma students experienced a significantly lower degree of time pressure, effort demand, and sense of accomplishment than Bachelor students in the CAVE-VR learning environment; at the same time, students from both learning programs considered that the perceived usefulness had a direct impact on their intention to use the CAVE-VR learning environment.