Problem-Based Learning Approach to Construction Management Teaching

This paper describes construction management teaching for the Master of Engineering in civil engineering course at the University of Glasgow in the United Kingdom. This course is a 5-yr undergraduate degree accredited by the Institution of Civil Engineers for membership in the Institution subject to graduates satisfying the appropriate postgraduate training objectives. Construction management teaching takes place in the third, fourth, and fifth years of the degree and is structured to make effective use of both traditional and problem-based learning teaching methods. Examples are given of two problem-based learning courses used in the fourth and fifth year of the degree course. Both are based on complex construction projects and provide students with the opportunity to apply and synthesis knowledge gained on the traditionally taught third year course. Formal feedback from students and informal feedback from local industry suggests that the courses are meeting their overall objective of producing graduates with relevant knowledge and skills in construction management.     

Predicting the Academic Performance of Construction Engineering Students by Teaching and Learning Approaches: Case Study

There are various teaching approaches that instructors may adopt in their quest to teach effectively, and students can choose from a range of learning approaches to help them achieve good grades. This study investigates the effectiveness of personal learning approaches adopted by undergraduates and the teaching approaches employed by instructors in the context of construction engineering courses. The research questions are as follows. (1)?What are the students’ learning approaches that lead to better academic achievement? (2)?What are the instructors’ teaching approaches that give rise to better academic achievement? The study also aims to construct a model to predict a student’s likely academic performance in a construction engineering course. The research design is a self-administered survey. Using a structured questionnaire consisting of questions relating to learning strategies and teaching approaches, data were collected from undergraduates who majored in construction engineering. Statistical analyses undertaken include Pearson correlation and multiple linear regression modeling. Pearson correlation analysis shows that both the Growing Teaching approach and the students’ Achieving Motive learning approach are significantly correlated with academic performance. A robust grade prediction model was developed, whereby a student’s grade in a construction engineering course may be predicted using one teaching approach (Growing Teaching) and three learning approaches (Achieving Motive, Achieving Strategy, and Deep Motive). To help students obtain higher grades in a construction engineering course, instructors should adopt the Growing Teaching approach, and students should adopt the Achieving Motive learning approach. Because students who adopt the Deep Motive learning approach are penalized with lower grades, it is recommended that instructors modify their teaching methods and approaches so that students do not take shortcuts in their learning without deeper regard for higher-order learning outcomes.     

Macrolevel and Microlevel Frameworks of Experiential Learning Theory in Construction Engineering Education

The experiential learning theory is one of the best-known learning theories in education and has been explored and developed for decades through various studies in higher education. This learning method is expected to provide a significantly better learning environment for engineering subjects, such as construction techniques and design methods and alternatives, which may occur in most of the construction engineering disciplines. Nevertheless, the theory has hardly been used in construction engineering courses. In this study, the authors perform an in-depth review of the learning theory and present a case study, formwork design example, wherein the theory can be explicitly applied in construction engineering education. Research findings reveal students’ responses to the learning theory and lessons learned. Correlation analysis is conducted to explore how students’ performance in learning can be influenced by this learning theory.     

Teaching Construction Contracts: Mutual Learning Experience

Construction contract modules are delivered to second-year architectural technology and construction/construction management students undertaking foundation and undergraduate degree programs. Feedback and assessment results from recent years showed that students generally found these modules difficult. Studies were conducted to further understand students’ experiences and expectations, to assess quality of teaching, and to evaluate the dissemination of theoretical and practical knowledge during the delivery of construction contract modules. The objective was to review the methods used for teaching, learning, and assessment of construction contract modules and make recommendations to inform and improve future module development and delivery. This paper is based on a first-time experience of teaching a law-related subject to construction students. Reflection on the teaching and assessment methods implemented during the term and on student responses permits conclusions to be drawn on how best to improve students’ learning experience and simultaneously maintain the university’s quality standards.     

