Research Initiative: A Holistic Cross-Disciplinary Project Experience as a Platform to Advance the Professional Formation of Engineers

为了保持世界经济领导者的地位，美国必须培养一支更有能力解决问题的工程师队伍，同时考虑到我们作为一个社会所面临的问题的社会层面。今天的工程毕业生在工程技术方面做好了充分的准备。为了解决当今世界面临的复杂，多方面的问题，工程师还需要开发广泛的非技术技能，并在多学科团队中有效地工作。这种新一代的工程师不仅需要解决问题，而且还需要定义问题，领导多学科专业团队为未来的工程重大挑战制定议程。本项目旨在了解工程专业学生的专业形成，并装备工程教师与社会科学研究的专业知识，使他们能够解决当前的工程课程。一个跨学科的经验，工程本科生开发，以解决当代工程问题，并研究工程师的专业形成。通过这种方式，工程专业的学生通过与社会科学学科的合作交流，将解决问题的工具箱扩展到传统工程领域之外。整体工程项目课程使学生了解全球问题，拓宽他们的视野，提高他们的专业技能，并可以作为未来工程教育的平台，应对工程挑战和未来工程毕业生的期望。一个跨学科的团队学习模型的目的是评估工程师的专业形成。收集和分析了各种定量和定性的经验数据，以验证理论模型，并评估整体工程项目课程在工程师专业形成中的价值。首要的研究问题是：（1）如何有效的是一个跨学科的开放式的问题为基础的经验，在未来的工程师的形成，并准备工程师，以解决21世纪的挑战，我们面临的社会？(2)如何有效的是开放式的问题为基础的经验作为指导工程学院在社会科学研究方法的平台？本研究告知工程教育工作者急需了解工程课程的跨学科课程的有效性。通过整体工程项目课程专业形成的研究成果可以在整个西弗吉尼亚大学共享，并通过会议和期刊文章传播，以鼓励其他工程学院利用社会科学研究技能来扩大他们的教学方法。此外，这种整体课程方法为全国各地的工程教育工作者提供了一个令人信服的机会，让他们重新思考工程顶点经验的传统方法。拟议的项目预计将影响工程PI，谁受益于社会科学方法和方法的教师导师的指导。通过与不同的学生团体/组织和部门学术咨询委员会合作，代表性不足的科学，技术，工程和数学学生（例如，少数民族、妇女、来自西弗吉尼亚州农村的第一代大学生）被确定并招募参加顶点课程。该研究有助于NSF？美国国家科学基金会（NSF）的工程形成研究启动计划，通过对工程师的专业形成进行研究，将三个工程学院引入社会科学研究方法，并允许他们在未来进一步扩展工程教育研究。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

To remain a world economic leader, the U.S. must develop an engineering workforce who are more competent in their problem-solving skills considering social dimensions of problems we face as a society. Today's engineering graduates are well prepared in the technical aspects of the engineering. To address the complex, multi-faceted problems facing the world today, engineers also need to develop a wide range of nontechnical skills and work effectively in multidisciplinary teams. This new breed of engineer needs to not only be a problem solver, but also a problem definer, leading multidisciplinary teams of professionals in setting agendas for future engineering grand challenges. This project seeks to understand professional formation of engineering students and equip engineering faculty with social science research expertise that will enable them to address current w in the engineering curriculum. A cross-disciplinary experience for engineering undergraduates is developed to solve a contemporary engineering problem and to study the professional formation of engineers. In this way, engineering students expand the problem-solving toolbox beyond the realm of traditional engineering through a collaborative exchange with social science disciplines. A Holistic Engineering Project Course exposes students to global issues, broadens their outlook, increases their professional skillsets, and can serve as a platform of future engineering education that responds to engineering challenges and expectations of future engineering graduates. A Cross-Disciplinary Team Learning model is designed to assess the professional formation of engineers. Diverse sets of quantitative and qualitative empirical data are collected and analyzed to validate the theoretical model, and to assess the value of the Holistic Engineering Project Course in the professional formation of engineers. The overarching research questions are: (1) How effective is a cross-disciplinary open-ended problem-based experience in the formation of future engineers and in preparing engineers to address 21st century challenges we face as a society? (2) How effective is the open-ended problem-based experience as a platform for instructing engineering faculty in social science research methods? This research informs engineering educators on much-needed understanding of effectiveness of cross-disciplinary courses in engineering curriculum. Research findings on professional formation through the Holistic Engineering Project Course can be shared throughout West Virginia University and disseminated through conference and journal articles to encourage other engineering faculty to use social science research skills to expand their pedagogical approaches. In addition, this holistic course approach provides a compelling opportunity to engineering educators around the country to rethink the traditional approach to engineering capstone experiences. The proposed project is expected to impact the engineering PIs, who benefit from the guidance of faculty mentors in social science methods and approaches. Through collaboration with different student groups/organizations and department academic advisory board, underrepresented science, technology, engineering, and mathematics students (e.g., minority, women, first-generation college students from rural West Virginia) are identified and recruited to participate in the capstone offerings. The research contributes to the NSF?s Research Initiation in Engineering Formation program by conducting research on the professional formation of engineers that introduce three engineering faculty to social science research methods and allow them to further extend engineering education studies in the future.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.