| 1. |
- Buckley, Jeffrey, 1992-, et al.
(författare)
-
A comparison of swedish and Irish secondary students conceptions of engineers and engineering using the draw-an-engineer test
- 2019
-
Ingår i: ASEE Annual Conference and Exposition, Conference Proceedings. - : American Society for Engineering Education.
-
Konferensbidrag (refereegranskat)abstract
- Women are significantly underrepresented in engineering and engineering related disciplines. One area where this is clearly illustrated is in the percentage of females enrolled in higher education engineering courses. The 2016 data on enrolment by field from the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) shows that the maximum percentage of female enrolment in “engineering and engineering trades” education at Bachelors, Masters, and Doctoral level in OECD countries is 28.33% in Sweden. As this form of education is likely to lead to a career in an engineering related field, there is a clear need to understand the factors which influence female students' decisions to enroll in higher education engineering courses. There are many influences on students' choices to pursue specific career paths. For example, how students conceive a particular discipline or career will influence this decision, as what they believe it to involve will likely affect their interest in engaging with it. In engineering, students often have misconceptions regarding what it means to be an engineer and the Draw-an-Engineer Test (DAET) has frequently been used to investigate these misconceptions. Studies using DAET have found that young students typically conceive engineers to be male, with the majority of male students typically representing engineers as male, but, with female students drawing more frequent but still relatively small proportions of female engineers. However, at least with the original “Draw a” instrument, the Draw-a-Scientist Test (DAST), children's drawings of scientists have been found to be becoming more gender diverse over time. In this study, the DAET is used in a comparative study between Sweden and Ireland. These countries were selected as according to the 2016 OECD data on higher education enrolment, Sweden has the highest representation of female engagement with engineering in higher level education (28.33%), while Ireland has one of the lowest (14.13%). The study cohort (ntotal = 513; nIreland = 302; nSweden = 211) in the context of both countries includes students who are approximately 15 years old. This age is of cultural significance in both countries as students are at a juncture in second level education where they must make a choice on what they will study at upper secondary level, which will consequently have an impact on their decision on what to study should they choose to progress to higher level education. Results are presented in relation to participants engineering stereotypes in terms of gender and the nature of engineering activities, and also in terms of their level of interest in engineering. Importantly, the results indicate that in order to understanding engineering stereotypes and young people's interest in becoming an engineer, the complex relationship between a student's gender, cultural context, and conception of engineering must be considered.
|
|
| 2. |
- Buckley, Jeffrey, 1992-, et al.
(författare)
-
Exploring the Prototypical Definitions of Intelligent Engineers Held by Irish and Swedish Higher Education Engineering Students
- 2021
-
Ingår i: Psychological Reports. - : SAGE Publications. - 0033-2941 .- 1558-691X.
-
Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Males are generally overrepresented in higher education engineering. However, the magnitude of this variance differs between countries and engineering fields. Evidence associated with the field-specific ability beliefs hypothesis suggests that perceptions of intelligence held by actors within engineering affects the engagement of underrepresented groups. This study examined perceptions of an intelligent engineer held by undergraduate and postgraduate engineering students in Ireland and Sweden, countries selected based on their levels of female representation in engineering education. It was hypothesised that there would be a significant difference in perceptions between countries. A survey methodology was employed in which a random sample of Irish and Swedish university students completed two surveys. The first asked respondents to list characteristics of an intelligent engineer, and the second asked for ratings of importance for each unique characteristic. The results indicate that an intelligent engineer was perceived to be described by seven factors; practical problem solving, conscientiousness, drive, discipline knowledge, reasoning, negative attributes, and inquisitiveness when the data was analysed collectively, but only the five factors of practical problem solving, conscientiousness, drive, discipline knowledge and negative attributes were theoretically interpretable when the data from each country was analysed independently. A gender × country interaction effect was observed for each of these five factors. The results suggest that the factors which denote intelligence in engineering between Irish and Swedish males and females are similar, but differences exist in terms of how important these factors are in terms group level definitions. Future work should consider the self-concepts held by underrepresented groups with respect to engineering relative to the factors observed in this study.
|
|
| 3. |
- Doyle, Andrew, 1992-, et al.
