Forum papers are thought-provoking opinion pieces or essays founded in fact, sometimes containing speculation, on a civil engineering topic of general interest and relevance to the readership of the journal. The views expressed in this Forum article do not necessarily reflect the views of ASCE or the Editorial Board of the journal.

Motivation is a psychological construct shown to influence an individual’s success. Researchers have focused on factors affecting student motivation but have neglected to address the temporal changes in student motivation and the effects of these changes on academic performance. The purpose of this paper is to answer three main questions: What variables motivate students? Do the motivational variables change over time? And is there a relationship between the motivational variables that influence students and their academic performance as measured in grade point average (GPA)? Using a questionnaire survey approach, this study explores self-determinacy theory to evaluate students’ progression over a three-year enrollment in an undergraduate civil and environmental engineering degree. The evaluation showed that internal factors are the primary motivators of students with high GPA. Also, students’ quality and the quantity of motivation decreased with time in pursuit of a constant goal. Gender differences highlighted that females had superior self-regulatory practices to males. By setting intermediate report deadlines with performance feedback, educators would improve male students’ self-regulatory practices through an improvement of their organization and goal setting skills. These findings provide a better understanding of student attrition than previously acknowledged in the literature.

Multiple national-level reports encourage engineering faculty to help undergraduate engineers develop a basic level of leadership knowledge to enable leadership growth upon graduation. Recent engineering leadership literature suggests that traditional, vertical leadership models are incompatible with engineers’ core identities and may be less appropriate than shared leadership models for knowledge work like that found in student design teams. This study examines the extent to which leadership is shared within undergraduate, senior-level mechanical engineering capstone design teams and classifies teams based on their level of leadership sharing. Results indicate that leadership is more shared than vertical within capstone design teams, and a quadrant classification of shared leadership may be appropriate for describing leadership processes therein. The results develop a student design team leadership taxonomy and suggest that shared leadership models may be more consistent student design experiences than historical, vertical leadership models.

Writing has been identified as a critical skill and element of the engineering profession, yet it is rarely included in sophomore-level and junior-level courses. Textbooks often influence how courses are structured, and reading assignments and homework problems are frequently assigned directly from textbooks. In this project, textbooks are systematically searched for writing-based problems in four core engineering courses: fluid mechanics, thermodynamics, statics, and circuits. The authors focused efforts on identifying learning activities that could potentially allow students to practice writing, learn through writing, and use writing to relate course content to broader applications and contexts. Results included the total number of end-of-chapter questions with writing components and the classification of types of writing prompts. Analysis showed a limited availability of questions with writing components in textbooks and a missed opportunity to incorporate important writing education within the context of technical engineering concepts.

Chief supervision engineers (CSEs) are often employed by owners to address issues related to health, safety, and quality at jobsites in China. Like other professional practitioners, professional ethics, especially individual integrity, is one of the most critical factors for professional performance. However, very few research efforts have been made to explore the professional integrity of CSEs. Given that, this study proposed a conceptual model. It contains three packages: integrity basics (IB), performance-related integrity (PRI), and law-abiding-related integrity (LRI). To verify its reliability and validity, an internal consistency test and confirmatory factor analysis were applied. Statistical results indicate that the model has good reliability and validity. Moreover, the structural equation model was also performed to validate the causal relationship between integrity indicators and the professional integrity of the CSE. The results show that all the indicators of the three dimensions had positive impacts on the professional integrity of CSEs. The primary contribution of this research to the body of knowledge is to develop a reliable and practical model for the assessment of the professional integrity of CSEs and provide an easy-to-use tool for selection of CSEs.

Commonly adopted engineering pedagogy tends to be lecture based, and places students in a passive and often secondary role in the classroom. Research in the field of engineering education highlights the ineffectiveness of such strategies and advocates adopting strategies that actively engage learners. Various pedagogical techniques promote student engagement; this paper focuses on two specific techniques: problem-based learning (PBL) and vertical integration. The authors created engaging classroom environments through vertically integrated courses that implemented PBL through shared course projects. Specifically, the authors created a framework for pairing two different student bodies across two disciplines, integrating a graduate civil engineering course (32 students) and an undergraduate construction management course (22 students). Implementation of the Spring 2016 framework improves student performance on course projects and students’ self-reported professional skill level and confidence in said skills, developed in part through participation in the framework. Further, the framework has a positive impact on undergraduate students’ intention to stay in their major and both student bodies report more interest in completing an additional advanced degree after participating in the vertically integrated courses. Finally, students report that the experience teaches professional skills they expect will be required in their own future careers. It is notable that undergraduates recognized more benefits of this implementation, especially that they have more potential for improvement than advanced graduate students. This paper contributes to the engineering education body of knowledge by delivering a proof of concept that PBL through vertical integration of different disciplines across undergraduate and graduate students supports improved performance and encourages professional skill development and confidence. The paper presents the framework itself, as well as evaluative results from framework implementation.

