Pub Date : 2022-01-02DOI: 10.1080/19378629.2022.2037617
C. Wylie, S. Kim
Engineers value undergraduate research experience as an important step towards becoming an engineer. However, what the word ‘experience’ means in this context is ambiguous. We draw from qualitative interviews with engineering faculty members, graduate students, and undergraduate students to identify four categories of experience that they consider relevant to engineering: (1) practical experience: ‘real-world’ skills and opportunities that resemble the work done in engineering careers and graduate school, (2) social experience: the interpersonal aspects of working with a team, including norms of behavior and communication, (3) professional experience: skills and opportunities that are useful in aspects of students’ lives beyond a specific job, such as how to manage their time, and (4) epistemic experience: learning about and applying abstract engineering knowledge. By deriving a typology of ‘experience’ based on how faculty members and students talk about undergraduate research, this study offers insights into how engineers in universities understand engineering expertise, professionalization, and collaboration. Reflecting on what kinds of ‘experience’ a good engineer needs also reveals the power dynamics between mentors and novices, and between junior engineers’ sometimes conflicting roles as both laborers and learners.
{"title":"Socialization, Tacit Knowledge, and Conceptions of ‘Experience’ among Engineers","authors":"C. Wylie, S. Kim","doi":"10.1080/19378629.2022.2037617","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/19378629.2022.2037617","url":null,"abstract":"Engineers value undergraduate research experience as an important step towards becoming an engineer. However, what the word ‘experience’ means in this context is ambiguous. We draw from qualitative interviews with engineering faculty members, graduate students, and undergraduate students to identify four categories of experience that they consider relevant to engineering: (1) practical experience: ‘real-world’ skills and opportunities that resemble the work done in engineering careers and graduate school, (2) social experience: the interpersonal aspects of working with a team, including norms of behavior and communication, (3) professional experience: skills and opportunities that are useful in aspects of students’ lives beyond a specific job, such as how to manage their time, and (4) epistemic experience: learning about and applying abstract engineering knowledge. By deriving a typology of ‘experience’ based on how faculty members and students talk about undergraduate research, this study offers insights into how engineers in universities understand engineering expertise, professionalization, and collaboration. Reflecting on what kinds of ‘experience’ a good engineer needs also reveals the power dynamics between mentors and novices, and between junior engineers’ sometimes conflicting roles as both laborers and learners.","PeriodicalId":49207,"journal":{"name":"Engineering Studies","volume":"14 1","pages":"17 - 33"},"PeriodicalIF":1.7,"publicationDate":"2022-01-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49484157","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"工程技术","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-09-02DOI: 10.1080/19378629.2021.1989441
Dingmar van Eck, E. Weber
While function modeling has been around in engineering design research since the 1960s, there have been no systematic, comparative studies devoted to assessing the adequacy of function modeling frameworks in light of engineering design objectives. This systematic assessment and comparison – called benchmarking – is now recognized as a central research issue in current function modeling research, but insight into how this benchmarking can be done is at present limited. In this paper, we attempt to improve our insight into how benchmarking can be done for a specific but important engineering context: function optimization of reverse-engineered systems. We argue that the capacity to produce technical advantage predictions, viz. predictions concerning the improved functional performance of a redesigned technical system, is an important benchmark criterion in this context. We subsequently illustrate the utility of the criterion by assessing two prominent function modeling frameworks in terms of it. Throughout the paper, we use a case study of the design of an electric wok to clarify and illustrate our ideas.
