White–Black achievement differences: The narrowing gap.

Discusses findings from the National Assessment of Educational Progress and the College Entrance Examination Board that demonstrate consistent reductions during recent years in the size of average achievement differences between White and Black elementary and secondary school students. Societal changes that may have contributed to increasing the average achievement levels for Black students (e.g., desegregation) are examined, and it is noted that these trends are not necessarily due to the effects of educational and social programs designed toward this end. It is argued that the difference in enrollment levels for high school algebra and geometry courses between predominantly White schools and predominantly Black schools accounts for part of the average White–Black difference in 17-yr-olds' mathematics achievement scores. Further, if average enrollments in mathematics courses for Blacks became more similar to average enrollments for Whites, White–Black average mathematics achievement differences might be reduced further. (25 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

A structural equation model of expertise in college physics.

A model of expertise in physics was tested on a sample of 374 college students in 2 different level physics courses. Structural equation modeling was used to test hypothesized relationships among variables linked to expert performance in physics including strategy use, pictorial representation, categorization skills, and motivation, and these variables were examined for their influence on physics achievement. Gender was included in the model to examine how it influenced achievement indirectly through its influence on the other variables in the model. Two levels of expertise were examined by testing the model on trigonometry-based physics students and on more advanced, calculus-based physics students. Results were similar across both levels of expertise: For both courses, student motivation had a significant influence on students’ strategy use and categorization skills. Categorization skills, in turn, influenced student achievement directly, and indirectly, through strategy use. Strategy use had a significant influence on achievement. Pictorial representation played little role in the model. Gender contributed primarily through motivation, but for the more advanced level course it also directly predicted strategy use. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Implementing an Inclusive Curriculum for Women in Engineering Education

Engineering faculty are urged to be “inclusive” when teaching classes of diverse students. Research has shown that an inclusive approach not only assists the progress of socially and culturally underrepresented students, but it will also broaden the perspectives of all students, and thus improve the overall quality of an engineering program. The writers of this paper have collaborated over a number of years at the University of South Australia to make engineering education more inclusive. This process commenced with an institutionwide project to develop inclusive curricula by improving the understanding and practice of faculty, and developing guidelines to assist them in restructuring their courses to become more inclusive. In the engineering departments, the process was further developed through staff workshops to assist faculty with the redevelopment of course curricula using the university guidelines, as well as the collection and dissemination of material and examples appropriate for engineering programs. This paper describes some of these methods in more detail, as well as the obstacles the writers have encountered and the devices they have used to overcome objections and impediments. Specific examples from civil engineering are included.     

Crisis of Civil Engineering Education in Information Technology Age: Analysis and Prospects

The brightest students entering postsecondary education are often attracted by routes other than engineering that are perceived more likely to yield careers of higher prestige and greater returns. For civil engineering in particular, this is further compounded by the fact that the field is not traditionally viewed as a high-tech discipline. Thus, student quality, enrollment, and research funding in civil engineering programs have been declining across North America. The conservative construction industry is part of the problem; adjustments of this aging cartel to the new economy are still at the embryonic level. Civil engineering educators are facing the question, How do we change the “hard hat down in the ditch” image of civil engineering in the minds of the new information technology generation? This paper presents an analysis of possible causes of this problem and a vision for potential future solutions.     

Language Professionals in Engineering Faculty: Cross-Cultural Experience

Communication courses are often given low priority by engineering students and faculty alike. This is mainly because they are perceived to be, and often are, divorced from the realities of the engineering world. Credible and relevant communication courses demand the integration of language and engineering content so that the tasks reflect the sort of problem solving that students will face in real-life engineering contexts. One problem that language specialists face in designing such courses arises from the fact that they hail from a discipline very different from engineering in purpose, subject matter, and pedagogical approach. To work effectively in the different “subculture” of engineering, they need to assimilate and attain the cultural literacy of the discipline. In our institution, the “acculturation” process of language specialists has been helped along by the fact that they are based in the engineering school. This provides greater opportunities for assimilation into the discipline and allows the interfacing of communication skills and civil engineering to take place more effectively. This paper describes how this setup has been instrumental in providing a communication course that students perceive to be relevant and therefore an integral part of their engineering studies.     

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.     

