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.

This research explored disciplinary differences in the ethics and societal impact (ESI) topics taught to engineering and computing students. Differences were predicted based on the codes of ethics of professional societies and educational guidelines. Among 917 online survey responses from engineering/computing educators across 13 disciplines, differences were identified in the extent that 17 ESI topics were taught in courses. In binomial logistic models that included individual characteristics (e.g., professional engineering license, race/ethnicity, gender) and institutional factors (e.g., the highest degree offered), 1 or more disciplines differed from civil engineering in the percentage of faculty who taught 11 ESI topics. For example, a higher percentage of chemical engineering educators taught safety, environmental protection issues, and engineering decisions under uncertainty. Civil engineering educators were second only to environmental engineering educators in teaching sustainability issues. The results imply that student participation in courses outside one’s major or interdisciplinary settings may increase the extent to which students are exposed to a wide array of ESI topics considered important for practicing engineers.

This work discusses how problem-based learning (PBL) was used in a senior capstone class for two semesters. The effects of PBL were investigated by conducting preassessment and postassessment survey questionnaires on students from the class and analyzing the responses by using the Competing Values Skills Survey (CVSS) assessment tool. Qualitative responses made by the students have also been included. The responses showed a clear trend of improvements in students’ adaptability and management skills.

Mathematics has a key role to play in engineering education. Without strong mathematical knowledge, engineering students often face difficulties in engineering courses. Previous studies have found that problem-posing tasks can be used to improve the teaching, learning, and assessment of mathematics at the primary and secondary levels. This study aims to explore undergraduate engineering students’ attitudes toward problem posing in mathematics to investigate the possibility of using problem-posing tasks in engineering education. This research was conducted owing to the lack of research at the tertiary level about mathematical problem posing, especially in engineering education. In this study, the attitudes of 135 undergraduate engineering students toward mathematical problem posing were explored using a questionnaire and semistructured interviews. The results of the questionnaire indicated that around 60% of engineering students believed that problem posing helped them develop their mathematical understanding and that problem-posing and problem-solving skills were related. More than 50% of the engineering students believed problem-posing tasks were enjoyable activities. The results of the interviews supported these findings. Problem-posing activities are likely to give engineering students opportunities to expand their mathematical understanding and increase their knowledge about the applications of mathematics. Teaching problem posing in the classroom could help students become more creative when learning mathematics and help them to become better problem solvers.

Active-based learning techniques provide an effective pedagogical strategy to support student learning. This paper describes the development of new assessment techniques to evaluate an active-based intervention incorporated into a junior-level (third year) transportation engineering course. The research team compared the degree of change resulting from the learning intervention using a traditional single group pretest to posttest design. To capture the level of mastery achieved at various categories of physical activity and safety concepts, this study also evaluates project-based learning intervention in an additional two ways: overall MAstery-Level Achievement (MALA) on various categories and total percent of students achieving mastery. The students showed significant improvement at the MALA for all four categories of concepts for various levels of learning. The example evaluation highlights implications for project-based learning related to the demand that active commuting imposes on transportation infrastructure. The MALA method strengthens the assessment of the project-based learning approach by specifically identifying the different levels of mastery achieved for various concept categories.

While several measures have been suggested to address unethical practices within the built environment, it remains unclear whether some stakeholders are more able to influence improvement in unethical practices than others, and if so whether such phenomenon manifests similarly or differently in different national contexts. This study pioneers the exploration of whether different built environment profession stakeholders (i.e., the practitioner/individual professional, the practitioner’s organization/company, and the professional body/association) have different abilities to influence improvement (i.e., positive change) in unethical practices, and subsequently whether such phenomenon manifests differently in different national contexts. The study used cross-sectional surveys of built environment surveying professionals in three countries: Ghana, Nigeria, and Tanzania. The findings revealed that there are significant differences in the abilities of stakeholders to influence improvement in unethical practices like political interference, discrimination, and nepotism. The findings further revealed that differences in stakeholder ability to influence improvement in unethical practices can manifest differently in different national contexts. The implication is that, in different national contexts, specific stakeholders could play a leading role in efforts to address unethical practices in which they are more capable of influencing improvement.

Engineers face the ongoing challenge to effectively communicate for diverse purposes and audiences across multiple settings. The authors interviewed 10 practicing water resources systems engineers to collect their lived experiences of the use of water resources systems analysis in their workplaces. Thematic analysis was used to identify three key communications hurdles practitioners face: stakeholder influence over the communication process, engineers as central to communication and decision making, and communication as an opportunity to educate stakeholders and engineers. Practitioners recommended classroom activities to overcome these hurdles and better integrate communications training into curricula. Recommendations include (1) expanding the use of case studies, (2) adding opportunities for role plays and team activities, (3) providing students with more practice on how to hold effective discussions, facilitate teamwork, and resolve conflicts, and (4) providing students with the broader contexts for class problems, including how political/institutional constraints, bureaucracies, and social issues may constrain communication and technical solutions. This study shares 22 example activities as online educational resources in a free, open, searchable repository and shows how activities can serve as a bottom-up approach to integrate communications training into the engineering curriculum.