(författare)
-
Theorising the role of engineering education for society : Technological activity in context?
- 2019
-
Ingår i: ASEE Annual Conference and Exposition, Conference Proceedings. - : American Society for Engineering Education.
-
Konferensbidrag (refereegranskat)abstract
- This paper establishes a theoretical position from which to analyse and reason about the difficulties associated with closing the gap between the provision of engineering education in universities and the needs of society. Broadly speaking, the disparity between societal expectations and university graduate profiles highlights that despite achieving success in university; recently graduated engineers are often under-prepared for their initial years in the workplace. Continuing reports of this disparity suggest that current efforts have not succeeded in sufficiently closing this gap. As an antecedent to reforming engineering education policy or advocating a new pedagogical approach, we first theorise the role of engineering education for society. In adopting lessons from the philosophy of technology and how this has influenced the discourse surrounding K-12 technology education, the relationship between technological activity and technological knowledge is considered as a vessel though which to articulate engineering education. Through situating engineering disciplines as different contexts for technology, the need for engineering students to develop an ontological position towards engineering as technological activity, emerges as important. In this view, we hold that a fluid epistemological boundary for engineering disciplines necessitates perspectives on how to enact engineering, as doing engineering in authentic contexts is advocated to support the well-established practices around learning about discipline specific declarative knowledge. The foregrounding of an understanding of engineering as technological activity, founded on (but not limited to) well-established discipline specific knowledge is framed as an 'ontology-based curriculum'. We conclude the paper with a discussion of some of the prevailing challenges to operationalising this conception of engineering education for society.
|
|
| 4. |
- Weikert, Clemens, et al.
(författare)
-
Computerization of the Control Function in a Process Industry: A Case Study
- 1993
-
Ingår i: Interacting with Computers: Preparing for he Nineties. ; , s. 251-257
-
Konferensbidrag (refereegranskat)abstract
- Computerization of control room functions changes the work for the operators to a great extent. Their mental picture of the process, their possibilities to control the process for productivity and quality, the work content, the physical and the social working environment are examples of conditions which are changed one way or another. In order to be able to control the computerization process in an optimal way it is important to perform and to learn from case studies. In a Swedish paper pulp industry, where computerized control and information systems have been implemented and where operators have been involved in the computerization process, we have pursued an interview investigation. Twenty-eight operators and ten employees in other key positions have been asked e.g. about the control room design, the control system, the information system the effects of computerization on the work load and on the physical, mental and social working environment. Results from the interviews are presented and discussed. The control room design and the human-computer interfaces have been evaluated against guidelines and some of the results are discussed.
|
|
| 5. |
|
|
| 6. |
|
|
| 7. |
- Seery, N, et al.
(författare)
-
Multidisciplinary teaching : The emergence of an holistic STEM teacher
- 2019
-
Ingår i: Proceedings - Frontiers in Education Conference, FIE. - : Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Inc.. - 9781538611739
-
Konferensbidrag (refereegranskat)abstract
- This full research paper approaches the teaching of STEM from a new multi-disciplinary perspective. While the importance of the STEM agenda is not in dispute, the plurality in treatment of STEM as individual subjects or disciplinary areas of study potentially limits the evolution of a new conception of STEM education. In this paper, determinist disciplined learning is challenged through the advocacy of a learning science agenda, which we argue from the perspective of modern teacher education.Unintentionally, our educational systems and structures can create a silo-effect, sometimes impeding the development of multi and trans-disciplinary competencies. This paper advances an argument for a conception of teacher education that supports the development of the holistic STEM teacher. Our conception of the holistic STEM educator revolves around central themes focused on building, manipulating and synthesising STEM specific attitudes, skills and knowledge. The proximal and distal effects are also considered in subsequent discussion.This paper does not propose a generalist teacher, as the significance of content knowledge as a critical component of teacher efficacy is not contested. On the contrary, it considers an unbounded and applied perspective to the treatment of STEM with implications for an enhanced comprehension of abstracted knowledge and support for a more robust construction of meaning. The vision of a STEM teacher is articulated with respect to position, treatment and competencies intending to qualify and sustain the STEM agenda through pragmatic action.
|
|