The gender difference in orienting liquid surfaces and plumb-lines: its robustness, its correlates, and the associated knowledge of simple physics

In comparison between male and female psychology students, a greater proportion of female students fail to represent liquid surfaces and plumb-line objects as invariably horizontal and vertical, respectively. However, the occurrence of this perplexing gender difference has not been ascertained among young adults enrolled in science programs, who should ostensibly be more fully equipped in terms of academic competence, irrespective of their gender. The present large sample of undergraduates (N = 1412), majoring in natural and applied sciences, and social sciences or humanities and arts, completed water-level and plumb-line items, along with other simple physics problems, indicating how and in reference to which principle they had solved these tasks. They also answered questions pertaining to possible personal proficiency correlates of a biological, experiential, perceptual, and sociocognitive nature. The data revealed not only that women's achievement was consistently poorer than men's across discipline categories, but surprisingly that this was so even within specific fields requiring and providing the most visuo-spatial skills as well as physical knowledge and training. Especially for women, mastery was predicted by success in simple physics problems, and to a lesser degree by perceptual, sociocognitive, and experiential variables. Biological variables did not contribute to proficiency for either gender, though the data fitted a recessive gene model. Responses based on relevant physics principles were more accurate, but men and women generally adopted the same procedural strategies. The present compelling demonstration of a gender gap in achievement that is not compensated by formal science education, extending thus even to future physical scientists, invites further investigation into its perceptual and cognitive determinants, as well as into those more distally connected with early aptitudes, interests, and experiences.     

Forensics and Case Studies in Civil Engineering Education: State of the Art

This paper reviews the state of the art in the use of forensic engineering and failure case studies in civil engineering education. The study of engineering failures can offer students valuable insights into associated technical, ethical, and professional issues. Lessons learned from failures have substantially affected civil engineering practice. For the student, study of these cases can help place design and analysis procedures into historical context and reinforce the necessity of lifelong learning. Three approaches for bringing forensics and failure case studies into the civil engineering curriculum are discussed in this paper. These are stand-alone forensic engineering or failure case study courses, capstone design projects, and integration of case studies into the curriculum. Some of the cases have been developed and used in courses at the United States Military Academy and the Univ. of Alabama at Birmingham, as well as at other institutions. Finally, the writers have tried to assemble many of the known sources of material, including books, technical papers, and magazine articles, videos, Web sites, prepared PowerPoint presentations, and television programs.     

Survey of the National Civil Engineering Curriculum

This paper presents the results of a comprehensive survey of over 40% of the nation’s undergraduate civil engineering programs. This analysis is based on uniform data collected for accreditation and is principally concerned with three major groups of courses: (1) math and science, (2) general education, and (3) engineering topics. The analysis reveals what is currently being taught in our nation’s civil engineering undergraduate programs, what is not being taught, and the implications for future professional practice. The paper discusses how the average national curriculum has changed historically, how well the curriculum satisfies Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology criteria, and what the current distribution of courses and topics says about the priorities of civil engineering education. Overall, the curriculum was found to be highly specialized in terms of technical subjects but lacking in focus regarding the liberal arts, professional skills, and systems thinking.     

Women's health status and gender inequality in China

This paper examines the health status of women in China by reviewing levels and trends of female mortality at several phases of a woman's life cycle focusing on infancy girlhood, childbearing and old age. The mortality rates of Chinese women and men are compared for the period 1950-1990 as are comparisons with women in selected countries. The cause-specific death rate, expressed as a percentage of all deaths, and the burden of disease, measured in terms of the disability-adjusted life years (DALYs), are used to reflect the changing patterns of female diseases and causes of deaths. Significant improvement in the health status of Chinese women since 1950 is widely acknowledged as a major achievement for a developing country with the largest population in the world, but the differentials in women's health by region and urban/rural areas are considerable. The Physical Quality of Life Index (PQLI) indicates that the overall level of physical well-being of Chinese women has increased in recent decades, but disparity in health between men and women still exists. The Gender-Related Development Index (GDI) further reveals that China has achieved significant progress in women's health during the past four decades, but far less has been achieved with respect to gender equality overall. The final sections of the paper focus on the discussion of some health problems faced by the female population during the process of economic reform since the 1980 s. In order to promote gender equality between women and men, concerns on women's health care needs are highlighted.     

