This paper reports on the first phase of an Australian inter-disciplinary partnership study conce... more This paper reports on the first phase of an Australian inter-disciplinary partnership study concerned with professional learning of experienced engineers. It is a theoretically motivated, qualitative paper that aims to produce detailed descriptions of professional learning that arise within professional engineering work. The paper uses practice theory to conceptualise professional learning. By using 'practices' as the units of analysis, professional learning is understood as an integral part of everyday work practices that is embodied, relational and material rather than an individual attribute. The paper concludes by suggesting that practice theory may provide organisations with an alternative perspective of workplace learning, inviting them to reconsider how professional learning is acknowledged, rewarded and fostered in organisations
Project context
To the detriment of Australian society and people, women in Australia remain und... more Project context
To the detriment of Australian society and people, women in Australia remain under-represented among engineering students, and even more so among engineers. Engineering workplaces have features that are gender non-inclusive (Gill, Sharp, Mills, & Franzway, 2008; Kaspura, 2013). There are efforts to improve engineering education by increasing industry engagement, and all but one of the Australian universities that offer formative engineering degree programs have compulsory workplace learning. However, it was hypothesised that experiences of workplace learning might further discourage female engineering students.
Aim of the project
This project sought to contribute to ensuring that workplace learning in engineering programs is gender inclusive. The project was designed to investigate gender inclusivity in engineering students’ vacation employment and internships, and to develop, test, and model a workshop to help prepare students for successful student and graduate experiences in engineering workplaces. The project provided preliminary investigation into the extent and nature of the need for a full proposal.
Main findings of the project
The majority of students’ workplace experiences were encouraging. However, despite the positive experiences, as many as 53 (33.1%) of 160 engineering students were not aware of any female professional engineers in the workplace, and experiences consistent with gendered workplaces were reported. These included female students experiencing interactions that Hatmaker (2013, p387) identified as marginalising female engineers—namely ‘amplifying’ gender, ‘imposing gendered expectations’, ‘tuning out’ when women speak, and ‘doubting technical abilities’ of women.
It was found that students were vulnerable due to difficulty finding placements and the need to complete their placements to graduate. Students were discouraged by placements where they were not given engineering work, received insufficient supervision or support, and had little or no interaction with professional engineers.
Student interviews revealed transformative, encouraging workplace experiences, and disheartening experiences. Descriptions of interactions and responses consistent with gendered cultures, and also bullying, were identified.
Project outputs, deliverables, and resources
This project has described the extent and nature of non-inclusivity of workplace experiences of engineering students at three Australian universities. Manuscripts describing the survey results and interview findings are being prepared.
Resources for educators wishing to hold a workshop to help students prepare for gendered workplaces are available from the project lead. These include workshop slides and facilitator notes, and a handout for students, which contains narrative descriptions and role-play parts for scenarios based on the student interviews.
Impact of the project
Workshops to help students prepare for interactions in gendered workplaces were held at four Australian universities and attended by 110 students and six academics.
A masterclass was attended by 11 participants at the Australasian Association for Engineering Education (AAEE) Conference. The workshop evaluation indicated that five participant academics plan to implement or adapt the workshop.
Project approach
The project was framed within the theory of ‘possible selves’, in which perceptions of achievable appealing possible future selves are motivating, and feared possible selves are demotivating (Bennett, 2013; Markus & Nurius, 1986). It also focused on personal interactions that marginalise professional engineers, as identified by Hatmaker (2013). Engineering students at the three partner universities were surveyed and interviewed.
Valid and complete survey responses were received from 160 engineering students (25.0% female) who had engineering workplace learning experience. Thirteen engineering students at the three partner universities, including four male students, were interviewed.
Recommendations
Engineering faculties must ensure that engineering students reflect on their workplace experiences to think critically about the cultures they experience and their responses. Engineering faculties should work with employers to improve the quality of placements.
Further research is recommended to describe the prevalence of gender non-inclusivity nationally. Research with employers is recommended to understand how gendered workplace cultures can be improved, and how students can be prepared for working in workplaces where women continue to be in minority.
