Daria Kotys-Schwartz

Policymakers and industry representatives have called for an increase in the number of engineering graduates, but many students, even in their final year of their programs, remain unsure of their plans to enter engineering as a career. The research question guiding this study is: how do changes in students’ perceptions of the field of engineering relate to how they describe their development of engineering identity? To address this question, focus group interviews were conducted with 62 students across 15 engineering majors and three universities in the United States. Results indicate that students find engineering to be broader than anticipated, which implicates how they imagine they might contribute to the field. Students perceive that perseverance, collaboration, and opportunities for authentic engagement with practice lead to academic success and better employment outcomes, and they recognise lifelong learning will help them continually adapt to the dynamic and complex nature of the engineering field.

This work seeks to understand how undergraduate students view development of their engineering and leadership identities. The construct of engineering identity is important because its development improves student retention in college and into industry. Similarly, developing leadership identity influences leadership interest and self-efficacy. Through data collected in twenty focus groups and coded using consensus techniques this study finds similarities and differences between the development of each identity. Similarities include the positive impact of authentic experiences and importance of both internal and external recognition, while the linear development of engineering presents a stark contrast with student views of how leadership develops.

Background: Communication is critical to engineering work, and despite its emphasis within engineering education, it is still noted as a gap in new engineers’ preparedness for work. Literature review: Prior research points to communication gaps among new engineers. Few studies have extensively examined transitions between academic and professional engineering contexts. Work remains for understanding how new engineers transfer communication skills. Research questions: 1. In what ways do new engineers transfer communication practices from school to work? 2. What challenges do new engineers experience in moving from communication as practiced at school to communication as practiced at work? Research methodology: This study presents a thematic analysis of data from weekly reflections and regular semistructured interviews conducted during new engineers’ first year of work. Results and conclusions: Despite relying heavily on academic experiences involving both documenting and presenting technical work, new engineers report experiencing communication-related challenges. While further attention to communication activities can be given within engineering curricula, the complexity and situated nature of communication in the workplace cannot be fully replicated in the classroom. As new engineers move between school and work, they experience challenges adapting to a new environment including communication activities embedded within unique sociocultural contexts. While the classroom cannot fully replicate these professional settings and all of their nuances, students can be made more fully aware of the embedded nature of communication activities. Moreover, engineering educators can simulate aspects of the workplace in capstone courses, and companies can provide guidance to help mentor new engineers through the inevitable context gaps.

Prototyping is an essential part of product development in companies, and yet it is one of the least explored areas of design practice. There are limited ethnographic studies conducted within companies, specifically around the topic of prototyping. This is an empirical and industrial-based study using inductive ethnographic observations to further our understanding of the various roles prototypes play in organizations. This research observed the entire product development cycle within three companies in the fields of consumer electronics (CE), footwear (FW), and medical devices (MD). Our guiding research questions are: What is a prototype? What are the roles of prototypes across these three companies? Through our analysis, we uncovered that prototypes are tools for enhanced communication, increased learning, and informed decision-making. Specifically, we further refine these categories to display the types of communication, learning, and decision-making that occur. These insights are significant because they validate many prior prototyping theories and claims, while also adding new perspectives through further exploiting each role. Finally, we provide newly modified definitions of a prototype and prototyping based on this empirical work, which we hope expands designers' mental models for the terms.