{"title":"Assessing Function Modeling Frameworks: Technical Advantage Predictions as a Conceptual Tool","authors":"Dingmar van Eck, E. Weber","doi":"10.1080/19378629.2021.1989441","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/19378629.2021.1989441","url":null,"abstract":"While function modeling has been around in engineering design research since the 1960s, there have been no systematic, comparative studies devoted to assessing the adequacy of function modeling frameworks in light of engineering design objectives. This systematic assessment and comparison – called benchmarking – is now recognized as a central research issue in current function modeling research, but insight into how this benchmarking can be done is at present limited. In this paper, we attempt to improve our insight into how benchmarking can be done for a specific but important engineering context: function optimization of reverse-engineered systems. We argue that the capacity to produce technical advantage predictions, viz. predictions concerning the improved functional performance of a redesigned technical system, is an important benchmark criterion in this context. We subsequently illustrate the utility of the criterion by assessing two prominent function modeling frameworks in terms of it. Throughout the paper, we use a case study of the design of an electric wok to clarify and illustrate our ideas.","PeriodicalId":49207,"journal":{"name":"Engineering Studies","volume":"13 1","pages":"205 - 225"},"PeriodicalIF":1.7,"publicationDate":"2021-09-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44008532","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"工程技术","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-09-02DOI: 10.1080/19378629.2021.2005073
Rachel J. Wilde, D. Guile
This paper addresses the type of engineering practice associated with ‘client-focused interprofessional project teams’ C-fIPPTs which is a typical pattern of work associated with engineering consulting companies. To do so, the article introduces the concepts of ‘situated judgment’ and ‘immaterial activity’ to the Engineering Studies community. It uses these concepts to demonstrate how engineers with different specialisms, working alongside architects, interior designers, etc., resolve competing conceptions of value among members to enable teams to accomplish project-specific issues. The article makes the above argument by drawing on observational data, interviews and field notes to illustrate the immaterial dimension (i.e. converting non-costed ideas into solutions to problems) of such situated judgments. The article concludes by firstly, explaining how the argument it advances about the distinctive features of engineering work contributes to a broadening of research on engineers work practice and, in doing so, the contribution that engineering studies can make to the field of workplace learning. Secondly, the article highlights the implications of its argument for engineering education and workplace learning.
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Pub Date : 2021-09-02DOI: 10.1080/19378629.2021.2010022
Cyrus C. M. Mody
The title of this editorial comes from the expression ‘if I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of giants’ – ametaphor famously used by Isaac Newton to describe the debts he owed to his predecessors.1 It is a metaphor that – with some tinkering – applies nicely to the three articles in this issue of Engineering Studies. But the metaphor and those articles also – with some tinkering – invite reflection on how we interact with and learn from each other at this journal and in the wider field of engineering studies. So let me begin with the three articles and finish with some thoughts on the journal and the field. Our first contribution, ‘Client-Facing Interprofessional Project Teams: The Role of Engineers’ ‘Situated Judgment’ by Rachel Wilde and David Guile, probably comes closest to the original ‘shoulders of giants’ imagery. The authors examine a formof engineeringwork that is increasingly common: teams that bring together representatives of various specializations (and often from several different contracting organizations) to carry out a project on behalf of a client and then disband. Obviously, this is not an entirely new phenomenon in engineering; indeed, historians such as Eda Kranakis have shown that the obstacles to good communication within such project teams have contributed to engineering disasters for well over a century now.2 If anything, I think engineers should take some credit (or blame!) for the spread of ‘projectification’ from their profession to other high-tech industries (such as dot-commerce) and even to music (‘bands’ are so 20th century).3 But projects are a natural auxiliary to neoliberal ways of organizing work (fewer employees, more contractors and freelancers) and thus as the neoliberal economy grows projects will be increasingly common – and thus should be of growing interest to engineering studies.4 The great strength and weakness of project teams is that they are heterogeneous and impermanent. Members often must forge a new working relationship whenever a new team is convened, and therefore have to re-learn who knows what about what every time. That process can result in frictions, because not all members have the same set of priorities; drawing on Luc Boltanski and Laurent Thévenot’s idea of ‘orders of worth,’ Wilde and Guile show how representatives of different engineering specialties come to recognize and then overcomedifferences in how they assessworth.5 That can be an arduous, ego-bruising process. But it’s a process that can add value to the project; not necessarily value for the current client, but perhaps value for thenext client, and thenext, and soon. FollowingYannMoulier Boutang, the authors refer to these kinds of discussions as ‘immaterial activity.’6 Obviously there is a material basis for these interactions, but what Moulier Boutang and the authors mean is that the interactions are not costed – no one pays for engineers to hang out at the proverbial water cooler – and yet are essential