A combination of self and peer assessment is a powerful and rich teaching and learning management... more A combination of self and peer assessment is a powerful and rich teaching and learning management tool that can be used to monitor and evaluate group performance in project work. An on-line system (SPARK PLUS -Self and Peer Assessment Resource Kit) has been developed to simplify this process for the academic. This system generates factors for both the peer assessment weighting to be applied for individual contribution and the student's perception of their contribution compared to their peers by using key assessment criteria and a rigorous algorithm that is applied to the student evaluations of themselves and their peers. This paper describes and evaluates the introduction of SPARK PLUS to assess the performance of Mining Engineering Undergraduates in Year 3 at The University of Queensland in the first semester of 2008 in two of their core undergraduate courses that required group project work to be completed for assessment. The results obtained from this initial trial show the potential for improving student behaviour in group work through a structured approach to monitoring and feedback of their performance. It was found that male students with GPAs ≤ 5 tend to overestimate their contribution to group work more frequently than their peers whereas the opposite applies for male students with GPAs > 5.
Our research, an element which is reported in this paper, investigates the effectiveness of peer ... more Our research, an element which is reported in this paper, investigates the effectiveness of peer review of conference papers in enabling peer learning within the Australasian Association for Engineering Education (AAEE) community. This paper reports the responses of six "new/emerging" authors from three types of Australian universities to the peer reviews of their AAEE 2012 conference papers. The findings and discussion focus on those aspects of the reviews and the authors" circumstances that appear to either enable or constrain their development as engineering education researchers. The study finds that authors belonging to a discipline-based educational research group made substantial changes to their papers before final submission and we argue that these research groups support these authors in developing their academic identity as an engineering education researcher.
There is a reported competency gap between the teamwork skills required by employers and those de... more There is a reported competency gap between the teamwork skills required by employers and those developed by engineering students during their undergraduate courses.
Arguably, the most important opportunity to acquire the standards and norms of the discipline and... more Arguably, the most important opportunity to acquire the standards and norms of the discipline and develop researchers' judgement is the peer review processbut this depends on the quality of the reviews. 'Good' feedback -which we take to mean feedback that has the capacity to improve subsequent practice -has been identified as being timely, specific and relevant. Yet often reviews lack these basic qualities. In this paper we report an investigation of the peer review process at the 2010 Australasian Association of Engineering Education (AAEE) conference. Authors at the conference were given the chance to rate their reviews and we subsequently analysed both the nature of the reviews and authors' responses. Findings suggest that the opportunity to use the peer review process to induct people into the field and improve practice is being missed. As in other disciplines there is also ample evidence that the review process does little or nothing to ensure the standard and relevance of conference presentations. It is therefore legitimate to ask whether there may not be better processes to attain these ends and we conclude with some discussion of how the review process may be made more helpful for everyone involved.
International Conference on Information Society, 2012
ABSTRACT Skills and knowledge that can be gained by groups of individuals will be affected by the... more ABSTRACT Skills and knowledge that can be gained by groups of individuals will be affected by the characteristics of those groups. Systematic formation of the groups could therefore potentially lead to significantly improved learning outcomes. This research explores a framework for group formation that continuously adapts rules used for the grouping process in order to optimize the selected performance criteria of the group. We demonstrate an implementation of this approach within the context of groups of students undertaking remote laboratory experiments. The implementation uses multiple linear regression analysis to adaptively update the rules used for creating the groups. In order to address specific learning outcomes, certain behaviors of the group might be desired to achieve this learning outcome. We can show that by using a set of individual/group characteristics and group behavior we can dynamically create rules and hence optimize the selected performance criteria. The selected performance is in reality the group behaviour, which might lead to improved learning outcomes.
Recently there has been a shift to focus on assessing students' learning outcomes in terms of gra... more Recently there has been a shift to focus on assessing students' learning outcomes in terms of graduate attributes which they should develop and demonstrate during the course of their degree. A number of universities have tried to address these issues for example by using software tools such as ReView to track attribute development or by producing both academic and professional skill development transcripts. However, many attributes such as teamwork and the ability to give and receive feedback are typically practised in collaborative peer exercises. Furthermore these exercises are often conducted outside of regular class sessions, hence thorough assessment of these attributes should include input from both individual students and their peers. Hence we propose that any method of developing and tracking student's graduate attributes should include self and peer assessment.
