Promoting Lifelong Learning, Integrated Knowledge, and Professional Identity in Undergraduate Engineering Students Through a Portfolio Development Process

本研究将探讨透过发展专业档案袋进行整合与反思活动是否会对学生产生影响？终身学习能力、职业认同感的发展和整合知识的能力。它将利用档案袋开发中的三管齐下的准实验，推进本科生工程专业学生学习的奖学金。这三个实验方案是：(1)为期一年的项目，让学生建立一个全面的专业档案；(2)为期四分之一的项目，让学生制定有重点的专业档案；(3)邀请学生自己开发专业档案，并将它们提交给考虑获奖的学生。这些治疗需要参与治疗的学生和主办机构做出不同程度的承诺。除了调查这三种疗法的影响外，还将记录与提供每种疗法相关的资源，以便更好地了解每种疗法的可扩展性。为了有效地为21世纪的工程学做准备，学生必须获得与工程学相关的知识、技能和态度；对这些能力的综合理解是专业知识的标志；以及使学生能够在快速变化的背景和环境中应用他们的理解的终身学习技能和专业工程认同感。工程教育研究人员才刚刚开始了解如何有效和可行地支持终身学习技能、专业工程身份和综合知识的发展。为了实现这些复杂且相互关联的目标，学生需要各种各样的学习经验。他们还需要机会来理解和阐明他们从教育经历中学到了什么，以及他们所学到的东西与他们作为工程师的未来是如何联系的？这是进行基础性和批判性反思的机会。该项目有可能改变本科工程教育，不是通过改变现有课程的课程，而是通过使工程专业的学生实现这些课程所支持的结果，并发展成为终身学习者。如果成功，这个项目中提出的想法将可以扩展到适合几乎任何一所工程学院的需求。

This research will address the question of whether integration and reflection activities via developing a professional portfolio have an impact on students? lifelong learning competencies, their development of professional identity, and the ability to integrate their knowledge. It will advance the scholarship on undergraduate engineering student learning using a three-pronged quasi-experiment in portfolio development. The three experimental treatments are: (1) an academic year-long program in which students develop a comprehensive professional portfolio, (2) a quarter-long program in which students develop a focused professional portfolio, and (3) a competition that invites students to develop professional portfolios on their own and submit them for consideration for an award. These treatments require different levels of commitment from students who participate in them, as well as institutions that host them. In addition to investigating the impact of these three treatments, the resources associated with offering each treatment will be documented in order to better understand the scalability of each. To effectively prepare for engineering in the 21st century, students must acquire the knowledge, skills, and attitudes relevant to engineering; the type of integrated understanding of these competencies that is a hallmark of expertise; and the life-long learning skills and professional engineering identity that enable students to apply their understandings in rapidly changing contexts and circumstances. Engineering education researchers are only beginning to understand how to effectively and feasibly support the development of life-long learning skills, professional engineering identities, and integrated knowledge. In order to accomplish these complex and interrelated goals, students need a variety of learning experiences. They also need opportunities to understand and articulate what they have learned from their educational experiences and how what they have learned relates to their futures as engineers?opportunities for both foundational and critical reflection. This project has the potential to transform undergraduate engineering education, not by changing the curriculum of existing programs, but by enabling engineering students to achieve the outcomes espoused by those programs and to develop into lifelong learners. If successful, the ideas proposed in this project will be scalable to fit the needs of almost any college of engineering.