{"title":"Editorial: Standing on Each Other’s Shoulders","authors":"Cyrus C. M. Mody","doi":"10.1080/19378629.2021.2010022","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/19378629.2021.2010022","url":null,"abstract":"The title of this editorial comes from the expression ‘if I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of giants’ – ametaphor famously used by Isaac Newton to describe the debts he owed to his predecessors.1 It is a metaphor that – with some tinkering – applies nicely to the three articles in this issue of Engineering Studies. But the metaphor and those articles also – with some tinkering – invite reflection on how we interact with and learn from each other at this journal and in the wider field of engineering studies. So let me begin with the three articles and finish with some thoughts on the journal and the field. Our first contribution, ‘Client-Facing Interprofessional Project Teams: The Role of Engineers’ ‘Situated Judgment’ by Rachel Wilde and David Guile, probably comes closest to the original ‘shoulders of giants’ imagery. The authors examine a formof engineeringwork that is increasingly common: teams that bring together representatives of various specializations (and often from several different contracting organizations) to carry out a project on behalf of a client and then disband. Obviously, this is not an entirely new phenomenon in engineering; indeed, historians such as Eda Kranakis have shown that the obstacles to good communication within such project teams have contributed to engineering disasters for well over a century now.2 If anything, I think engineers should take some credit (or blame!) for the spread of ‘projectification’ from their profession to other high-tech industries (such as dot-commerce) and even to music (‘bands’ are so 20th century).3 But projects are a natural auxiliary to neoliberal ways of organizing work (fewer employees, more contractors and freelancers) and thus as the neoliberal economy grows projects will be increasingly common – and thus should be of growing interest to engineering studies.4 The great strength and weakness of project teams is that they are heterogeneous and impermanent. Members often must forge a new working relationship whenever a new team is convened, and therefore have to re-learn who knows what about what every time. That process can result in frictions, because not all members have the same set of priorities; drawing on Luc Boltanski and Laurent Thévenot’s idea of ‘orders of worth,’ Wilde and Guile show how representatives of different engineering specialties come to recognize and then overcomedifferences in how they assessworth.5 That can be an arduous, ego-bruising process. But it’s a process that can add value to the project; not necessarily value for the current client, but perhaps value for thenext client, and thenext, and soon. FollowingYannMoulier Boutang, the authors refer to these kinds of discussions as ‘immaterial activity.’6 Obviously there is a material basis for these interactions, but what Moulier Boutang and the authors mean is that the interactions are not costed – no one pays for engineers to hang out at the proverbial water cooler – and yet are essential","PeriodicalId":49207,"journal":{"name":"Engineering Studies","volume":"13 1","pages":"181 - 184"},"PeriodicalIF":1.7,"publicationDate":"2021-09-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44816288","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"工程技术","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-09-02DOI: 10.1080/19378629.2021.1987921
C. Winberg
Technicians are largely invisible in everyday life, as are their contributions to science and engineering. In this study, I address the issue of technicians’ invisibility in engineering education. The laboratory plays a central and distinctive role in engineering education, but the role of laboratory technicians in educational contexts is largely absent from the research literature. Technicians are generally not considered to be instructors, even in programs that qualify technicians. I argue that the roles of laboratory technicians, with regard to the induction of students into technical engineering practice, should be reconsidered, and address the question: What do technicians in undergraduate laboratories do, and what do they know? The walking methodology approach was adapted in order to study interactions between technicians and students in undergraduate laboratories. The findings showed that laboratory technicians inducted, guided and supported students in technical practices. In particular, I identified a pedagogy of practice in which laboratory technicians demonstrated expert artisanal techniques, shared their skillful practice and practical knowledge, and made connections between practice and abstract theoretical knowledge. The study contributes an understanding of how engineering technicians, who occupy laboratory technician roles in academic engineering departments, induct student technicians into technical engineering practice.
{"title":"The Making of Engineering Technicians: Ontological Formation in Laboratory Practice","authors":"C. Winberg","doi":"10.1080/19378629.2021.1987921","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/19378629.2021.1987921","url":null,"abstract":"Technicians are largely invisible in everyday life, as are their contributions to science and engineering. In this study, I address the issue of technicians’ invisibility in engineering education. The laboratory plays a central and distinctive role in engineering education, but the role of laboratory technicians in educational contexts is largely absent from the research literature. Technicians are generally not considered to be instructors, even in programs that qualify technicians. I argue that the roles of laboratory technicians, with regard to the induction of students into technical engineering practice, should be reconsidered, and address the question: What do technicians in undergraduate laboratories do, and what do they know? The walking methodology approach was adapted in order to study interactions between technicians and students in undergraduate laboratories. The findings showed that laboratory technicians inducted, guided and supported students in technical practices. In particular, I identified a pedagogy of practice in which laboratory technicians demonstrated expert artisanal techniques, shared their skillful practice and practical knowledge, and made connections between practice and abstract theoretical knowledge. The study contributes an understanding of how engineering technicians, who occupy laboratory technician roles in academic engineering departments, induct student technicians into technical engineering practice.","PeriodicalId":49207,"journal":{"name":"Engineering Studies","volume":"13 1","pages":"226 - 248"},"PeriodicalIF":1.7,"publicationDate":"2021-09-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45896169","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"工程技术","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-05-19DOI: 10.1080/19378629.2021.1926112
(2021). Thank You to 2020 Reviewers. Engineering Studies: Vol. 13, No. 1, pp. i-i.
