2023 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

This Research Paper reports on the nature of learning to practice engineering from the perspectives of two institutions that are key contributors to the professional formation of engineers -- education and industry. We consider each one to be a somewhat unique site for learning how to practice engineering. Each site is envisioned as a different kind of learning ecology having its own standards, experiences, and methods for learning and performing engineering. Yet, the two are loosely coupled environments that foster different ways of learning in the development of engineers. We conceptualize these two as opposite sides of the same coin and frame them as a bilateral learning ecosystem.

This work integrates and elaborates two earlier Work-in-Progress papers presented at ASEE 2020 and 2021 – one presented initial findings of the learning experiences of newly hired engineers in an energy company and the second presented the initial findings of the learning experiences of faculty and students in an energy engineering program in a school of engineering. Both were basic qualitative designs using semi-structured interviews and qualitative data analysis. This paper proposes a larger bilateral learning ecosystem to identify the ways the two environments (school and work) relate to each other.

Our ecological perspective builds upon Bronfenbrenner’s Ecological Systems Theory that conceptualized a structure of interrelated systems as concentric circles nested, or networked, one interrelated to another -- from the micro-level of the individual learner to their immediate environments to the macro-levels of socio-cultural institutions. This framework is useful for examining the various learning processes and experiences at multiple levels that make up the formation of professional engineers.

This study indicates the importance of broad interdisciplinary experiences mediating the learning of students in their studies and the importance of high-quality work relationships as a significant mediator of learning in the workplace. In the higher educational ecosystem, faculty and industry representatives provided key experiences for students that challenged the students’ perceptions of engineering and energy. In the business ecosystem, participants elaborated on and sometimes challenged what was learned in school by focusing on the practical and commercial norms of practice in the energy industry.

In further analysis, we have found that the ongoing discourse about the gap between engineering education and practice is more complicated and varied than typically conceived. For some kinds of knowledge and experience the gap is wide, for other kinds it is moderate, and for some it is narrow or non-existent. How students transfer different kinds of knowledge and experience from one ecology to the other is a complex interpretive and developmental process that we present in this paper.