2024 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

While design is common in first-year civil, construction, and environmental engineering (CCEE), it is uncommon to include sociotechnical design challenges. Design problems are ill-structured, meaning they have many possible solutions. Faculty sometimes make this more manageable by reducing the problem to technical aspects. However, research suggests sociotechnical problems—where technical aspects are related to social factors—help students engage with the problem. The objective of this study was to investigate the impact of two sociotechnical design challenges in a first-year CCEE course. We sought to understand how students experience framing and solving ill-structured sociotechnical design problems, guided by research question: To what extent does participating in socio-technical design challenges impact civil engineering student self-efficacy, identity, motivations and intention to persist? We conducted the study as design-based research, the hallmark method of the learning sciences, in which learning designs are tested under real-world conditions. The study was in a first-year CCEE course at University of New Mexico, a Hispanic-serving institution in the American Southwest. The 3-credit course was taught in two sections, with 92 enrolled, and 64 students providing informed consent for survey data analysis. The first challenge focused on environmental engineering as students addressed acid mine drainage in the Southwestern states. The second challenge focused on concrete mixes for the American Society of Civil Engineers concrete canoe competition. The challenges were structured in a series of deliverables addressing research of the problem, design and testing of a proposed solution, stakeholder and customer analysis, proposal of design solution that integrated data and stakeholder assessment, and final presentation. We collected student work and survey data and analyzed survey responses using either t-tests or descriptive statistics when appropriate. We found student self-efficacy significantly increased after both design challenges, identity as a civil engineer or construction manager significantly increased before and after the course, and intent to persist remained consistent from the beginning of the course to after the second challenge. Students were motivated to work on challenges that addressed environmental, humanitarian, and social justice causes. These findings demonstrate how design challenges can promote professional formation of civil engineers through development of engineering identity, sense of belonging to the profession, and motivations to pursue civil engineering and continue to persist in the degree and career.