Student Assessment of a Problem-Based Learning Experiment in Civil Engineering Education

This paper describes an experiment with problem-based learning (PBL), an instructional methodology used in response to the challenges posed by today’s professional education. Contrary to the conventional model that places an application problem after concepts or topics have been introduced, PBL uses the problem to initiate learning. Besides promoting the construction of knowledge, it may also contribute to the development of some skills and attitudes deemed important for engineers’ professional practice. This research, of a qualitative nature, intended to investigate how students evaluate this methodology and its potential to attain the educational goals set for the course. In order to answer the research question, the methodology was implemented in the civil engineering curriculum of a Brazilian public university. The results herein presented, deriving mainly from classroom observations and an end-of-course questionnaire, show that most of the students evaluate the methodology positively. Even considering the short duration of the course and its small number of credits, it may also have promoted the development of some skills and attitudes besides knowledge acquisition.     

How to Stop Engineers from Becoming “Bush Lawyers”: The Art of Teaching Law to Engineering and Construction Students

Law forms a core part of most engineering and construction programs. The way that law subjects are taught varies dramatically, and too often focuses on trying to teach students complex aspects of the law, such as contract, tort, and trade practices. This paper suggests that the aim of including law subjects in construction and engineering degrees needs to be clearly understood as this determines the content of the law subject. It is argued that the reason for including a law subject should be not to teach students the law, but rather to train them to recognize when legal issues arise in their work, and how to respond to such issues. With this aim in mind, a model curriculum is proposed and insight given into how to most effectively implement such a course.     

Pioneering Construction Engineering Education

In the 1930's, a small number of educators and contractors began to advocate that colleges and universities develop programs in construction engineering. Through the Great Depression and World War II, they debated what the nature of construction engineering education ought to be. Following World War II, the climate among educators and contractors was receptive to the ideas which the pioneers in construction engineering education had been advocating for 15 yr. Colleges and universities began to offer construction engineering options in their civil engineering curricula.     

Increasing Relevance and Interest: Teaching Environmental and Planning Law to Built Environment Students

A new approach was taken to delivering a challenging “stewardship of land” unit to over 350 predominantly first-year built environment students. The new approach involved incorporating environmental and planning law into the syllabus, exposing students to a wide range of statutes, selecting legal cases according to a set of criteria, and revisiting the material using different modes of delivery and teaching resources. To evaluate the effectiveness of the new approach, the students were surveyed to elicit their learning experience and preferences. The survey found that most students perceived learning about environmental and planning law, including legal cases, worthwhile. Areas identified by the survey for improvement included the perception by some students that: environmental and planning law is irrelevant to their discipline and future career; studying law is dull and sometimes daunting; and the prescribed reading could be omitted. To address student perceptions, it is proposed to reorder the topics commencing with local, charismatic topics, while expanding international content and cases, to enlarge and enhance the repertoire of video clips to include sites of legal cases and development projects, and to reformat the online weekly quizzes to promote reading of primary material. Overall, the approach to teaching environmental and planning law to built environment students, including the criteria for selecting legal cases, described in the paper, was found to be effective.     

Evaluating Learning Approaches of Construction Students in Hong Kong through a Matrix Framework

Learning is a process of acquiring knowledge, and students may adopt different learning approaches to achieving their learning goals. While educationalists can draw up what they believe is a good construction curriculum for students, students’ learning would depend on their own learning approaches and attitudes. Acknowledging a lack of research on the learning attitudes of construction students, a matrix framework of learning approaches (MFLA) based on the relationships between three learning motives and three learning strategies is proposed in this paper. The MFLA enabled a major empirical survey to be carried out in Hong Kong to examine the learning characteristics of construction students. A questionnaire based on Biggs’s study process questionnaire was distributed to five groups of construction-related students in three universities in Hong Kong. The results of the survey indicate that seven of the nine hypothetical learning approaches exist in construction education in Hong Kong. The assortment of learning approaches used varied across the five student groups. As a result, different teaching and learning factors should be adopted by educators of construction students to meet the distinctive characteristics of students in various universities.     

