Exploring Students' Perceptions of Complex Problems and Stakeholders

Abstract

Studies have shown that engineering students are typically not exposed to what they will encounter as practicing professionals: problems that are hard to define, have multiple stakeholders, and involve non-engineering constraints. There is therefore a need to expose engineering students to real, complex problems. Various publications in engineering education, including ABET outcomes, have also emphasized the importance of preparing students to work in multidisciplinary teams and to be knowledgeable of current issues.In 2013, the University of Pittsburgh implemented a course (ENGR 1060/2060) on social entrepreneurship that targets these concerns. The course, titled "Social Entrepreneurship: Engineering for Humanity", discusses social entrepreneurship through the lens of sustainability and "wicked", or complex, problems. It is taught as part of Engineers for a Sustainable World's (ESW) Wicked Problems in Sustainability Initiative, in which ESW provides the participating schools with a different wicked problem every year. The course is open to all majors, and to both undergraduate and graduate students. While the majority of the students thus far have been mostly undergraduates from different engineering majors, there have been undergraduate students from non-engineering majors as well as graduate students from both engineering and non-engineering majors, providing a multidisciplinary environment for students to discuss and learn about wicked problems.Although the semester-long project is a group project, students work on individual writing assignments that they submit throughout the semester. They are given prompts related to wicked problems, sustainability, and social entrepreneurship, and they then write 600-1000 words in response to these prompts. These writing assignments require that students find appropriate references to provide facts and support their statements, but they also require some personal reflection, and convey each individual's perspectives about the different topics. The purpose of this study is to explore how students' perceptions of and engagement with complex problems and stakeholders change as a result of participating in this course. Students' individual writing assignments from 2015 and 2016 were qualitatively analyzed to answer the following research questions:-In what ways do students describe complex problems, and how does this change from the beginning to the end of the semester? -In what ways do students characterize stakeholders, and how does this change from the beginning to the end of the semester?Data were analyzed using open coding. No predetermined themes were used as part of the data analysis; the resulting themes emerged from the data. Findings from this study can provide information regarding how students begin to think about complex problems, current issues, and stakeholders -problems such as those they will encounter as engineering professionals -and how these thoughts evolve throughout the semester.