Http Dx Doi Org 10 1080 03043797 2014 967181, Oct 20, 2014
ABSTRACT With the increasing challenges facing professional engineers working in more complex, gl... more ABSTRACT With the increasing challenges facing professional engineers working in more complex, global and interdisciplinary contexts, different approaches to understanding how engineers practice and learn are necessary. This paper draws on recent research in the social sciences from the field of workplace learning, to suggest that a practice-theory perspective on engineers' professional learning is fruitful. It shifts the focus from the attributes of the individual learner (knowledge, skills and attitudes) to the attributes of the practice (interactions, materiality, opportunities and challenges). Learning is thus more than the technical acquisition and transfer of knowledge, but a complex bundle of activities, that is, social, material, embodied and emerging. The paper is illustrated with examples from a research study of the learning of experienced engineers in the construction industry to demonstrate common practices - site walks and design review meetings - in which learning takes place.
... Development: Moving from Ad-Hoc to Planned Integration Keith Willey The University of Technol... more ... Development: Moving from Ad-Hoc to Planned Integration Keith Willey The University of Technology, Sydney, Australia [email protected] Betty Jacobs The University of Technology, Sydney, Australia [email protected] ...
As a way of focusing curriculum development and learning outcomes Universities have introduced gr... more As a way of focusing curriculum development and learning outcomes Universities have introduced graduate attributes which their students should develop during the course of is their degree. Some of these attributes are discipline specific, others are generic to all professions. The development of these attributes can be promoted by the careful use of self and peer assessment. The authors have previously reported using the self and peer assessment software tool SPARK in various contexts to facilitate opportunities to practise, develop, assess and provide feedback on these attributes. This research and that of the other developers identified the need for the addition of features to SPARK, to increase its flexibility and capacity to provide feedback. This paper reports the results of the first trials of these new features to investigate their potential to improve learning outcomes.
Our research, an element which is reported in this paper, investigates the effectiveness of peer ... more Our research, an element which is reported in this paper, investigates the effectiveness of peer review of conference papers in enabling peer learning within the Australasian Association for Engineering Education (AAEE) community. This paper reports the responses of six 'new/emerging' authors from three types of Australian universities to the peer reviews of their AAEE 2012 conference papers. The findings and discussion focus on those aspects of the reviews and the authors' circumstances that appear to either enable or constrain their development as engineering education researchers. The study finds that authors belonging to a discipline-based educational research group made substantial changes to their papers before final submission and we argue that these research groups support these authors in developing their academic identity as an engineering education researcher.
Junior structural engineers rarely work alone. Their design calculations are usually peer reviewe... more Junior structural engineers rarely work alone. Their design calculations are usually peer reviewed, and they may be involved in reviewing other engineers' designs. They are also likely to have to articulate their design decisions to their supervisor or the project team, if not the client. At the University of Technology, Sydney the authors redesigned the asssessment tasks in the subject Concrete Design to be collaborative learning-oriented tasks that provide an opportunity for students to develop and practice the skills they will need to interact with other professionals in the workplace and continue learning during their career. We theorised that allowing students to collaborate during quizzes and a project would make these activities more learning-oriented, in that students would actively learn from each other while completing their assessment. Data from various sources were collected to examine the impact of this collaborative assessment on student learning. These sources inc...
Engineers today are often required to make critical judgements involving decisions that extend be... more Engineers today are often required to make critical judgements involving decisions that extend beyond traditional discipline boundaries requiring ongoing learning, much of which is informal, learnt on the job from peers who are often from different disciplines. To prepare students for professional practice, they need opportunities to experience, practise, reflect and improve their ability to work in a collaborative environment. The University of Technology, Sydney teaches an undergraduate engineering science programme in Hong Kong. The authors have found it initially difficult to get students to participate in collaborative learning activities and in particular those that involved students in using their own judgement or critical analysis. In response, the authors redesigned their course to integrate collaborative peer learning activities into all areas of the curriculum including collaborative problem solving exercises that are subsequently assessed through a series of first indivi...
For several years the authors have coordinated a large engineering design subject, having a typic... more For several years the authors have coordinated a large engineering design subject, having a typical cohort of more than 300 students per semester. Lectures are supported by tutorials of approximately 32 students that incorporate a combination of collaborative team and project-based learning activities. Each tutor is responsible for grading the assessment tasks for students in their tutorial. A common issue is how to achieve a consistent standard of marking and student feedback between different tutors. To address this issue the authors have used a number of methods including double-blind marking and/or random re-marking to support consistent grading. However, even when only small variations between the overall grading of different tutors were found, students still complained about a perceived lack of consistency. In this paper we report on an investigation into the use of a collaborative peer learning process among tutors to improve mark standardisation, and marker consistency, and ...
