2023 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Crafting An Approach to Cultivate Engineering Competencies for Undergraduate Students in Construction Engineering with Minecraft

Presented at Engineering Design Graphics Division (EDGD) Technical Session 1

The construction industry, like other fields of expertise, necessitates skills beyond mere engineering knowledge and skills. In today's competitive world, individuals must enhance their abilities not only in their area of study, but also in personal and interpersonal skills that can have a positive impact on their academic and workplace performance. Engineers are required to identify problems, find solutions, and make the most efficient decision and overcome obstacles to ensure project success. Although these are all essential skills, at the same time, engineers need to collaborate with others which require additional skills like effective communication. Unfortunately, these skills are often not fully developed during undergraduate studies, leaving construction engineering students and entry-level engineers with challenges in this area. The objective of this research paper is to conduct case studies that will evaluate a novel approach to teach engineering students how to collaborate, communicate effectively, listen actively, think logically, and make sound decisions to solve the problems. This will be achieved by utilizing Minecraft: Education Edition (MinecraftEdu) as a game-based learning platform. Students from construction engineering field were required to work in groups to build a one-story single-family home in MinecraftEdu. Based on the study’s two major competencies; collaboration and problem solving, this active learning approach aims to evaluate students’ behavior and attitudes in practicing these competencies and relevant skills while working in a group. Two distinct evaluation strategies were utilized to assess the effectiveness of this method as well as participants’ feedback. Results revealed that well-designed tasks in MinecraftEdu can help students practice engineering and interpersonal competencies, as the participants demonstrated an improved willingness to communicate and collaborate in solving problems. This study also suggests that MinecraftEdu has the potential to effectively support teaching and enhance student learning in engineering practices.

Authors

Raissa Seichi Marchiori University of Alabama [biography]

Raissa Seichi Marchiori is currently a Graduate Research Assistant (GRA) and a Ph.D. student in the Department of Civil, Construction, and Environmental Engineering at the University of Alabama. Raissa obtained her bachelor's degree and an MBA in Civil Engineering in Brazil. Her research topic is in the construction engineering area. Her research interests include implementing Building Information Modeling on construction sites, safety training, workforce development, and engineering education. Through these research topics, Raissa has been publishing papers for peer-reviewed journal and conference proceedings. Also, she is part of Dr. Siyuan Song’s research lab, the Safety Automation and Visualization Environment (SAVE) Laboratory, which integrates technologies and education themes to improve building performance and safety engineering.
Dr. Siyuan Song http://orcid.org/0000-0002-6444-3914 The University of Alabama [biography]

: Dr. Siyuan Song is an assistant professor and the director of the Safety Automation and Visualization Environment (SAVE) Laboratory in the Department of Civil, Construction, and Environmental Engineering at the University of Alabama (UA). Prior to joining UA, she was an assistant professor in the School of Construction and Design at the University of Southern Mississippi. Dr. Song obtained her Ph.D. degree in Civil Engineering with a focus in construction engineering and management from UA. Her research interests include occupational safety and health, workforce training and development, engineering education, Building Information Modeling, machine learning and AI in construction, and construction progress monitoring and simulation. Dr. Song is leading research projects funded by the U.S. Department of Labor and NSF to advance worker safety training and workforce development.
Jewoong Moon University of Alabama [biography]

Jewoong (Jacob) Moon is an assistant professor of Instructional Technology at the College of Education. He earned his Ph.D. degree of Instructional Systems and Learning Technologies at Florida State University. His research interests include Digital game-based learning, Inclusive and immersive e-learning design, Multimodal learning analytics, Adaptive learning system design, Computer science & artificial intelligence education (computational thinking). His research works appear in many academic journals, such as British Journal of Educational Technology, Simulation & Gaming, and Educational Technology Research and Development.
Sepehr Khorshid University of Alabama [biography]

Sepehr Khorshid is a Ph.D. student with a background in civil engineering and work experience as a design engineer and civil works supervisor in the telecommunication industry. He serves as a graduate research assistant (GRA) in the Department of Civil, Construction, and Environmental Engineering at the University of Alabama. He is proud to be a member of Dr. Siyuan Song's esteemed research group in the Safety Automation and Visualization Environment (SAVE) lab. Sepehr's research focuses on his areas of interest, which include occupational safety and health, workforce training, and engineering education. He is also involved in developing training materials and programs aimed at enhancing safety in the construction and general industries.

Download paper (880 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

For those interested in:

engineering
engineering technology
information technology
undergraduate