Faculty Attitudes Towards Integrated Engineering as a Concept and a Curriculum - Amazon S3
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AAEE2018 CONFERENCE
Hamilton, New Zealand
Faculty Attitudes Towards Integrated Engineering as a
Concept and a Curriculum
Tom Goldfinch; John Vulic; Keith Willey; Guien Miao; Rod Fiford; Ali Hadigheh
The University of Sydney
Corresponding Author Email: tom.goldfinch@sydney.edu.au
STRUCTURED ABSTRACT
CONTEXT
The Faculty of Engineering and IT at the University of Sydney recently introduced an Integrated
Engineering program consisting of four core units of study across all engineering majors. The program
was created to provide a cross-disciplinary integrating focus throughout the degree programs, linking
the development of broader professional skills with the students’ technical capabilities to better
prepare graduates for practice in an increasingly complex and diverse engineering industry. Once fully
implemented the program will reach in the order of 3600+ students per year.
PURPOSE
Curriculum innovations are often met with varied success, often depending on how the vision is
shared by faculty (Borrego & Henderson, 2014). Programs similar to the Integrated Engineering
program are becoming increasingly common, though their impact is often not well understood. Thus,
an evaluation of the Integrated Engineering program is currently underway to:
1) Determine how effectively it will deliver on its key purposes.
2) Assess the alignment of the current program with engineering graduates’ needs in preparation
for professional practice.
3) Assess the broader conditions for success of the program.
APPROACH
This paper focuses on the methodology of the evaluation approach – a component model of attitudes
(Eagly & Chaiken, 1993; Zanna & Rempel, 1988) toward the Integrated Engineering program – and
the multiple perspectives on the program. The approach seeks to evaluate how staff view the
programs goals, its educational methods, and formal and informal student feedback received thus far.
The approach analyses staff perspectives from the cognitive (knowledge, beliefs), conative (feelings,
emotions) and affective (intentions, actions, agency) domains and makes an assessment of the
conditions for ongoing delivery and likely success of the program in the long term.
RESULTS
Results from staff interviews suggest that there are diverse views on what an ‘Integrated Engineering’
program should achieve. This is supported by the different approaches to advertised Integrated
Engineering programs elsewhere and suggests that the lack of consensus over the term itself could
contribute to challenges in the rollout and ongoing delivery of the program. Analysis also reveals that
familiarity with the content and learning outcomes of the program is variable, but generally low.
CONCLUSIONS
With any curriculum innovation, faculty support is an important factor for success. The methodology
presented here, along with preliminary results, presents a template for unpacking staff attitudes
towards a curriculum innovation. Preliminary results suggest a pressing need for building a consensus
around what an Integrated Engineering program is (within and beyond the Faculty) to pave the way for
a successful program.
KEYWORDS
Evaluation, Attitudes, Integrated Curriculum, Professional Skills.
This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. To view a copy of this license, visit http
s://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcodeIntroduction
The Faculty of Engineering and IT at The University of Sydney (USYD) recently introduced an
Integrated Engineering (IE) program. The authors have observed that IE can be seen as an ill-defined
term currently in a period of flux, where approaches to IE initiatives have varied across the
Engineering faculties that have implemented them. Regardless of the approach that faculties have
taken, IE initiatives are generally positioned as a response to the need to help students gain the
confidence and competence required to enter an increasingly complex and diverse engineering
industry (Berry, 2017). This paper details the early stages of a comprehensive evaluation of the IE
program. We start with an overview the University of Sydney IE program and some of the issues and
challenges encountered in rolling out the program, and comparison with other IE programs
internationally. This is followed by the design of the IE program evaluation, along with results of the
staff perspective component of the evaluation.
The FEIT Approach to Integrated Engineering
The USYD IE program is designed as a stream of four core units of study across all engineering
majors. Key aims of the initiative are to provide a cross-disciplinary integrating focus throughout its
degree programs, linking the development of broader professional skills with students’ technical
capabilities, and better prepare graduates as per Engineers Australia requirements to enter
professional practice. When introduced, the program replaced a number of different school-based (as
opposed to faculty wide) approaches to addressing similar learning outcomes. In most instances, the
approaches were single units of study taken by students in their first and final years of study. Although
this was intended to help form the basis of students’ continuing professional development, there were
few further units of study explicitly related to the ongoing development of these skills.
