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，美国必须培养一支在解决问题方面更有能力的工程师队伍，考虑到我们作为一个社会所面临的问题的社会层面。今天的工程学毕业生在工程的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，工程师还需要发展广泛的非技术技能，并在多学科团队中有效地工作。这种新型的工程师不仅需要是问题解决者，也需要是问题定义者，领导多学科的专业团队为未来的工程重大挑战制定议程。该项目旨在了解工程专业学生的职业构成，并为工程教师提供社会科学研究专业知识，使他们能够解决当前工程课程中的问题。为工科本科生开发了一种跨学科体验，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，工科学生通过与社会科学学科的协作交流，将解决问题的工具箱扩展到传统工程学之外。整体工程项目课程使学生接触到全球问题，开阔了他们的视野，增加了他们的专业技能，并可以作为未来工程教育的平台，回应工程挑战和对未来工程毕业生的期望。设计了一个跨学科的团队学习模型来评估工程师的职业形成。收集和分析了不同的定量和定性的实证数据，以验证理论模型，并评估整体工程项目课程在工程师职业形成中的价值。最主要的研究问题是：(1)在培养未来工程师和培养工程师以应对21世纪社会挑战方面，基于问题的跨学科开放式体验的有效性如何？(2)作为指导工程学教师学习社会科学研究方法的平台，开放式基于问题的体验的有效性如何？这项研究为工程教育工作者提供了对工科课程中跨学科课程有效性的迫切需要的理解。通过整体工程项目课程关于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，以鼓励其他工程学教师使用社会科学研究技能来扩展他们的教学方法。此外，这种全面的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，让他们重新思考传统的工程顶峰体验方法。拟议的项目预计将影响工程绩效指标，他们受益于社会科学方法和方法方面的教师导师的指导。通过与不同的学生团体/组织和系学术顾问委员会的合作，确定并招募代表人数较少的科学、技术、工程和数学专业的学生(例如，来自西弗吉尼亚州农村的少数族裔、女性、第一代大学生)参加顶峰课程。这项研究通过对工程师的专业形成进行研究，向三名工程教师介绍社会科学研究方法，并允许他们在未来进一步扩展工程教育研究，从而为美国国家科学基金会-S工程形成研究启动计划做出贡献。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势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.