(2021)。感谢2020年审稿人。工程研究:第13卷，第1期，第1 - 4页。
{"title":"Thank You to 2020 Reviewers","authors":"","doi":"10.1080/19378629.2021.1926112","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/19378629.2021.1926112","url":null,"abstract":"(2021). Thank You to 2020 Reviewers. Engineering Studies: Vol. 13, No. 1, pp. i-i.","PeriodicalId":49207,"journal":{"name":"Engineering Studies","volume":"46 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.7,"publicationDate":"2021-05-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"138518051","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"工程技术","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-05-04DOI: 10.1080/19378629.2021.1959596
B. Jesiek, N. Buswell, Swetha Nittala
The realities of engineering practice remain opaque and constantly evolving, often leaving graduates underprepared for the workplace and employers dissatisfied with new employees. In this study we shed new empirical light on the lived working experiences of early career engineers in large manufacturing firms. We adopt boundary spanning as the primary framework for our research given growing recognition of its importance in the workplace and potential utility for conceptualizing engineering practice. We specifically address the research question: What kinds of boundary spanning do early career engineers experience in their daily work? Our study is based on interviews with 23 early career engineers analyzed using a thematic analysis approach to code for boundary spanning and other related themes. We then wrote third-person constructed narratives to holistically portray the day-to-day work of three participants. Our findings illustrate how engineers frequently encounter many different types of boundaries and perform specific boundary spanning activities. The narratives also illuminate early career progression, including evidence of increasing leadership responsibilities as engineers navigate evolving job role demands and organizational expectations. We conclude with directions for future research, and discuss how our findings speak to ongoing efforts to reimagine professional practice while improving engineering education and professional development.
{"title":"Performing at the Boundaries: Narratives of Early Career Engineering Practice","authors":"B. Jesiek, N. Buswell, Swetha Nittala","doi":"10.1080/19378629.2021.1959596","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/19378629.2021.1959596","url":null,"abstract":"The realities of engineering practice remain opaque and constantly evolving, often leaving graduates underprepared for the workplace and employers dissatisfied with new employees. In this study we shed new empirical light on the lived working experiences of early career engineers in large manufacturing firms. We adopt boundary spanning as the primary framework for our research given growing recognition of its importance in the workplace and potential utility for conceptualizing engineering practice. We specifically address the research question: What kinds of boundary spanning do early career engineers experience in their daily work? Our study is based on interviews with 23 early career engineers analyzed using a thematic analysis approach to code for boundary spanning and other related themes. We then wrote third-person constructed narratives to holistically portray the day-to-day work of three participants. Our findings illustrate how engineers frequently encounter many different types of boundaries and perform specific boundary spanning activities. The narratives also illuminate early career progression, including evidence of increasing leadership responsibilities as engineers navigate evolving job role demands and organizational expectations. We conclude with directions for future research, and discuss how our findings speak to ongoing efforts to reimagine professional practice while improving engineering education and professional development.","PeriodicalId":49207,"journal":{"name":"Engineering Studies","volume":"13 1","pages":"86 - 110"},"PeriodicalIF":1.7,"publicationDate":"2021-05-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1080/19378629.2021.1959596","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45570231","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"工程技术","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-05-04DOI: 10.1080/19378629.2021.1961570
Samantha Brunhaver, B. Jesiek, Russell Korte, A. Strong
In studies of engineering practice, the early career phase is a particularly intriguing area of inquiry. It is frequently imagined as the time when more-or-less competent graduates enter the workforce and launch successful careers, often in large corporate organizations and supported by various types of onboarding programs. Yet this kind of idealized representation belies a much more complex reality, one in which many engineering graduates pursue careers on the edges (or outside) of engineering, navigate complex organizational socialization and identity development pressures, and grapple with unexpected competency demands. In school and at work, early-career engineersmight additionally encounter calls to be more entre/intrapreneurial, multidisciplinary, innovative, culturally competent, and/or socially conscious – but without acknowledging that some of these attributes may conflict or poorly alignwith certain industries or job roles. Further, rapid changes in technology, markets, organizational structures, and demographics – to name just a few – continue to reshape and transform engineering work across all career stages. Against this complex and ever-changing backdrop, research investigating the actual lived experiences of early-career engineers helps explore the relationships between engineering education and practice, including preparation of engineering students for the realities of entering the workforce. Calls for study of this important segment of engineers’ careers have appeared in the literature as early as the 1980s, with Sara Rynes1 noting, in her study of early-career engineers transitioning to manager positions, how it was “curious that so little research has examined engineers at earlier career stages.” Since then, an increasing number of researchers have published studies on early career engineering practice; however, such research has remained