In large engineering subjects, it is common to have multiple tutors where each tutor is responsib... more In large engineering subjects, it is common to have multiple tutors where each tutor is responsible for grading the assessment tasks for students in their tutorial. An issue regularly faced by subject coordinators is how to achieve a consistent standard of marking and feedback quality amongst different tutors. To address this issue the authors initially used a number of methods including double blind marking to support consistent grading. However, with increasing demands on academics these time-consuming activities became an unrealistic option. This process was improved by using a software tool to compare both the marking and feedback provided by different tutors for a number of randomly selected project tasks. In this paper, we report using new software features developed as a result of this previous research to quickly establish and build a community of assessment practice amongst subject tutors. The reported process promotes inclusiveness by using a software tool to anonymously r...
This paper reports on the first phase of an Australian inter-disciplinary partnership study conce... more This paper reports on the first phase of an Australian inter-disciplinary partnership study concerned with professional learning of experienced engineers. It is a theoretically motivated, qualitative paper that aims to produce detailed descriptions of professional learning that arise within professional engineering work. The paper uses practice theory to conceptualise professional learning. By using 'practices' as the units of analysis, professional learning is understood as an integral part of everyday work practices that is embodied, relational and material rather than an individual attribute. The paper concludes by suggesting that practice theory may provide organisations with an alternative perspective of workplace learning, inviting them to reconsider how professional learning is acknowledged, rewarded and fostered in organisations
Project context
To the detriment of Australian society and people, women in Australia remain und... more Project context
To the detriment of Australian society and people, women in Australia remain under-represented among engineering students, and even more so among engineers. Engineering workplaces have features that are gender non-inclusive (Gill, Sharp, Mills, & Franzway, 2008; Kaspura, 2013). There are efforts to improve engineering education by increasing industry engagement, and all but one of the Australian universities that offer formative engineering degree programs have compulsory workplace learning. However, it was hypothesised that experiences of workplace learning might further discourage female engineering students.
Aim of the project
This project sought to contribute to ensuring that workplace learning in engineering programs is gender inclusive. The project was designed to investigate gender inclusivity in engineering students’ vacation employment and internships, and to develop, test, and model a workshop to help prepare students for successful student and graduate experiences in engineering workplaces. The project provided preliminary investigation into the extent and nature of the need for a full proposal.
Main findings of the project
The majority of students’ workplace experiences were encouraging. However, despite the positive experiences, as many as 53 (33.1%) of 160 engineering students were not aware of any female professional engineers in the workplace, and experiences consistent with gendered workplaces were reported. These included female students experiencing interactions that Hatmaker (2013, p387) identified as marginalising female engineers—namely ‘amplifying’ gender, ‘imposing gendered expectations’, ‘tuning out’ when women speak, and ‘doubting technical abilities’ of women.
It was found that students were vulnerable due to difficulty finding placements and the need to complete their placements to graduate. Students were discouraged by placements where they were not given engineering work, received insufficient supervision or support, and had little or no interaction with professional engineers.
Student interviews revealed transformative, encouraging workplace experiences, and disheartening experiences. Descriptions of interactions and responses consistent with gendered cultures, and also bullying, were identified.
Project outputs, deliverables, and resources
This project has described the extent and nature of non-inclusivity of workplace experiences of engineering students at three Australian universities. Manuscripts describing the survey results and interview findings are being prepared.
Resources for educators wishing to hold a workshop to help students prepare for gendered workplaces are available from the project lead. These include workshop slides and facilitator notes, and a handout for students, which contains narrative descriptions and role-play parts for scenarios based on the student interviews.
Impact of the project
Workshops to help students prepare for interactions in gendered workplaces were held at four Australian universities and attended by 110 students and six academics.
A masterclass was attended by 11 participants at the Australasian Association for Engineering Education (AAEE) Conference. The workshop evaluation indicated that five participant academics plan to implement or adapt the workshop.
Project approach
The project was framed within the theory of ‘possible selves’, in which perceptions of achievable appealing possible future selves are motivating, and feared possible selves are demotivating (Bennett, 2013; Markus & Nurius, 1986). It also focused on personal interactions that marginalise professional engineers, as identified by Hatmaker (2013). Engineering students at the three partner universities were surveyed and interviewed.
