Background: This study investigated the development of engineering students' approaches to learning and views on collaboration in a PBL environment. Material and methods: An explanatory mixed research approach was employed with participants from four PBL-implementing engineering courses in Qatar and China. 197students responded to two surveys, and 168 students participated in group interviews. Results: While the study reveals increased adoption of deep approaches to learning on team projects, little influence on surface approaches to learning was found. The study also provides evidence supporting the positive relationship between students' adoption of deep learning approaches and their acknowledgement of values of collaboration in teamwork. Conclusions: This study suggests that while PBL characteristics may support deep learning, certain factors may underpin surface learning, including a feeling of insecurity during first experiences with it, lack of skills, and assessment methods that favor surface learning. Further efforts on engaging students with PBL may benefit both deep learning and team effectiveness.
Cost and time are the targeted outcomes of any successful construction project, and disputes over these two key factors constitute a major obstacle to successful project outcomes. As escalated levels of dispute are becoming increasingly unavoidable, the construction industry is aiming to develop dispute identification strategies to reduce and eliminate them during construction. However, existing research on construction disputes appears to give more consideration to dispute resolution than it does to avoiding conflict and preventing disputes from arising in the first place. This paper aims to minimize disputes during construction by addressing the causes of disputes during the pre-construction phase. As an integral part of ongoing research, it presents the results of a thorough study encompassing a critical review of previous research on construction disputes. Several conflicts and disputes are categorized and analyzed to allow for the future determination of their direct and/or indirect links to the pre-construction phase. This review also elaborates on the different methods of research adopted in the literature and the relevant research tools utilized. The research highlights the use of fuzzy logic coupled with structural equation modeling (SEM) as a recognized and valid modeling tool in construction projects, as it models and establishes an appropriate framework for dispute modeling and evaluation. The findings of this review therefore call for a further investigation of and deep research into the relationship between the characteristics of the pre-construction phase and the types of disputes and their likelihood of taking place during the construction phase itself. These findings can be utilized to develop an operational framework for predicting dispute occurrences during construction. The paper concludes by providing a developed hybrid fuzzy-SEM model to quantify the probability of dispute occurrence in construction projects, thereby enabling project stakeholders to predict, identify, and properly manage dispute occurrences during the pre-construction phase.
Building Information Modelling (BIM) is increasingly deployed as part of the processes in Architecture, Engineering and Construction (AEC) industry projects. While the benefits of BIM have been extensively proclaimed, explicit justification in terms of direct cost savings for BIM implementation on real-life projects, particularly for clash detection BIM workstream, are not well documented. This paper proposes and demonstrates a methodology to prove how BIM-based clash detection leads to cost savings. A schema is developed based on literature review and industrial expertise to quantify cost savings achieved by the utilisation of BIM-based clash detection and resolution. This paper provides validation of the proposed schema on a major infrastructure project. The developed schema includes the categorisation of identified clashes based on stakeholder involvement and required actions. The validation used the estimated cost of clashes were those not resolved before site operations took place. This schema simplifies both the categorisation and cost estimation of clashes in design. Estimated savings yielded 20% of contract value using the schema, for the multi-million-dollar project case study, thus extending evidence of BIM savings and benefits. The schema improves the existing process and valorises clash detection, thus allowing stakeholders to conduct a cost-benefit analysis. In addition, the categorisation methodology allows prioritising on the most costly clashes, and draw lessons learnt for further projects. This schema opens the path towards a systematic methodology to appraise the benefits of different BIM uses or processes.
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