Two decades of change in technologies and business practices are assessed for their effects on civil engineering work, organizations, and education. The number of civil engineering jobs continues to rise, with projections of greater-than-average increases, compared to other engineering disciplines. There is a continuing shift of jobs from governments to the engineering services and construction sectors. Civil engineers will have to take increased responsibility for their careers, as they navigate through multiple lines of work. Within civil engineering, structural engineering is the largest sector of jobs, and the building industry occupies most firms. Water and environmental jobs and work are next, followed by transportation engineering. While civil engineering employment has risen, ASCE membership by engineers has fallen, reflecting a societal trend of less participation in professional associations. Online learning is affecting colleges and universities, and civil engineering educators must work continually to respond to change and develop new delivery platforms for education.

Research suggests that the mental health of university students is poorer than that of the general population in many countries. This research investigated the stressors, coping strategies, and mental health conditions of local and international graduate students of construction management in Australia and their impact on academic performance. An online questionnaire survey, administered with graduate construction students in Australian universities, received 107 valid responses. Data analysis revealed that (1) balancing work, family, and academic demands is the top stressor for local students, while international students are often worried about finding a job after graduation and face adjustment challenges; (2) academic-related stressors are significant for both groups of students; (3) both groups practice more problem-focused than emotion-focused coping strategies; (4) no significant differences exist between their mental health conditions; and (5) local students perform better academically than their international counterpart. The study uncovered stressors specific to local and international students that lower their academic performance and completion rates, respectively; universities can utilize this knowledge to tailor pertinent intervention programs such as counseling and alternative educational pathways.

Universities, colleges, and other learning institutions receive funding for research studies and data collection involving laboratory and field site work. Students are hired to work in the laboratory or field to gain experience, fulfill their educational requirements, and reduce the financial burden for their education. The safety of student researchers is commonly regarded as a top priority and is an important part of their education for their future careers. While on-campus laboratory safety for students is commonly stressed by many universities, field site safety is rarely mentioned. A study led by the Oregon Department of Transportation (ODOT) was conducted with assistance from Oregon State University (OSU) and Portland State University (PSU) to create a safety training manual and video for student workers and researchers who perform roadway engineering fieldwork. The study revealed safety education and training needs for students. To carry out field data collection, students may be required to work on a roadway, in the right-of-way, or close to live-traffic environments. Workers and researchers present on roadways are exposed to hazardous conditions which present the need for safety training to increase the skill level, hazard awareness, risk perception, and quick reactions of those conducting work operations. Unlike work conducted by permanent employees, work conducted by student workers and researchers typically involves temporary, short-term assignments, so students often only receive informal safety training when required to collect data in the field. Formal safety training resources are needed to provide students—who are the future employees of the transportation industry—with adequate knowledge and skills to ensure that they know how to work safely on roadways. This paper describes current practices related to student worker safety training and the results of a survey conducted to collect the perspectives of onsite engineers and experienced managers on student safety training needs. Conclusions and recommendations are reported based on safety training in university curricula, a comprehensive literature review, and the survey results.

The evolution of college students’ friendship and learning networks may help educators to identify dysfunctional individual students so that student consulting and teaching can be improved. However, very few studies have integrated social network analysis and psychological tests to explore the characteristics of friendship and learning habits of college engineering major students. Network analysis with social psychology interpretation attempts to unveil the relationship between social networks and personality and to identify the subjective and objective mechanisms of assembling student friendship and learning networks. This study interviewed and surveyed civil engineering college students for four consecutive years to establish their friendship and learning networks. Social network analysis techniques and social psychological testing used these data to explore the mechanisms of network evolution and the reflections of student psychological conditions on the network characteristics. Three driving forces, social proximity, student characteristics, and curricula, are found to shape the structures and evolution of the friendship and learning networks. Because the density and evolution of college friendship and learning networks are dictated by curricula and peer pressure, through course arrangement and dormitory assignment, universities may be able to mold student social networks into positive configurations to increase social and learning interactions.