This study explores an intervention for community college engineering students that holds promise for strengthening the production of engineers. While learning communities at four-year universities have been widely studied and found to be successful at increasing student success, little is known about their efficacy at the community college level, especially in the field of engineering. We used a nonrandomized comparison group pretest posttest design to compare students who participated in the engineering learning community to similar students who did not. This study sought to determine the relationship between participation in the engineering learning community and: course success, fall-to-spring retention, and graduation/transfer. This two-year study demonstrated that an engineering learning community can be effective at the community college level. Students that participated in the engineering learning community experienced a significant improvement in grade point values for one of the three post-test courses studied (mechanics of materials). In addition, the study revealed the odds of both fall-to-spring retention and graduation/transfer were significantly higher for engineering learning community students.

Horizontal and vertical gender segregation is self-evident within the construction sector. In Spain, as in other countries, women have obtained qualified technical work thanks to their education, but only on a few occasions are they placed in strategic or management positions, and they tend to perform specific roles, mainly office occupations, disconnected from the building process or on-site work. According to the literature, people’s preferences, as well as their perceptions of barriers or opportunities, are influential factors in explaining and predicting the conformation of their occupational aspirations. By applying a quantitative methodology, the authors analyzed whether there were significant differences in the occupational preferences of a sample of 704 fourth-year building engineering undergraduates, and the most attractive occupational alternatives for women and men were identified. The results showed some relevant similarities but also clear differences between genders that can contribute to the occupational segregation of the construction sector. For that reason, the need to propose early measures of orientation, empowerment, and elimination of stereotypes is highlighted.

The competence of leveraging Building Information Modeling (BIM) technology in the early project stages is critical to drive its efficacy throughout the project life cycle. However, a review of the literature indicated a lack of research into upskilling undergraduate students in civil engineering and construction management (CECM) majors, particularly with respect to such competencies as using BIM in design, planning, processing, managing, and communicating complex projects. To better facilitate the skills for undergraduate students, this study formulated an innovative framework using Kolb’s experiential learning (EL) with tailored BIM capstone course activities for project planning and implementations. This framework includes concrete experience, reflective observation, abstract conceptualization, and active experimentation. It provides the necessary integration of EL, the BIM planning guide, and pedagogies of capstone courses. It helps instructors to monitor and control learning activities based on the BIM planning guide and to test hypotheses through experiments. The framework includes features of group work involvement, connection with practical information, and student-centered learning. Subsequent surveys of students and teachers provided further evidence of the framework merits, specifically in terms of the improved formation of student cognition of BIM-based project planning (90% improvement), in addition to enhanced capabilities in process mapping (70% improvement), software operation (80% improvement), and information exchange (100% improvement). The proposed framework sets an innovative pedagogical rationale to which university-based BIM education can refer and upskills undergraduate students, expanding their capabilities in information and communication technology in the context of EL.

Engineers design and create solutions to solve problems and positively impact people’s lives. Unfortunately, traditional engineering training does not prepare students to engage with the people in the community where they will work. This creates an engagement gap between the skills of engineers and their ability to communicate with a community to solve problems. To decrease this engagement gap, the authors developed a community engagement workshop that introduces engineering graduate students and early professionals to the complexities and challenges of community engagement and development. During the 2-day workshop, participants engaged in a variety of exercises that helped them to listen to their community partners, look beyond the technology, and empower the community. This article describes the workshop’s learning objectives, design, activities, and implementation challenges as a resource for educators developing programs to train socially engaged engineers.

This study extends the existing reviews targeting the Journal of Professional Issues in Engineering Education and Practice (JPIEEP) by incorporating the text-mining review methodology. A total of 1,810 papers published in JPIEEP since 1982 were selected as the literature sample. Dividing the whole sample into four subsamples according to publication time spans, this review indicates that literature published before 2000, especially articles from the 1982 to 1991 period, emphasized more civil engineering–related practical and practical issues (e.g., legislation). Since the early 2000s, literature from JPIEEP has been focusing more on engineering education-based research, such as teaching methods and undergraduate education. Specifically, more recent studies show emerging topics of education and practical subjects (i.e., BIM and sustainability), pedagogical approaches (i.e., problem-based learning, active learning, simulation, teamwork, and distance education), and diversity issues. Accordingly, future research directions are proposed, such as integration of emerging pedagogical methods in the emerging subjects (e.g., BIM). This study contributes to the review of engineering education and practice by demonstrating that the text-mining approach could be reproduced to assist other review-based studies. Finally, this study addresses questions regarding the latest research topics and proposes directions for future scholarly work.