Valid and complete survey responses were received from 160 engineering students (25.0% female) who had engineering workplace learning experience. Thirteen engineering students at the three partner universities, including four male students, were interviewed.
Recommendations
Engineering faculties must ensure that engineering students reflect on their workplace experiences to think critically about the cultures they experience and their responses. Engineering faculties should work with employers to improve the quality of placements.
Further research is recommended to describe the prevalence of gender non-inclusivity nationally. Research with employers is recommended to understand how gendered workplace cultures can be improved, and how students can be prepared for working in workplaces where women continue to be in minority.
A combination of self and peer assessment is a powerful and rich teaching and learning management... more A combination of self and peer assessment is a powerful and rich teaching and learning management tool that can be used to monitor and evaluate group performance in project work. An on-line system (SPARK PLUS -Self and Peer Assessment Resource Kit) has been developed to simplify this process for the academic. This system generates factors for both the peer assessment weighting to be applied for individual contribution and the student's perception of their contribution compared to their peers by using key assessment criteria and a rigorous algorithm that is applied to the student evaluations of themselves and their peers. This paper describes and evaluates the introduction of SPARK PLUS to assess the performance of Mining Engineering Undergraduates in Year 3 at The University of Queensland in the first semester of 2008 in two of their core undergraduate courses that required group project work to be completed for assessment. The results obtained from this initial trial show the potential for improving student behaviour in group work through a structured approach to monitoring and feedback of their performance. It was found that male students with GPAs ≤ 5 tend to overestimate their contribution to group work more frequently than their peers whereas the opposite applies for male students with GPAs > 5.
Our research, an element which is reported in this paper, investigates the effectiveness of peer ... more Our research, an element which is reported in this paper, investigates the effectiveness of peer review of conference papers in enabling peer learning within the Australasian Association for Engineering Education (AAEE) community. This paper reports the responses of six "new/emerging" authors from three types of Australian universities to the peer reviews of their AAEE 2012 conference papers. The findings and discussion focus on those aspects of the reviews and the authors" circumstances that appear to either enable or constrain their development as engineering education researchers. The study finds that authors belonging to a discipline-based educational research group made substantial changes to their papers before final submission and we argue that these research groups support these authors in developing their academic identity as an engineering education researcher.
There is a reported competency gap between the teamwork skills required by employers and those de... more There is a reported competency gap between the teamwork skills required by employers and those developed by engineering students during their undergraduate courses.
Arguably, the most important opportunity to acquire the standards and norms of the discipline and... more Arguably, the most important opportunity to acquire the standards and norms of the discipline and develop researchers' judgement is the peer review processbut this depends on the quality of the reviews. 'Good' feedback -which we take to mean feedback that has the capacity to improve subsequent practice -has been identified as being timely, specific and relevant. Yet often reviews lack these basic qualities. In this paper we report an investigation of the peer review process at the 2010 Australasian Association of Engineering Education (AAEE) conference. Authors at the conference were given the chance to rate their reviews and we subsequently analysed both the nature of the reviews and authors' responses. Findings suggest that the opportunity to use the peer review process to induct people into the field and improve practice is being missed. As in other disciplines there is also ample evidence that the review process does little or nothing to ensure the standard and relevance of conference presentations. It is therefore legitimate to ask whether there may not be better processes to attain these ends and we conclude with some discussion of how the review process may be made more helpful for everyone involved.
International Conference on Information Society, 2012
ABSTRACT Skills and knowledge that can be gained by groups of individuals will be affected by the... more ABSTRACT Skills and knowledge that can be gained by groups of individuals will be affected by the characteristics of those groups. Systematic formation of the groups could therefore potentially lead to significantly improved learning outcomes. This research explores a framework for group formation that continuously adapts rules used for the grouping process in order to optimize the selected performance criteria of the group. We demonstrate an implementation of this approach within the context of groups of students undertaking remote laboratory experiments. The implementation uses multiple linear regression analysis to adaptively update the rules used for creating the groups. In order to address specific learning outcomes, certain behaviors of the group might be desired to achieve this learning outcome. We can show that by using a set of individual/group characteristics and group behavior we can dynamically create rules and hence optimize the selected performance criteria. The selected performance is in reality the group behaviour, which might lead to improved learning outcomes.
