Interdisciplinary engineering education: A review of vision, teaching, and support

Abstract

BackgroundSocietal challenges that call for a new type of engineer suggest the need for the implementation of interdisciplinary engineering education (IEE). The aim of IEE is to train engineering students to bring together expertise from different disciplines in a single context. This review synthesizes IEE research with a focus on characterizing vision, teaching practices, and support.PurposeWe aim to show how IEE is conceptualized, implemented, and facilitated in higher engineering education at the levels of curricula and courses. This aim leads to two research questions:What aspects of vision, teaching, and support have emerged as topics of interest in empirical studies of IEE?What points of attention regarding vision, teaching, and support can be identified in empirical studies of IEE as supporting or challenging IEE?Scope/MethodNinety‐nine studies published between 2005 and 2016 were included in a qualitative analysis across studies. The procedure included formulation of research questions, searching and screening of studies according to inclusion/exclusion criteria, description of study characteristics, appraisal, and synthesis of results.ConclusionsChallenges exist for identifying clear learning goals and assessments for interdisciplinary education in engineering (vision). Most pedagogy for interdisciplinary learning is designed to promote collaborative teamwork requiring organization and team management. Our review suggests that developing interdisciplinary skills, knowledge, and values needs sound pedagogy and teaming experiences that provide students with authentic ways of engaging in interdisciplinary practice (teaching). Furthermore, there is a limited understanding of what resources hinder the development of engineering programs designed to support interdisciplinarity (support).

Conjectures, Cycles and Contexts: A Systematic Review of Design-based Research in Engineering Education

“…The design of learning progressions generally would be an area for expansion in engineering education research. Another area for growth is the study of interdisciplinarity in engineering and students' learning in interdisciplinary contexts as described in a recent review of the research in this area (Van den Beemt et al, 2020). For example, their review raises questions about assessment design for interdisciplinary projects: The kinds of scaffolding and supports for interdisciplinary learning could be addressed by design-based research that would result in principles that could be used across multiple contexts or settings.…”

“…For engineering knowledge, many concepts have not been studied at length so understanding and documenting students' development of knowledge needs to occur and tasks need to be designed to elicit that knowledge. For instance, students' learning in interdisciplinary settings needs further exploration for assessment and task design (Van den Beemt et al, 2020). Gainsburg (2015) explored the epistemological perspectives of engineering students about mathematics and similar studies could be done about science or computer science related to engineering.…”

Postgraduate “Management” program design for small and medium business managers

“…In a voluminous study [9], which analyzes almost 100 publications, the authors state the existence of problems in the vision of interdisciplinary education of engineers, demonstrate and summarize many of the provisions, marked by us above. The work, in particular, not only highlights the need for the formation of managerial and communication competencies; but also places the emphasis on the need for constructive coordination of various didactic components of training.…”

“…Problems of disciplines integration in the training of engineers are considered in the paper [8], where the main emphasis is placed on the analysis of the relationship between economic and technical disciplines; however, it does not take into account the higher technical education that students already have (as in the case we are considering). Various aspects of the formation of entrepreneurial abilities in engineers are discussed in the following papers [9,10] and others.…”

Evaluation of Flexible Strategies to Manage the COVID-19 Pandemic in the Education Sector

“…No Flexible strategies Description References 19 Restructuring through resilience and flexibilityThe restructuring of the educational sector is vital to strengthen teaching and learning and to recover from the challenges faced during COVID-19 pandemic(Van den Beemt et al 2020) …”