In 2014 the Faculty initiated a review of the entire Bachelor of Engineering structure, and found that
general engineering competencies were being developed in different ways across engineering
disciplines. One significant outcome of this review was the proposal for a 12CP (representing half a
semester full-time equivalent study) program of units of study that focused on the development of
professional competencies that underpin engineering practice.
In 2015 this proposal came together in the form of the ‘Integrated Engineering’ program that aimed to
support the professional development of students, in multidisciplinary projects spanning all four years
of students’ enrolments. The series of four core units of study that make up the IE program (one at
each year level) are designed to develop and apply technical engineering and professional skills to
authentic, real world projects and workplace practices. The program also was introduced in part to
address the ‘atomised’ approach many students are able to take to both their learning and
assessment within their engineering studies, where individual experiences are viewed independent
and disconnected from others.
The aim of the program is to build an understanding of the nature of engineering and what it means to
think and practice as an engineer. The educational design is intended to link the learning in various
discipline specific subjects by applying it in authentic, multidiscipline activities and practices. The four
units were conceived to move students through the following four stages:
Year 1: Understand and analyse the concepts that underpin engineering; students explore
innovation, design and professional skills through a design project and professional
development cycle.
Year 2: Think like an engineer in undertaking design of technologies; students apply basic
project management skills to respond to a commercial opportunity via a simulated tendering
process.
Year 3: Act as an engineer to solve problems through creating systems; students build
connections, networking skills, and seek out a commercial opportunity.
Year 4: Lead engineering innovation in solving society’s challenges; students explore
leadership, practice ‘big picture’ thinking, and examine the horizon through analysis of current
engineering practices and develop informed recommendations for change.
In addition to developing specific technical and professional skills (such as teamwork, communication,
and an understanding of ethical and professional practice) the units endeavour to develop core
fundamental skills – such as an ability to analyse one’s own capabilities, plan their professional
development and manage their own learning.
Proceedings, AAEE2018, Hamilton, New ZealandIn line with the development team's belief that students learn more effectively when they discover
answers for themselves, making their own connections and pathways rather than having them
provided, the units are ‘flipped’. Collaborative learning, as well as self, peer and instructor review are
all used to build learner independence, judgement, and help students to understand often tacit
professional and academic standards. Assessed reflective portfolios are used as a means for students
to plan, monitor and evaluate their learning, methods and approaches and their associated skill
development.
In comparison to the more traditional engineering chalk and talk delivery, flipped learning relies heavily
on students being able to take more responsibility for their own learning (Reidsema et el 2017).
Recent studies (Willey and Gardner, 2015, 2014a, 2014b) based on interviews with engineering
students found many students who struggled with these more independent approaches had become
accustomed to expecting specific guidance in their learning, being told what to think, learn and do.
They felt unsupported when they had to exercise their own judgement.
Although we scaffold our flipped approach and learning objectives for students, and take care to map
out and explain the learning design to them, there have been many challenges.
Firstly there has been the challenge of changing the perceptions of many students as to what
constitutes legitimate learning and assessment. The traditional engineering curriculum positivist
epistemology shared by many academic staff and students values propositional knowledge (knowing
about things) and knowledge acquisition. Conversely, engineering is a practiced profession where
experience, knowledge and judgement are only developed through application. While this is reflected
in the design of the multidisciplinary projects and activities within the IE program, students can resist
learning what they do not see as valuable. Contrary to reports from industry, many students still
believe their technical knowledge and skills will be more highly valued than their non-technical
knowledge and skills, and generally view their technical aptitude as a key contributor to securing future
employment. The comments below are typical of the variety of perceptions apparent in student
evaluation survey comments:
Useless content that makes you question if you are doing Engineering or Arts. (first year
student)
Integrated Engineering is actually a really good subject... To me, this subject is like a platform
for different students from various courses to meet and work on a problem together. If it
weren't for this subject, there would hardly be much interaction between students of different
courses. (Third year student)
I like the formative feedback activities where members of different teams got together to hear
about other team’s projects, how they were solving problems and then reporting back to your
team. (Second year student)
Secondly, learning that challenges and stretches students, asks them to think critically or use their
judgement to deal with uncertainty and complexity, often induce resistance (Brookfield 2017), as was
experienced in the IE program:
I know [the instructor] likes open-ended projects cause they're more realistic but they add a
massive amount of work to the project if you want to do well and try and cover all aspects.