somewhat limited in scope due to the complexities of the space, the changing demographics of engineering students, and the dynamic nature of engineering practice. For example, Nadya Fouad and colleagues2 identified a lack of focus on the early-career years in research on women engineers’ persistence, while Reed Stevens, Aditya Johri, and Kevin O’Connor3 observed a need for research that “examines directly the specific learning processes of engineers making the transition from school to work.” Even within Engineering Studies, where a substantial body of work has attended to engineering formation and engineering work, articles have not particularly focused on the continuation of engineering formation after graduation or the influence of engineering work on organizational newcomers, save for a few exceptions.4 The articles in this special theme issue help narrow the gap in work on early-career engineering practice and the engineering school-to-work transition by further examining the dynamic and complex day-to-day realities of early-career engineeringwork. These insights, in turn, offer a deeper
{"title":"The Early Career Years of Engineering: Crossing the Threshold Between Education and Practice","authors":"Samantha Brunhaver, B. Jesiek, Russell Korte, A. Strong","doi":"10.1080/19378629.2021.1961570","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/19378629.2021.1961570","url":null,"abstract":"In studies of engineering practice, the early career phase is a particularly intriguing area of inquiry. It is frequently imagined as the time when more-or-less competent graduates enter the workforce and launch successful careers, often in large corporate organizations and supported by various types of onboarding programs. Yet this kind of idealized representation belies a much more complex reality, one in which many engineering graduates pursue careers on the edges (or outside) of engineering, navigate complex organizational socialization and identity development pressures, and grapple with unexpected competency demands. In school and at work, early-career engineersmight additionally encounter calls to be more entre/intrapreneurial, multidisciplinary, innovative, culturally competent, and/or socially conscious – but without acknowledging that some of these attributes may conflict or poorly alignwith certain industries or job roles. Further, rapid changes in technology, markets, organizational structures, and demographics – to name just a few – continue to reshape and transform engineering work across all career stages. Against this complex and ever-changing backdrop, research investigating the actual lived experiences of early-career engineers helps explore the relationships between engineering education and practice, including preparation of engineering students for the realities of entering the workforce. Calls for study of this important segment of engineers’ careers have appeared in the literature as early as the 1980s, with Sara Rynes1 noting, in her study of early-career engineers transitioning to manager positions, how it was “curious that so little research has examined engineers at earlier career stages.” Since then, an increasing number of researchers have published studies on early career engineering practice; however, such research has remained somewhat limited in scope due to the complexities of the space, the changing demographics of engineering students, and the dynamic nature of engineering practice. For example, Nadya Fouad and colleagues2 identified a lack of focus on the early-career years in research on women engineers’ persistence, while Reed Stevens, Aditya Johri, and Kevin O’Connor3 observed a need for research that “examines directly the specific learning processes of engineers making the transition from school to work.” Even within Engineering Studies, where a substantial body of work has attended to engineering formation and engineering work, articles have not particularly focused on the continuation of engineering formation after graduation or the influence of engineering work on organizational newcomers, save for a few exceptions.4 The articles in this special theme issue help narrow the gap in work on early-career engineering practice and the engineering school-to-work transition by further examining the dynamic and complex day-to-day realities of early-career engineeringwork. These insights, in turn, offer a deeper","PeriodicalId":49207,"journal":{"name":"Engineering Studies","volume":"13 1","pages":"79 - 85"},"PeriodicalIF":1.7,"publicationDate":"2021-05-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48830988","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"工程技术","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-05-04DOI: 10.1080/19378629.2021.1957901
Benjamin Lutz, M. Paretti
The school-to-work transition is a challenging period for engineering graduates. In contrast to most engineering curricula, workplace learning involves organizations, people, cultures, and a range of non-technical and technical elements. Where many researchers have focused on skills gaps across school and work, we focus here on contexts gaps, or shifts in learning processes across organizational settings. Using reflective journals and semi-structured interviews, we explored significant learning events during recent engineering graduates’ school-to-work transition. Using theories of organizational socialization, we characterize significant experiences related to social and cultural dimensions of participants’ new organizational roles. Newcomers in this study reported learning related to, for example, forming relationships, learning local language, interacting with power structures, and other features of their organizations. Results offer points of contrast in which we compare learning processes and highight critical differences across school and workplace settings. Findings suggest that engineering educators should consider the broad spectrum of learning that takes place as graduates transition to their new professional roles. By better understanding the role of context in organizational learning, educators can more effectively prepare recent graduates for contemporary practice and develop a deeper appreciation for the interconnectedness of the social, cultural, and technical dimensions of engineering work.