Recently there has been a shift to focus on assessing students' learning outcomes in terms of gra... more Recently there has been a shift to focus on assessing students' learning outcomes in terms of graduate attributes which they should develop and demonstrate during the course of their degree. A number of universities have tried to address these issues for example by using software tools such as ReView to track attribute development or by producing both academic and professional skill development transcripts. However, many attributes such as teamwork and the ability to give and receive feedback are typically practised in collaborative peer exercises. Furthermore these exercises are often conducted outside of regular class sessions, hence thorough assessment of these attributes should include input from both individual students and their peers. Hence we propose that any method of developing and tracking student's graduate attributes should include self and peer assessment.
Http Dx Doi Org 10 1080 03043797 2014 967181, Oct 20, 2014
ABSTRACT With the increasing challenges facing professional engineers working in more complex, gl... more ABSTRACT With the increasing challenges facing professional engineers working in more complex, global and interdisciplinary contexts, different approaches to understanding how engineers practice and learn are necessary. This paper draws on recent research in the social sciences from the field of workplace learning, to suggest that a practice-theory perspective on engineers' professional learning is fruitful. It shifts the focus from the attributes of the individual learner (knowledge, skills and attitudes) to the attributes of the practice (interactions, materiality, opportunities and challenges). Learning is thus more than the technical acquisition and transfer of knowledge, but a complex bundle of activities, that is, social, material, embodied and emerging. The paper is illustrated with examples from a research study of the learning of experienced engineers in the construction industry to demonstrate common practices - site walks and design review meetings - in which learning takes place.
... Development: Moving from Ad-Hoc to Planned Integration Keith Willey The University of Technol... more ... Development: Moving from Ad-Hoc to Planned Integration Keith Willey The University of Technology, Sydney, Australia [email protected] Betty Jacobs The University of Technology, Sydney, Australia [email protected] ...
As a way of focusing curriculum development and learning outcomes Universities have introduced gr... more As a way of focusing curriculum development and learning outcomes Universities have introduced graduate attributes which their students should develop during the course of is their degree. Some of these attributes are discipline specific, others are generic to all professions. The development of these attributes can be promoted by the careful use of self and peer assessment. The authors have previously reported using the self and peer assessment software tool SPARK in various contexts to facilitate opportunities to practise, develop, assess and provide feedback on these attributes. This research and that of the other developers identified the need for the addition of features to SPARK, to increase its flexibility and capacity to provide feedback. This paper reports the results of the first trials of these new features to investigate their potential to improve learning outcomes.
Our research, an element which is reported in this paper, investigates the effectiveness of peer ... more Our research, an element which is reported in this paper, investigates the effectiveness of peer review of conference papers in enabling peer learning within the Australasian Association for Engineering Education (AAEE) community. This paper reports the responses of six 'new/emerging' authors from three types of Australian universities to the peer reviews of their AAEE 2012 conference papers. The findings and discussion focus on those aspects of the reviews and the authors' circumstances that appear to either enable or constrain their development as engineering education researchers. The study finds that authors belonging to a discipline-based educational research group made substantial changes to their papers before final submission and we argue that these research groups support these authors in developing their academic identity as an engineering education researcher.
Junior structural engineers rarely work alone. Their design calculations are usually peer reviewe... more Junior structural engineers rarely work alone. Their design calculations are usually peer reviewed, and they may be involved in reviewing other engineers' designs. They are also likely to have to articulate their design decisions to their supervisor or the project team, if not the client. At the University of Technology, Sydney the authors redesigned the asssessment tasks in the subject Concrete Design to be collaborative learning-oriented tasks that provide an opportunity for students to develop and practice the skills they will need to interact with other professionals in the workplace and continue learning during their career. We theorised that allowing students to collaborate during quizzes and a project would make these activities more learning-oriented, in that students would actively learn from each other while completing their assessment. Data from various sources were collected to examine the impact of this collaborative assessment on student learning. These sources inc...