Effectiveness of Scenarios and the Socratic Method in Teaching Law to Construction Students

Is the use of scenarios combined with the Socratic method an effective method to teach legal subjects to nonlaw students on a building and construction program? The scenarios are intended to (1) enable students to understand the legal theories through the practical application of those theories to problems posed in a scenario and (2) stimulate reasoning, analysis, and critical thinking through the Socratic method among students accustomed to memorizing handouts of PowerPoint slides. Both qualitative and quantitative data were gathered and analyzed to determine the effectiveness of using scenarios and the Socratic method in a required, first-year, entry-level, law module. Preliminary data of this ongoing research appears to indicate that the former goal (of providing a practical application and understanding of theories) was generally achieved while the latter goal (of promoting analysis and critical thinking skills among the students) was achieved to a lesser degree. As a subgroup of the subject, students will be repeating the module, a rare opportunity presents itself to delve into this question in more detail in the future.     

Paradigm Shift in Construction Education is Vital for the Future of Our Profession

In 2001, a survey found that 87% of engineering professors in the United States spend the entire class time lecturing to a passive group of students material that is copied down and never looked at again. This paper presents the results of scientific inquiry and keen observations all leading to the same conclusion: engineering education has to reform itself. Presently, almost all engineering students learn best doing lots of homework ( ～ 50%) and theoretical study (25%) are accommodated by lectures, homework, and rote-problem tests. Regrettably, an overwhelming number of the creative students do not learn this way and fail. Learning as a process needs to be put at the heart of education moving us away from the traditional educational enterprise. The presented data benefits researchers and practitioners in that they highlight the urgency of the issue and show how the proposed paradigm shift is underpinned by our understanding of how people learn.     

Teaching Evaluations for Construction Engineering and Management: Opportunity to Move Us Forward

Engineering education is challenged to usher in new approaches to preparing its students for their professional careers. Many blue-ribbon committees call for systematic modifications in research universities to clear the path for cross-disciplinary learning communities. In this context, the paper investigates the effect of student ratings as a measure of teaching effectiveness. One survey found that engineering sophomores perceive active student-centered teaching methods as greatly ineffective, while a second survey highlighted that lecture-based teaching underpins student rating forms used at U.S. research universities. With the goal of aligning teaching objectives, learning outcomes, and the criteria for evaluating teaching, a student rating form is presented. The scales of the multidimensional construct are based on the most up-to-date understanding of effective pedagogy, the new American Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology criteria, and a view of the future of our profession. The importance of this paper lies in its science-based proposal underlying a call for the establishment of a coalition to validate a constructive approach to further teaching performance in the field of construction engineering and management.     

Green Building and Sustainable Infrastructure: Sustainability Education for Civil Engineers

This paper discusses a framework for incorporating sustainable design/thinking as a new civil engineering course and experiences from the pilot offering. Important areas are outlined to aid all engineers in understanding sustainability in context with traditional engineering principles. Green-building rating systems were used to introduce the concepts of sustainability in buildings and infrastructure, highlighted by presentations from green-building professionals. By providing a better understanding of sustainability through education, civil engineers can provide proactive solutions to a growing global infrastructure.     

Peer and Self-Assessment for First-Year Students as a Tool to Improve Learning

In a time when European university systems are facing changes and opportunities for convergence, civil engineering teachers are also engaging in new methods of teaching that foster active learning, creativity, and leadership by students. This paper presents the most relevant results of a study on a first-year course, Introduction to Civil Engineering, that has been evolving from a merely knowledge-based course to a competence-oriented course, focusing on both technical competences as well as soft skills. The course was associated to other courses, in which similar practices were implemented to increase the responsibility of the student for his or her own learning process. Peer and self-assessment were instrumental key features in the courses and pedagogical support from the Council of Engineering Courses was used to facilitate the successful introduction of these assessment methods. The findings show a positive correlation between student and teacher marks as well as increased motivation and accountability that justified the extra time effort of the teacher. Based on these experiences, the authors recommend a continuous effort to move away from the traditional educational teaching system, in which assessment does not stimulate the development of soft skills.     

