Engineering education is an important part of the professional socialization process, communicating to students the importance (or lack thereof) of professional registration and licensure. This research benchmarked 74 US civil engineering (CE) departments in the extent to which the faculty members were licensed as professional engineers, and whether program objectives mention professional licensure or registration. The percentage of licensed professional engineers among the CE faculty ranged from 12% to 100% with a median of 54%. PE licensure of CE faculty was lower at Doctoral institutions (44%) compared to Bachelor’s and Master’s institutions (67% and 66%); at institutions with fewer faculty a higher percentage were licensed. Geotechnically specialized faculty had the greatest licensure rate among subdisciplines. Professional engineering licensure was less common in mechanical, electrical, and chemical engineering. The CE program objectives of 62% of the programs included professional licensure or registration, and 19% of the CE programs required that undergraduate students take the Fundamentals of Engineering Exam. The results raise concerns about the extent that engineering students are being socialized to value professional licensure and registration.

Research into construction education (CE) has garnered increasing attention over the last few decades and a great number of CE studies have been published. However, few studies have mapped the global geography and perspective of that research. This paper presents the first bibliometric analysis of CE studies published between 1982 and 2017 in order to chart the academic development and identify of various research directions within the field. Focusing on development trends, knowledge body structure, major journals, and collaboration networks and applying quantitative evaluation results allowed instructive findings and implications concerning the possible deficiencies in CE research to be derived. The analysis of keyword trends indicates that new concepts like building information modeling and sustainability have recently become hot topics in CE research. The most influential articles, journals, authors, and countries/regions were also identified. The findings also imply that current CE research shows a bias toward technology utilization in education and the existence of considerable isolation between formed groups, such as collaboration networks. This study contributes to CE literature by providing useful information of its status quo and suggesting potential directions for future CE research.

Identity, or how people choose to define themselves, is a popular lens for studying undergraduate persistence in engineering. Quantitative studies of engineering identity build on prior work on math and science identity, emphasizing the academic aspects of engineering. However, professional practice is also central to the formation of an engineering identity. In this research paper, the authors present a series of regression models that demonstrate the increased ability to predict engineering identity when engineering practice is included. The authors administered a questionnaire survey in the 2016 fall and 2017 spring semesters to 1,536 undergraduates in civil, architectural, mechanical, and biomedical engineering at two institutions. The authors conducted multiple sequential regression models to determine if engineering practice factors and engineering academic factors predicted engineering identity of undergraduate students. The engineering practice factors are tinkering, design, analysis, problem solving, collaboration, and project management. This study shows that factors capturing affect toward elements of engineering practice are meaningful predictors of engineering identity in addition to the academic aspects of engineering identity that have been examined in prior research.

The growing building information modeling (BIM) application in the construction industry worldwide has driven research in both the technological and managerial aspects. Existing managerial studies have not fully addressed individual perceptions of BIM implementation, especially architecture, engineering, and construction (AEC) students’ opinions related to BIM implementation or industry practice. As future industry professionals, AEC students’ perceptions and expectations have not been compared with those of industry professionals. Adopting the student population from Swinburne University of Technology as the case study, this research initiated a questionnaire-based approach followed by statistical analysis. In all, responses of 257 AEC students to three major perception-based categories, namely BIM’s usefulness, students’ desired BIM-related jobs, and challenges during BIM implementation, were collected. The overall sample analysis revealed that students favored BIM-based jobs related to engineering design and project management, and they perceived less usefulness of BIM in assisting facility management and quantity surveying. Subgroup analysis showed that certain perceptions in BIM practice would be affected by students’ field of study, prior industry experience, and gender. For example, male students generally held more positive views on BIM’s applicability and usefulness. AEC students in this study showed certain discernment in identifying certain contemporary BIM-related practices. However, they also had different views on challenges compared to industry professionals due to AEC students having less industry experience. In-depth discussions were provided on how these subgroup factors affected students’ perceptions. This empirical study of student perceptions in BIM practice provides insights to both BIM educators and AEC employers in terms of optimizing BIM education resources between industry practice and academic research, awareness of subgroup differences in their perceptions and motivations, and similarities and differences between AEC students and industry practitioners. Based on the current findings, future research could focus on cross-institutional comparison of students’ BIM-based perceptions by considering more subgroup factors. This study could also lead to future pedagogical research in adopting BIM in different project sectors (e.g., building and infrastructure).

In this paper, we try to examine the role of parents in affecting their children’s sustainable success in engineering education at the university level. Specifically, this study explores the influence of the parent–student satisfactions with students’ engineering majors on students’ academic performance in engineering education. Empirical analysis utilizing university administration data with survey information from the freshmen admitted to the engineering school of one of the major Korean universities demonstrates that the satisfaction discrepancy between parents and their children positively affects the academic performance of engineering students. The paper also discusses how the generation gap in Confucian background and the understanding of technological trends may create a conflict in valuing an engineering education.

Originating in the West, professional construction management was introduced in China as the Jianli system. However, despite the wide adoption of professional construction management practices by international organizations in the construction industry, scant research has been conducted to examine empirically the formation of the professional’s role from a practice perspective in the context of deprofessionalization. Empirical studies on the role of Jianli in the Chinese construction industry have been inadequate. Accordingly, this study reveals the social network interactions, perceptions of Jianli, and different work values that cause Jianli practice to deviate from its defined role. The results present four aspects affecting the role of Jianli professionals as well as other professionals in the construction industry: relational and positional power, ways of communicating, qualifications, and visibility. Our findings provide empirical insights into the reasons that deprofessionalization weakens professionalism. The selected research method has created a junction of situational context, extensive societal discourse on professionalism, and empirical data.