(Third year student)
Changing the final project from open-ended to something much more defined… to reduce the
work. (Third year student)
Thirdly, a significant factor in the design and delivery of the program which differs from some other
similar programs is the size of its student cohort. Once fully implemented, the program will reach in the
order of 3600+ students across all four units of study in any given year. As this type of workshop-
based facilitated teaching and learning is different from many academics' and instructors’ previous
experience, it was important to find, mentor and support approximately 40 suitable instructors.
Alternative Approaches to, and Articulations of ‘Integrated Engineering’
A preliminary review of other programs and initiatives denoted Integrated Engineering reflect a
broader absence of consensus on what the term means. There are of course other related terms used
to describe curriculum designs that seek to achieve similar outcomes to the USYD IE program.
However, for the purpose of this evaluation, we sought to build a better understanding of the specific
term.
Proceedings, AAEE2018, Hamilton, New ZealandThe Integrated Engineering Programme (IEP) of University College London (UCL) is positioned as a
teaching framework embedded across eight different engineering disciplines. As with the USYD
program, the UCL model was developed in part to address industry advice on graduate skills. The IEP
curriculum focuses strongly on interdisciplinarity, teamwork, student attitudes and practicality, covering
a broad range of transferable skills in the context of real-world engineering projects. The IEP has
recently been cited as an ’emerging leader’ in an MIT-commissioned report on current and future
engineering education: Reimagining and Rethinking Engineering Education (Graham, 2018). A closer
review of this program reveals a blend of broadly multi (engineering) disciplinary units along with more
discipline focused design and project experiences operating within schools. In this sense the program
is more far reaching than the USYD program and appears to address a range of focuses identified by
participants in the current study relating to technical and professional skills.
The curriculum design at Macquarie University, presented as an Integrated Engineering curriculum
(Town et al, 2017), is similar to the USYD program in offering a ‘pillar’ approach with professional and
PBL units in all four years of the program. These pillars run alongside more traditional technical units
of study, however address professional skills and technical skills in separate unit streams.
Tallinn University of Technology (TUT) offers a somewhat different approach to Integrated
Engineering. TUT’s Integrated Engineering is aimed to address a societal demand where Engineers’
knowledge is not restricted to a narrow field, but where Engineers can combine their skills with
information technology, social and economic sciences, industrial design, product development and the
digitisation of industry (Tallinn University of Technology, 2018). The program appears to include a
greater degree of out-of-faculty business and social sciences units. It is another instance of an
emerging offering of engineering programs internationally that do not conform to traditional disciplines
of engineering (e.g. Swinburne University Bachelor of Engineering Practice and Olin College Design-
your-own Engineering program).
Of the examples presented here, and others analysed thus far, many appear to be programs like the
USYD IE program that have been designed and implemented as developments of existing engineering
programs, in part seeking to cross traditional engineering disciplinary boundaries and simultaneously
addressing professional skills requirements. However, while the models and goals are readily
presented, studies evaluating their success is more difficult to find.
Evaluation Methodology
Given the challenges encountered in the first three years of the program rollout, the IE team secured
funding for a detailed evaluation of the program. The evaluation project aims broadly to:
Determine how effectively the USYD Integrated Engineering program can deliver on its key
purposes.
Assess the alignment of the current USYD Integrated Engineering program with engineering
graduates’ needs in preparation for professional practice.
The project uses a program logic approach to evaluation. This approach is used extensively in
evaluation of educational program evaluation to determine the evaluability of a program (i.e. how
readily available useable data is), guide data collection and analysis methods, and link program
intentions with outcomes by assessing the impact of the program design (AIFS, 2017; Cooksy, Gill, &
Kelly, 2001; Slavin, 2008). The approach is summarised in table 1.
As the program is yet to produce graduates entering industry, evaluation at this stage is designed only
to explore short and medium-term outcomes of the program - evidence of learning at the individual
unit level, and evidence of connections across IE units and integration of skills. The impact of the IE
program on students’ workplace performance and career progression will be investigated from 2020
onwards, once graduates of the program have progressed into industry.
This paper focuses on the results of one component of the evaluation, interviews with Academic Staff.
Proceedings, AAEE2018, Hamilton, New ZealandTable 1 Evaluation method and data sources
Step Focus Data source
Problem Define the educational purpose of the IE Formative documentation, unit
Statement program descriptions, and learning outcome
statements.