Integrating Industry Experts into Engineering Education: Case Study

An advanced grade control course is described as a model for industry involvement in special topics educational offerings. Several unique aspects of these courses were the lack of textbooks on the topic, little previously developed course content, and the lack of faculty expertise in the subject area. In light of these challenges the course was successfully implemented by selecting industry experts and coordinating their efforts into a cohesive learning experience. The writers worked with representatives from McAninch Corporation, Ziegler Caterpillar, and other organizations to develop the courses at Iowa State University. Since the courses were the first known offerings of their kind, qualitative interviews were conducted to identify appropriate educational outcomes and objectives necessary to expedite the process of becoming an advanced grade control specialist. These outcomes and objectives can be applied to a variety of educational delivery systems and were helpful in determining suitable course material, topics, and structure.     

Construction Management Program

The typical limitations of the existing construction management programs are the lack of an integrated approach to managerial decisions in real life construction environment, not enough emphasis on engineering design, construction methods and communication skills, and poor coordination between the undergraduate and the graduate studies. An effective construction management program should. integrate teaching on undergraduate and graduate levels and research. On the undergraduate level it should provide the students with a good insight into all managerial tasks in civil engineering projects. On the graduate level it should allow specialization in the various areas of interest both to the practicing engineers and also to students who wish to pursue an academic career. The program should strongly interact with research and engineering practice.     

Sustainability in Construction Education

It is widely recognized that sustainability should be incorporated into engineering education. To prepare students with sustainability knowledge and techniques, engineering educators need to develop appropriate class contents and effective teaching techniques. Based on experience from developing and teaching a sustainability course within the construction management program in the civil engineering department, this paper discusses the process of identifying sustainability knowledge areas, course planning, and lessons learned from the class. The paper also includes main class topics as well as students’ feedbacks, both of which may serve as a starting point for continuous improvement of sustainability education in construction.     

Pedagogy of Teaching Value Management in Postgraduate Construction and Property Program

As value management (VM) has been increasingly applied to enhance value in public construction projects, the core subject entitled “Value Management for Construction and Property” is being offered to postgraduate students in the Department of Building and Real Estate at the Hong Kong Polytechnic University. Under the new outcome-based curriculum, the learning outcomes, pedagogy of teaching VM, and activities of the VM workshops for the subject are described in this paper. The results of a questionnaire survey of the students’ feedback on the performance of the workshops for the academic year 2007–2008 are presented and discussed. Students believed that value management workshops are essential in the curriculum. They expressed that it was a valuable experience to participate in the VM workshop which enabled them to have a better understanding of the subject. Some improvement is also recommended for future organization and management of workshops based on the lessons learned in these workshops.     

Education in Construction Engineering and Management Built on Tradition: Blueprint for Tomorrow

Construction continues to be a significant part of the global economy and shapes the built environment and quality of life for people around the world. In the United States, construction is a multibillion dollar annual enterprise, employing nearly 10 million people. However, it appears that the fragmented nature of the industry continues to hamper productivity and hoped-for gains in efficiency. Issues involve an array of regulatory and legal constructs that: (1) redistribute risk; (2) present only low barriers to entry (making company startup somewhat easy); and (3) fail to provide the quality and quantity of labor necessary. These factors continue to produce overall inefficiencies throughout the construction industry, and ill prepare the industry for the formidable challenges of globalization, sustainability, population growth, and wise use of resources. The purpose of this paper is to review the past and present of construction engineering within the context of civil engineering, and to prescribe practical change to revitalize construction engineering education to meet future demands.