Leveraging Vertically Integrated Courses and Problem-Based Learning to Improve Students’ Performance and Skills

Fostering Virtual Reality Environments to Advance Construction and Engineering Students’ Interpersonal Skills

“…Since Construction managers spend most of their professional life leading and communicating with workforce, developing interpersonal skills and being able to express their ideas effectively is very significant [6]. Such professionals must be capable to seamlessly understand their peers, clients, and stakeholders and vice versa [7], [8].…”

Why Don’t Undergraduate STEM Students Pursue Combined (4+1) B.S./M.S. Degrees?

“…Identifying student's expectations of success and perceived values from this experience will allow us to understand the different types of costs that influence the student's decision to stay another year and complete their master's degree. Studies found that exposure to research at an undergraduate level creates positive experiences for students which as a result, leads engineering students to pursue their graduate studies [1], [15]. Moreover, social interactions with graduate students, mentors, as well as professors, can play a role in the decision to pursue post-graduate degrees.…”

“…With the ever-changing and evolving industries, professional needs have become more challenging and demanding, resulting in a wide competency gap between science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) graduates' attributes and current employers' expectations. Therefore, with the growing demands from industry, it has become vital for engineering programs to focus on equipping students with non-technical or professional knowledge and skills [1]. Brunhaver et al explain that with technical knowledge and skills becoming "less central or less sufficient" for performing engineering work, professional knowledge and skills have become more significant [2].…”

“…Therefore, since the industry is already struggling with graduating student's competency, the introduction of the combined BS/MS or 4+1 program, an accelerated program designed for outstanding undergraduate students, maybe the answer to such a dilemma, as a 30-credit master's degree program usually focuses on advanced discipline-specific content. This provides the student with a competitive advantage and the much-needed skill sets that the industry is seeking in comparison to their peers who graduated with only a bachelor's degree [1]. Additionally, as Galloway states that it is not possible "to provide to engineers within a four-year period all of the skills they need to practice" hence why "the master's degree is essential to professional practice today" [5].…”

Integrating Social Media Platforms in Construction Education to Increase Student Engagement

“…As such, technical issues related to ensuring innovative pedagogies that train and support STEM students have escalated, such as the integration of STEM courses positioned in upper and lower divisions to benefit student learning and training (ElZomor et al 2016). However, student engagement suffers from the challenges associated with such logistics, which is also evident from the lower number of STEM graduates in recent years (ElZomor et al 2018). Therefore, it has become critical to address student engagement by integrating real-world contexts to develop more challenging examples that relate their coursework to real-life experiences (Brzozowy et al, 2017).…”