As an alternative to the traditional structural analysis adopting computer-aided modeling and evaluation, this pedagogical research provides an integrated teaching and learning approach by mapping cognitive domains in a newly launched course, Woodwork Fabrication and Analysis, for second-year students. The course incorporates ancient Chinese woodworking tradition into the integrated learning activities involving engineering graphics, mechanics of materials, hands-on fabrication, and structural modeling/analysis. Comparing the traditional and new courses in terms of their effectiveness in enhancing student learning of structural engineering subjects, both courses are designed to achieve consistent learning outcomes (e.g., to develop structural analysis skills). This study demonstrates student work in engineering drawing and structural analysis reflecting their critical thinking and active learning in the new course. Students from both the traditional and new courses were surveyed about their overall satisfaction with their selected course, their perceptions of the course effectiveness in enhancing civil engineering–related skills, and their expectations of the effect of the course on their further study and work. With the student sample from the traditional course as the control group, the comparative study reveals that the integrated teaching and learning approach in the new course could lead to higher overall student satisfaction and more-positive perceptions of the course effectiveness in enhancing structural analysis–related skills. This pedagogical study will serve as a reference for other civil engineering educators in adopting integrated teaching and learning in lower-year undergraduate education.

The curricula of civil engineering schools in most countries exclude subjects related to heritage assessment and preservation of public works. In the very few that do include it, the teaching process continues to focus purely on the heritage of isolated public works, such as large structures and outstanding bridges. This lack of attention to the territorial dimension of public works should be remedied by teaching initiatives to instill greater awareness among engineering undergraduates of the history and heritage of historic transport networks and infrastructure. In this respect, the object of this article is to present and evaluate the teaching proposal established in the subject “History and Aesthetics of Civil Engineering” given at the School of Civil Engineering in Ciudad Real (University of Castilla-La Mancha, Spain). Following the conceptual basis of the project-based learning (PBL) method, the students carry out documental studies, map work, and field studies to develop a proposal for the identification, assessment, and restoration of a modern road with heritage value.

The development and implementation of an active learning assignment to develop students’ engineering judgment or their ability to apply common sense and proportion to slope stability is outlined. The assignment was developed because students often struggle to ascertain whether a calculated factor of safety is realistic. After completing the various training sets forming the assignment, students were able to judge the stability of slopes to a similar degree of proficiency as practicing engineers. A key aspect of the training sets was presenting problem sets in an increasingly random order. Formal lecturing, on the other hand, had no influence on students’ engineering judgment abilities. As expected, overconfidence was shown by students who performed poorly.

Study abroad for engineering students is increasingly valued for improving global competency within the practicing profession. Short-term, time-intensive study abroad, while fitting well with other demands on student time, differs from traditional approaches to engineering education. Faculty leading these programs have few examples of learning assessment approaches. This paper describes the development of reflective journaling assignments for engineering students participating in a water engineering study abroad course. Instructor observations and written student evaluations were used to refine the assignments over 3 years. Examples of assignments designed to guide students from core knowledge to critical thinking are included. It was found that students performed best in a new and rigorous learning setting when adjustment to new learning styles was included as stated learning objectives, when guiding questions were used to help students navigate from core knowledge into reflection, when a scoring rubric was applied that provided flexible space for students to explore new concepts, and when students were required to acknowledge understanding of the rubric prior to the start of the course. These findings, while applied here to university students, would also be applicable to workshops for engineering continued education, when advanced thinking is a workshop goal.

This case study employed a shared leadership framework to examine leadership in an engineering research center (ERC) during its first year. The Center for Bio-mediated and Bio-inspired Geotechnics (CBBG) was the site for this study using an ethnographic participant observation approach. The purpose of the study was to describe the leadership (1) structures, (2) understandings, and (3) practices of the Innovation, Diversity, and Education Activities (IDEA) Working Group within the CBBG. The following leadership understandings were revealed: (1) the definition of leadership varies by context, (2) leadership is an ongoing and evolving process, (3) leadership and management are intertwined, (4) leadership is gendered, and (5) communication is a core aspect of leadership. The following leadership practices were identified: (1) prioritizing collaborations and systematizing recurring processes, (2) leveraging value networks, and (3) demonstrating gratitude. Future studies investigating how leveraging social value networks is fostered in cooperative research centers are recommended. Finally, because demonstrating gratitude is significantly correlated with shared leadership practices, engineering leadership studies examining gratitude might generate useful results.