Inputs Resources committed to the program Financial data IE units and other
professional skills and design focused
units.
Benchmarking of inputs with similar
programs Contact hours, assessment structures
etc. of similar integrative programs
Outputs: Educational delivery modes Desktop mapping of learning
Activities Assessment outputs activities, assessments, classes etc.
Benchmarking with related programs
Mapping of educational outputs to Semi-structured interviews with
graduate experiences. engineering graduates and online
alumni survey
Outputs: Staff Understanding of the program by staff Semi-structured interviews with FEIT
engagement Staff views on the goals of the program staff
Staff engagement in delivering the
program
Outputs: Students views on the program Focus groups with FEIT students
Student Student engagement with the learning Analysis of Blackboard and Canvas
engagement activities engagement statistics
Short term Evidence of learning at the unit level Sampling of student work, reviewed
outcomes – Alignment of learning with program against learning outcomes
unit level goals and graduate experiences Analysis of grade distributions
Medium term Evidence of students connecting Focus groups with 3rd and 4th year
outcomes – learning across unit FEIT students
program level Evidence of integration of skills and
knowledge through the program
Data from interviews with Faculty were analysed from an attitudes perspective, underpinned by a
three component model of attitudes, Cognitive, Affective, and Conative (Eagly & Chaiken, 1993;
Zanna & Rempel, 1988). Experiences and perceptions of engineering practice are also explored in
interviews as a basis for examining aspects of attitude. Exploration of attitudes as a basis for the data
analysis supports a deeper exploration of values and beliefs that drive views expressed by
participants. The framework also enables structuring and comparison of diverse participant responses
– a likely condition of interviews with individuals working in a range of disciplinary environments and
with diverse professional backgrounds.
As this project is led by staff members closely linked with the IE program delivery, interviews and
analysis of recordings/transcripts were undertaken by an external third party. This was intended to
prevent the constraints of power imbalances and professional relationships between researchers and
participants hindering open participation and fair analysis. Ethical considerations of this approach were
reviewed by the University of Sydney Human Research Ethics Committee (approval no. 2018/502).
Results and Analysis
In total, 10 participants across the four schools of engineering participated in the study. Participants
were drawn from staff identified by heads of schools as having a role- or interest-based connection
with the IE program (e.g. Program heads, student-liaison, or educational leader). Comments from
academic staff participants have generally endorsed the importance of IE for students, however
interpretations of what an ideal IE program should address and how it should be implemented varied.
The analysis explores these perceptions through Cognitive, Affective, and Conative lenses and
represents a preliminary review of participant responses. Further detailed analysis will be undertaken
after student, graduate and organisational data is collected and analysed as part of the evaluation.
Proceedings, AAEE2018, Hamilton, New ZealandCognitive
Concrete statements of knowledge or beliefs about the current program format were the most
common response. Assertions of the ideal focus of IE varied from professional skills development, to
integration of professional and technical capabilities, to reinforcement of technical skills as the priority:
It was really conceived to provide a suite of skills that are not particularly discipline specific
that relate to what engineers need generally, things like presentation skills and how to work in
a group, writing your CV or resume and job readiness skills. So things about how to prepare
people to be job ready in the broadest sense, including management and innovation, time
techniques. This matches my interpretation of what it should be.
I’ve heard that it’s about designing something, taking into account different aspects of
engineering…I did discuss with my colleague academics, the consensus was it was soft skills
given to Engineers, as opposed to giving something more technical, maths, those sorts of
skills that are lacking. I see students in year four that are good at designing but lack the
mathematical background to design it.
Participants also commented on the integration of the program. Statements often referred to a low
level of awareness of the program amongst staff. Others commented on the need for greater school
ownership of the programs, and this was often linked to a desire for greater disciplinary focus:
I think more ownership needs to go to schools and they should be able to dictate more about
what’s in it… It’s not all bad, it’s like trying to use a hammer to hammer in a nail, and to
hammer in a tent peg and to demolish concrete. Yes you can use a hammer, but there are
specialised tools to do these kind of jobs. And I think our students are different enough to
warrant a different type of tool called Integrated Engineering (Mechanical), Integrated
Engineering (Civil), and that would work better with the faculty still involved in giving guidance
and reviewing.
