2023 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Sociotechnical Integration: What Is It? Why Do We Need It? How Do We Do It?

Presented at Interdisciplinary Integration and Sociotechnical Thinking: The Big Picture

Sociotechnical integration is an innovative, yet arguably elusive, approach to engineering education. It acknowledges how the bounds of technical and nontechnical knowledge are blurred and makes space for generative work at their intersection. Traditional engineering coursework tends to promote narrowly defined conceptions of “engineering knowledge” as exclusively technical. Sociotechnical integration encourages engineering educators to explore the space connecting technical and nontechnical disciplinary silos. We believe this connection can be more than a middle ground or a hybridization of the disciplines, but rather a bridge to new potentials for engineering education. This paper draws on relevant scholarship and empirical insights from a set of interviews with select engineering educators to interrogate the practice and potential of sociotechnical integration. Interviewees represent a wide range of academic positions, disciplinary backgrounds, and educational programs and were selected for this study to provide a broad set of perspectives on creating and leading engineering programs that systematically engage the social. We explore the motivations underlying sociotechnical approaches, the goals we hope such approaches will achieve, and the mechanisms used to integrate social content into engineering classrooms and programs. In so doing, we build on the work of our colleagues who highlight distinct frameworks for “sociotechnical” engagements, entailing different modes of defining the categories of “social” and “technical” and conceptualizing their relationship. Such distinctions are useful because, despite the depth of commitment to sociotechnical integration among our selected interviewees, their approaches vary considerably. In light of our findings, we have developed our own approach to sociotechnical integration for our institutional context, which we share in closing. Taken together, we believe this work can aid readers in exploring the current status and potential futures of sociotechnical integration in engineering education.

Authors

Dr. Elizabeth A. Reddy Colorado School of Mines [biography]

Elizabeth Reddy is an Assistant Professor in the Division of Engineering, Design and Society at Colorado School of Mines. She is a social scientist, holding a PhD in cultural anthropology from the University of California at Irvine.
Marie Stettler Kleine http://orcid.org/0000-0003-1461-716X Colorado School of Mines [biography]

Marie is currently an Assistant Professor at Colorado School of Mines in the Department of Engineering, Design, and Society. She holds a B.S. in mechanical engineering and international studies from Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology, and an M.S. and PhD in STS from Virginia Tech. She conducts research on engineering practice and pedagogy around the world, exploring its origins, purposes, and potential futures. Marie’s interest in values and engagement in professional cultures also extends to innovation and its experts. With Matthew Wisnioski and Eric Hintz, Marie co-edited Does America Need More Innovators? (MIT Press, 2019).
Matt Parsons Colorado School of Mines [biography]

My name is Matt Parsons. I completed my undergraduate degree at The Ohio State University. At OSU, I was a teaching assistant for the first-year engineering sequence for 5 semesters. I developed a passion for teaching there. I researched STEM students' perception of Community Engaged Learning pedagogy in 2020 at North Dakota State University. Over my final undergraduate years, I created a Humanitarian Engineering lab on OSU's campus. The lab served over 125 students when I graduated in May 2022. I currently attend Colorado School of Mines to study Humanitarian Engineering and Science. At Mines, I am a teaching assistant for the Engineering With Community Design Studio. It consists of eight capstone projects applying engineering for social good. After Mines, I want to become a lecturer for general engineering courses and Humanitarian Engineering.
Dr. Dean Nieusma http://orcid.org/0000-0003-2711-3315 Colorado School of Mines [biography]

Dean Nieusma is Department Head of Engineering, Design, and Society at Colorado School of Mines.

Download paper (936 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