Designing for sustainability demands systems thinking and problem-based learning focused on the types of ill-structured problems found in the real world. The approach detailed in this paper uses the Envision Gold–certified Historic Fourth Ward Park on the Atlanta BeltLine as the basis for a case study. The purpose is to convey how aspects of behavioral decision science, as well as stakeholder involvement and leadership, inform real-world design decisions. The module was taught in two classes at Virginia Tech ($n=23$ and 43). Methods to evaluate learning include presurveys and postsurveys, free-response questions, frequency tables and word clouds, and evaluation of homework assignments using a defined rubric. The dominating themes from both classes before the module about barriers to sustainable infrastructure related to cost and time. After the module, many students understood the role that humans’ mental barriers such as choice overload, bounded rationality, and satisficing play in decision making for sustainability. The case study, teaching material, and homework assignment are available in both one-day and two-day modules for other faculty to use. This paper is meant to guide others developing and assessing case study modules, and to encourage more open-access educational materials about sustainable infrastructure.

The role of professors has changed from being primarily responsible for delivering content to students to including deeper or more in-depth learning opportunities designed to help students develop into creative and critical thinkers who value lifelong learning. This has resulted in a shift from teacher-centered to student-centered teaching. In this paper, the introduction of learner-centered teaching in three different undergraduate civil engineering classes during the academic year 2016–2017 to provide more meaningful learning opportunities is presented. The activities introduced were designed to reinforce the students’ understanding of the content as well as encourage the development of soft skills such as public speaking and group work negotiation skills. To gauge the students’ reactions to the impact of the new approach, feedback from the students was gathered via midsemester focus group interviews and end of semester surveys. The data from the students indicate they benefited from the activities and new approach to teaching. Owing to the nature of the different activities offered in each of the three classes, some of the benefits focused on soft skills, such as improved teamwork/leadership skills as well as improved understanding of the content and others centered around the introduction of new topics and improved problem-solving skills. Students in all three classes stated that the activities helped them improve their research skills. Some suggestions and advice to professors who wish to adopt learner-centered teaching are also offered.

This paper presents insights into the importance of practical experience in project management success and discusses how well university education prepares future project managers in terms of practical project learning approaches. The paper provides an example of a multidisciplinary collaboration experience between courses, applied at Qatar University. With the forthcoming practice of an outcome-based accreditation assessment by the Qatar University Department of Architecture, student performance on this project can become a considerable index of learning outcomes. The multidisciplinary research was linked to an active competition of students’ projects promoted by the Qatar Road Safety Study Center (QRSSC) and was conducted in coordination with Qatari National Road Safety Strategy and many governmental institutions. The research method is based on the work-based learning (WBL) approach and is proposed for carrying out future studies, analyzing the benefits of interaction between project management education (theory) and the construction industry (practice). The initial results of students’ assessment suggest that multidisciplinary collaboration can provide a unique learning experience to develop the students’ managerial skills by integrating learning outcomes and performances.

Small-scale shaking table platforms are usually used in seismic engineering courses to study the structural dynamic behavior of small scale specimens and investigate innovative solutions, such as active and passive control systems. Furthermore, they are also useful to actively involve students in learning programs in higher education. This paper illustrates the development and the teaching effectiveness of a multimodular unidirectional platform to be used by students during dynamic and seismic courses within the Shaking Table Educational Program at the Politecnico di Torino. A unique feature of this platform is that the system was entirely developed by undergraduate students. The project was intended to create a shaking table for earthquake simulation that can measure the structural response using sensors located on a specimen, such as a building, a bridge, or any other type of reduced-scale system. Different types of dynamic tests can be reproduced, such as hybrid simulations and pseudodynamic tests. A survey demonstrates the effectiveness of the laboratory experience during seismic engineering courses to improve student learning capabilities through a teaching activity that involves both theoretical and hands-on experience. Currently, the platform has been extended to accommodate bidirectional shaking table tests with the inclusion of augmented reality tools that allow exploring the response of human behavior during a pedestrian evacuation.

Civil infrastructure systems that fail to achieve intended goals drain financial resources and erode public willingness to invest in future upgrades and new systems. Starting the engineering design process with perspective taking from the point of view of intended users can help offer tailor-made solutions that better meet their needs. Defined here as user-centered design, this process is vital to building more sustainable infrastructure that meets user needs with less waste. In an active learning approach to teach civil engineering students about sustainable infrastructure through user-centered design, students were asked to role-play community members during a mock charrette process and then were asked to interview stakeholders and to write a reflection. The purpose of this approach was to measure the influence of the two active learning methods on students’ designs. The results indicate that teaching the charrette process through role-play helped students recognize multiple stakeholders (both direct and indirect). In addition, empathizing with stakeholder groups as part of design thinking shifted student design proposals from just addressing technical issues to considering how their engineering designs addressed user safety, comfort, and well-being.