These beliefs suggest a disconnect between beliefs about sound disciplinary education and
acceptance of the need for interdisciplinary capacity and professional skills. It was apparent overall
that participants believed professional skills could be dealt with in a multidisciplinary setting, separate
from other units of study, but that technical skills should be addressed in a discipline specific manner.
Affective
Feelings expressed by participants largely derived from their beliefs about what the program should
be, and suggested a prevailing sense of loss of ownership.
but I think that the school feels like it's lost a little bit of control in that unit of study. And when
that happens it’s not supported…
The introduction of the IE program represented a significant shift from school-based ownership of
courses to a faculty-wide connection between courses. The change also resulted in some programs
losing ‘space’ in the program that was previously controlled by the school.
Closely related to loss of ownership was the consequent lack of familiarity with the IE program and
how it would integrate with disciplinary units. Participants expressed some anxiety over how the
program connected with their own teaching, or a risk of repeating content:
It’s a little bit like people don’t really know what it’s about, but yes I do feel that something that
I’m afraid about is repetition.
My real worry is the lack of integration with the other units. So you’re you not seeing the skills
and expertise that they develop in integrated engineering being reinforced by the requirement
to use it in the other units of study that they are doing here.
Participants also expressed views that reinforced the importance of the IE program for graduate
outcomes. Such views indicate that criticisms of the program in many cases are a result of a desire to
see it achieve its core objectives:
I’ve talked to a lot of students who have recently graduated. They feel very unprepared for
their first job. A lot of them come back and say they spent four years learning technical skills
and they do that for the first year and for the next 30 years they never touch that information.
Proceedings, AAEE2018, Hamilton, New ZealandConative
Comments relating to participant actions, or intentions for action, mostly discussed the next steps for
addressing issues presented above: Integration of the program and broadening awareness of its
implementation. Mostly this placed responsibility on those teaching the IE program, however, some
participants acknowledged a shared responsibility for improving communication.
I think everyone is busy and have a lot on their plates, it would be helpful if some of the folks
from integrated engineering could drop in on the staff meeting once a year, just to let us know
where they’ve been up to and what's going on.
I don’t know whether I should have taken the lead and learned more and contacted them and
say whether we could have scaled economies on certain points, I don’t know who should start
this. Is it a discussion in the IE team? Are they thinking about reaching out?
Some participants also commented on how the IE program may have impacted individual approaches
to teaching, particularly in relation to disciplinary skills and knowledge:
I base a lot of my teachings on my experiences and my little stories, it would mean nothing to
a chemical engineer to talk about an armoured personnel carrier, or an elevator or mechanical
type of things you see. You've lost that little bit of tacit knowledge that the lecturer can convey,
it just becomes this neutral and generic thing.
Discussion and Conclusion
According to the change strategies in STEM education framework offered by Henderson et al (2011;
Borrego and Henderson, 2014), there is an apparent desire among participants for the IE teaching
team to undertake an approach characterised as Disseminating: Curriculum and Pedagogy. This
means that the approach has focused largely on sharing curriculum design and informing others of its
purpose and use.
However, the varied comments of staff participants reflect student feedback and the various positions
individuals take on what an IE program should be indicates that the focus of IE is likely to remain
contested in the short to medium term. There is also need for what Henderson et al describe as
Developing: Shared Vision. Overall, feelings expressed in relation to the IE program and its current
implementation tended to support the need for the program, but indicated that a shared-vision for the
program has not yet been achieved. In contrast to the Disseminating: Curriculum and Pedagogy
approach, developing a shared vision will require greater contribution from faculty staff in the
development and delivery of the program.
While this is evident from the progress of the evaluation project thus far, more needs to be understood
about how to achieve this. To do this, it is proposed that further exploration of the attitudes
underpinning participant comments may shed light on where different positions originate from; that is,
exploring why such a diversity in perspectives on the IE program exists. It is also anticipated that
further benchmarking of the program, and analysis of student perspectives and graduate experiences
will assist in directing what the program needs to achieve and inform a shared vision to be built.
The work presented here is only in its early stages. As the evaluation proceeds, it is hoped that the
outcomes can shed greater clarity on what Integrated Engineering means for the local context and,
through external collaboration with others on the ‘Integrated Engineering pathway’, build a greater
understanding of the term as it applies to engineering education more broadly.
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