Engineers today are often required to make critical judgements involving decisions that extend be... more Engineers today are often required to make critical judgements involving decisions that extend beyond traditional discipline boundaries requiring ongoing learning, much of which is informal, learnt on the job from peers who are often from different disciplines. To prepare students for professional practice, they need opportunities to experience, practise, reflect and improve their ability to work in a collaborative environment. The University of Technology, Sydney teaches an undergraduate engineering science programme in Hong Kong. The authors have found it initially difficult to get students to participate in collaborative learning activities and in particular those that involved students in using their own judgement or critical analysis. In response, the authors redesigned their course to integrate collaborative peer learning activities into all areas of the curriculum including collaborative problem solving exercises that are subsequently assessed through a series of first indivi...
For several years the authors have coordinated a large engineering design subject, having a typic... more For several years the authors have coordinated a large engineering design subject, having a typical cohort of more than 300 students per semester. Lectures are supported by tutorials of approximately 32 students that incorporate a combination of collaborative team and project-based learning activities. Each tutor is responsible for grading the assessment tasks for students in their tutorial. A common issue is how to achieve a consistent standard of marking and student feedback between different tutors. To address this issue the authors have used a number of methods including double-blind marking and/or random re-marking to support consistent grading. However, even when only small variations between the overall grading of different tutors were found, students still complained about a perceived lack of consistency. In this paper we report on an investigation into the use of a collaborative peer learning process among tutors to improve mark standardisation, and marker consistency, and ...
In large engineering subjects, it is common to have multiple tutors where each tutor is responsib... more In large engineering subjects, it is common to have multiple tutors where each tutor is responsible for grading the assessment tasks for students in their tutorial. An issue regularly faced by subject coordinators is how to achieve a consistent standard of marking and feedback quality amongst different tutors. To address this issue the authors initially used a number of methods including double blind marking to support consistent grading. However, with increasing demands on academics these time-consuming activities became an unrealistic option. This process was improved by using a software tool to compare both the marking and feedback provided by different tutors for a number of randomly selected project tasks. In this paper, we report using new software features developed as a result of this previous research to quickly establish and build a community of assessment practice amongst subject tutors. The reported process promotes inclusiveness by using a software tool to anonymously r...
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Papers by Keith Willey
To the detriment of Australian society and people, women in Australia remain under-represented among engineering students, and even more so among engineers. Engineering workplaces have features that are gender non-inclusive (Gill, Sharp, Mills, & Franzway, 2008; Kaspura, 2013). There are efforts to improve engineering education by increasing industry engagement, and all but one of the Australian universities that offer formative engineering degree programs have compulsory workplace learning. However, it was hypothesised that experiences of workplace learning might further discourage female engineering students.
Aim of the project
This project sought to contribute to ensuring that workplace learning in engineering programs is gender inclusive. The project was designed to investigate gender inclusivity in engineering students’ vacation employment and internships, and to develop, test, and model a workshop to help prepare students for successful student and graduate experiences in engineering workplaces. The project provided preliminary investigation into the extent and nature of the need for a full proposal.
Main findings of the project
The majority of students’ workplace experiences were encouraging. However, despite the positive experiences, as many as 53 (33.1%) of 160 engineering students were not aware of any female professional engineers in the workplace, and experiences consistent with gendered workplaces were reported. These included female students experiencing interactions that Hatmaker (2013, p387) identified as marginalising female engineers—namely ‘amplifying’ gender, ‘imposing gendered expectations’, ‘tuning out’ when women speak, and ‘doubting technical abilities’ of women.
It was found that students were vulnerable due to difficulty finding placements and the need to complete their placements to graduate. Students were discouraged by placements where they were not given engineering work, received insufficient supervision or support, and had little or no interaction with professional engineers.
Student interviews revealed transformative, encouraging workplace experiences, and disheartening experiences. Descriptions of interactions and responses consistent with gendered cultures, and also bullying, were identified.
Project outputs, deliverables, and resources
This project has described the extent and nature of non-inclusivity of workplace experiences of engineering students at three Australian universities. Manuscripts describing the survey results and interview findings are being prepared.
Resources for educators wishing to hold a workshop to help students prepare for gendered workplaces are available from the project lead. These include workshop slides and facilitator notes, and a handout for students, which contains narrative descriptions and role-play parts for scenarios based on the student interviews.
Impact of the project
Workshops to help students prepare for interactions in gendered workplaces were held at four Australian universities and attended by 110 students and six academics.
A masterclass was attended by 11 participants at the Australasian Association for Engineering Education (AAEE) Conference. The workshop evaluation indicated that five participant academics plan to implement or adapt the workshop.
