2023 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Board 294: First-Year Engineering Students’ Desired Practices in Mechanical Engineering

Presented at NSF Grantees Poster Session

Engineering requires comprehensive skills, including both technical and socio-technical skills. However, the engineering practices that are introduced in coursework tend to predominantly emphasize the technical skillsets. Research has shown that the perception of engineering as a technical-only field can alienate students who hold beliefs in communal goals, even though they achieve excellent academic performance in their engineering coursework (Stevens et al., 2008; Danielak et al., 2014). Such research findings point to the need for developing greater understanding of the types of skills and practices that could potentially invite students to particular disciplines within engineering. Thus, our research focuses on understanding the aspects of engineering practices that first year students describe as important to their reasons for pursuing mechanical engineering.

To explore this question, we drew on a subset of data from our larger multi-methods study, analyzing data from in-depth interviews with four first-year students interested in pursuing mechanical engineering at a research-intensive university in North America .Through these semi-structured interviews, we focused on students’ motivations for pursuing engineering, their first-year course experiences, and their own interests and goals in engineering.

The findings revealed that the students felt motivated to pursue mechanical engineering to engage in various practices, including technical analysis, design work, societal impact, collaboration, and communication skills. The findings demonstrate diverse practices that drew different students to pursue engineering as a major and a career. Compared to their course experiences, students expressed interest in more focus on developing socio-technical and communication-based skills. These findings contribute to our understanding of how engineering courses can recognize and provide development opportunities for diverse engineering practices, ultimately supporting students in achieving their goals as engineers.

Work from this project was funded by an NSF grant within the Division of Undergraduate Education (DUE) in the EHR Core Research (ECR) program.

Authors

Dr. Jingfeng Wu University of Michigan [biography]

Jingfeng Wu is currently a PhD student at the University of Michigan majoring in Engineering Education Research. She holds a PhD in Chemical Engineering from University of Calgary in Canada, and a Bachelor of Science in Chemical Engineering at Chang'an University in China. Her research interests include engineering identity, design thinking, and engineering professional development.
Shannon M. Clancy http://orcid.org/0000-0003-2779-0746 University of Michigan [biography]

Dr. Shannon M. Clancy (she/they) is an Assistant Professor of Engineering at Elizabethtown College in Pennsylvania. She earned all of her degrees in Mechanical Engineering: B.S. from the University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC), M.S. from the University of Michigan, and her Ph.D. from the University of Michigan (U-M). They also received an Engineering Education Research Certificate during their time at U-M.

Her research interests include front-end design practices, sociotechnical knowledge and skills, and queer student experiences in engineering. They use qualitative methods and fields across engineering design, psychology, learning sciences, education, and STEM education to dive deeply into these topics, understanding the how’s and why’s of engineers’ experiences, decision-making, and sharing their stories.

Dr. Clancy is motivated by their passion for and experiences with equity-minded teaching and holistic mentorship of students as people and professionals. She particularly enjoys intertwining engineering technical practices and social implications to prepare students to become socially responsible engineers. She seeks to reimagine who can be an engineer, what engineering is, and the impact engineering has on society for a more equitable world.
Dr. Erika Mosyjowski http://orcid.org/0000-0001-5700-641X University of Michigan [biography]

Erika Mosyjowski is the Research and Faculty Engagement Manager in the Center for Socially Engaged Design within University of Michigan College of Engineering. She earned a PhD and MA in Higher Education from Michigan and a Bachelor's in Psychology and Sociology from Case Western Reserve University.
Dr. Shanna R. Daly http://orcid.org/0000-0002-4698-2973 University of Michigan [biography]

Shanna Daly is an Associate Professor in Mechanical Engineering at the University of Michigan. She has a B.E. in Chemical Engineering from the University of Dayton and a Ph.D. in Engineering Education from Purdue University.
Dr. Lisa R. Lattuca http://orcid.org/0000-0003-1547-5992 University of Michigan [biography]

Lisa Lattuca, Professor of Higher Education and member of the Core Faculty in the Engineering Education Research Program at the University of Michigan.
Dr. Joi-Lynn Mondisa http://orcid.org/https://0000-0002-3959-6548 University of Michigan [biography]

Joi Mondisa is an Associate Professor in the Department of Industrial and Operations Engineering and an Engineering Education Faculty Member at the University of Michigan Ann Arbor.

Download paper (808 KB)

Are you a researcher? Would you like to cite this paper? Visit the ASEE document repository at peer.asee.org for more tools and easy citations.

» Download paper

« View session