{"title":"Exploring the Social and Cultural Dimensions of Learning for Recent Engineering Graduates during the School-to-Work Transition","authors":"Benjamin Lutz, M. Paretti","doi":"10.1080/19378629.2021.1957901","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/19378629.2021.1957901","url":null,"abstract":"The school-to-work transition is a challenging period for engineering graduates. In contrast to most engineering curricula, workplace learning involves organizations, people, cultures, and a range of non-technical and technical elements. Where many researchers have focused on skills gaps across school and work, we focus here on contexts gaps, or shifts in learning processes across organizational settings. Using reflective journals and semi-structured interviews, we explored significant learning events during recent engineering graduates’ school-to-work transition. Using theories of organizational socialization, we characterize significant experiences related to social and cultural dimensions of participants’ new organizational roles. Newcomers in this study reported learning related to, for example, forming relationships, learning local language, interacting with power structures, and other features of their organizations. Results offer points of contrast in which we compare learning processes and highight critical differences across school and workplace settings. Findings suggest that engineering educators should consider the broad spectrum of learning that takes place as graduates transition to their new professional roles. By better understanding the role of context in organizational learning, educators can more effectively prepare recent graduates for contemporary practice and develop a deeper appreciation for the interconnectedness of the social, cultural, and technical dimensions of engineering work.","PeriodicalId":49207,"journal":{"name":"Engineering Studies","volume":"13 1","pages":"132 - 157"},"PeriodicalIF":1.7,"publicationDate":"2021-05-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44080126","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"工程技术","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-05-04DOI: 10.1080/19378629.2021.1958824
K. Beddoes
ABSTRACT Prior research has demonstrated that early career socialization experiences play an important role in career outcomes, including learning, performance, satisfaction, and retention. What is not yet well understood, however, is how the organizational socialization experiences of different groups of early career engineers vary and how such variation leads to different career outcomes. By examining the experiences of first year engineers, this article contributes new insights into factors affecting socialization experiences and draws attention to privilege as an important factor shaping engineering socialization experiences. The stories of negative interpersonal interactions experienced by first year women civil engineers are presented and used to glean forms of privilege that affect newcomer socialization. The primary forms of intersectional privilege identified stem from gender and race, with religion and nationality also shaping newcomer experiences. The stories are used to inform proposed additions to a model of engineering socialization.
{"title":"Examining Privilege in Engineering Socialization Through the Stories of Newcomer Engineers","authors":"K. Beddoes","doi":"10.1080/19378629.2021.1958824","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/19378629.2021.1958824","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT Prior research has demonstrated that early career socialization experiences play an important role in career outcomes, including learning, performance, satisfaction, and retention. What is not yet well understood, however, is how the organizational socialization experiences of different groups of early career engineers vary and how such variation leads to different career outcomes. By examining the experiences of first year engineers, this article contributes new insights into factors affecting socialization experiences and draws attention to privilege as an important factor shaping engineering socialization experiences. The stories of negative interpersonal interactions experienced by first year women civil engineers are presented and used to glean forms of privilege that affect newcomer socialization. The primary forms of intersectional privilege identified stem from gender and race, with religion and nationality also shaping newcomer experiences. The stories are used to inform proposed additions to a model of engineering socialization.","PeriodicalId":49207,"journal":{"name":"Engineering Studies","volume":"13 1","pages":"158 - 179"},"PeriodicalIF":1.7,"publicationDate":"2021-05-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43779462","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"工程技术","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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