Project approach
The project was framed within the theory of ‘possible selves’, in which perceptions of achievable appealing possible future selves are motivating, and feared possible selves are demotivating (Bennett, 2013; Markus & Nurius, 1986). It also focused on personal interactions that marginalise professional engineers, as identified by Hatmaker (2013). Engineering students at the three partner universities were surveyed and interviewed.
Valid and complete survey responses were received from 160 engineering students (25.0% female) who had engineering workplace learning experience. Thirteen engineering students at the three partner universities, including four male students, were interviewed.
Recommendations
Engineering faculties must ensure that engineering students reflect on their workplace experiences to think critically about the cultures they experience and their responses. Engineering faculties should work with employers to improve the quality of placements.
Further research is recommended to describe the prevalence of gender non-inclusivity nationally. Research with employers is recommended to understand how gendered workplace cultures can be improved, and how students can be prepared for working in workplaces where women continue to be in minority.
To the detriment of Australian society and people, women in Australia remain under-represented among engineering students, and even more so among engineers. Engineering workplaces have features that are gender non-inclusive (Gill, Sharp, Mills, & Franzway, 2008; Kaspura, 2013). There are efforts to improve engineering education by increasing industry engagement, and all but one of the Australian universities that offer formative engineering degree programs have compulsory workplace learning. However, it was hypothesised that experiences of workplace learning might further discourage female engineering students.
Aim of the project
This project sought to contribute to ensuring that workplace learning in engineering programs is gender inclusive. The project was designed to investigate gender inclusivity in engineering students’ vacation employment and internships, and to develop, test, and model a workshop to help prepare students for successful student and graduate experiences in engineering workplaces. The project provided preliminary investigation into the extent and nature of the need for a full proposal.
Main findings of the project
The majority of students’ workplace experiences were encouraging. However, despite the positive experiences, as many as 53 (33.1%) of 160 engineering students were not aware of any female professional engineers in the workplace, and experiences consistent with gendered workplaces were reported. These included female students experiencing interactions that Hatmaker (2013, p387) identified as marginalising female engineers—namely ‘amplifying’ gender, ‘imposing gendered expectations’, ‘tuning out’ when women speak, and ‘doubting technical abilities’ of women.
It was found that students were vulnerable due to difficulty finding placements and the need to complete their placements to graduate. Students were discouraged by placements where they were not given engineering work, received insufficient supervision or support, and had little or no interaction with professional engineers.
Student interviews revealed transformative, encouraging workplace experiences, and disheartening experiences. Descriptions of interactions and responses consistent with gendered cultures, and also bullying, were identified.
Project outputs, deliverables, and resources
This project has described the extent and nature of non-inclusivity of workplace experiences of engineering students at three Australian universities. Manuscripts describing the survey results and interview findings are being prepared.
Resources for educators wishing to hold a workshop to help students prepare for gendered workplaces are available from the project lead. These include workshop slides and facilitator notes, and a handout for students, which contains narrative descriptions and role-play parts for scenarios based on the student interviews.
Impact of the project
Workshops to help students prepare for interactions in gendered workplaces were held at four Australian universities and attended by 110 students and six academics.
A masterclass was attended by 11 participants at the Australasian Association for Engineering Education (AAEE) Conference. The workshop evaluation indicated that five participant academics plan to implement or adapt the workshop.
Project approach
The project was framed within the theory of ‘possible selves’, in which perceptions of achievable appealing possible future selves are motivating, and feared possible selves are demotivating (Bennett, 2013; Markus & Nurius, 1986). It also focused on personal interactions that marginalise professional engineers, as identified by Hatmaker (2013). Engineering students at the three partner universities were surveyed and interviewed.
Valid and complete survey responses were received from 160 engineering students (25.0% female) who had engineering workplace learning experience. Thirteen engineering students at the three partner universities, including four male students, were interviewed.
Recommendations
Engineering faculties must ensure that engineering students reflect on their workplace experiences to think critically about the cultures they experience and their responses. Engineering faculties should work with employers to improve the quality of placements.
Further research is recommended to describe the prevalence of gender non-inclusivity nationally. Research with employers is recommended to understand how gendered workplace cultures can be improved, and how students can be prepared for working in workplaces where women continue to be in minority.