Determining the Content of the First Course in Transportation Engineering

Transportation engineering constitutes a required portion of the civil engineering curriculum at over three-fourths of undergraduate civil engineering programs in the United States. The input of practicing transportation engineers is a critical source of information in determining the content of the first course in transportation engineering. A new survey was conducted in which respondents ranked 31 potential course topics by importance. The results are compared to a similar survey conducted 20?years before to determine which topics have increased in importance, which have become less critical to cover, and which continue to remain of high priority. Topics such as traffic safety and traffic flow characteristics are of considerably higher priority today than 20?years ago, while topics such as geometric design of highways and highway capacity studies continue to be of great importance. Preparation for follow-up and graduate coursework, for the Fundamentals of Engineering and Professional Engineer examinations, and issues of local setting are also considerations in determining the content of the first course in transportation engineering.     

Relationships among gender differences in freshman course grades and course characteristics.

Examines relationships among gender differences in freshmen college course grades and characteristics of the courses. Gender differences in course grades are not adequately explained by gender differences in previous scholastic achievement. In addition, courses in which gender differences favor women tend to be those in which high school grades and Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) scores are less important for earning higher course grades. These courses also award higher-than-average grades to freshmen with average high school grades and SAT scores and enroll a higher percentage of female freshmen. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Improving Engineering Education Outreach in Rural Counties through Engineering Risk Analysis

Hands-on engineering education is an upcoming trend among K-12 schools throughout the United States to stimulate interest in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). This study used unconventional methods to stimulate interest in STEM fields among high school students in a rural county of Tennessee. First, the study began by assessing enrollment data from each of Tennessee’s 95 counties to determine the factors that influenced the decision by high school applicants to choose engineering at Tennessee Technological University (TTU). The findings revealed that, while there were no significant differences between the aptitude scores of applicants from rural and urban counties, TTU had a higher representation of freshmen from urban areas. This indicated that motivational programs targeted at counties with low population, income level, and education level were needed to boost enrollment from rural counties. As a response, we introduced next a hands-on engineering class at Jackson County High School (JCHS) that was tied to the national-level program called “Project Lead the Way.” With JCHS lying in a rural setting right along the Cumberland River, an engineering risk study was completed in front of the class to demonstrate the risk of failure of the Wolf Creek Dam (in Kentucky), which lies upstream. The idea was to leverage a real-world engineering infrastructure and a natural hazard phenomenon (overflooding) that had direct and visible implications on the lives of the county, as a way to promote the societal value of STEM disciplines to students at JCHS. These efforts were monitored through a series of pre- and posttests to determine the effectiveness of the hands-on teaching methods and engineering risk analysis of a real-world infrastructure. The testing efforts showed a significantly positive impact on student perception of STEM fields in pursuit of engineering innovation. Student assessment of perceptions of engineering proved that the use of real-world water risk analysis of a nearby infrastructure as a motivational tool in a rural high school setting is very effective to boost awareness of STEM fields and engineering.     

Use of Tangible and Augmented Reality Models in Engineering Graphics Courses

Engineering graphics courses are typically a requirement for engineering students around the world. Besides understanding and depicting graphic representation of engineering objects, the goal of these courses is to provide students with an understanding of the relationship between three-dimensional (3D) objects and their projections. However, in the classroom, where time is limited, it is very difficult to explain 3D geometry using only drawings on paper or at the blackboard. The research presented herein aims to develop two teaching aids; a tangible model and an augmented reality (AR) model, to help students better understand the relationship between 3D objects and their projections. Tangible models refer to the physical objects which are comprised of a set of differently shaped pieces. The tangible model we developed includes eight wooden blocks that include all the main geometrical features with respect to their 3D projections. The AR models are the virtual models which can superimpose 3D graphics of typical geometries on real-time video and dynamically vary view perspective in real-time to be seen as real objects. The AR model was developed using the ARToolKitPlus library and includes all the geometrical features generally taught in engineering graphics courses or technical drawing courses. To verify the effectiveness and applicability of the models we developed, we conducted a user test on 35 engineering-major students. The statistical results indicated that the tangible model significantly increased the learning performance of students in their abilities to transfer 3D objects onto two-dimensional (2D) projections. Students also demonstrated higher engagement with the AR model during the learning process. Compared to using the screen-based orthogonal and pictorial images, the tangible model and augmented reality model were evaluated to be more effective teaching aids for engineering graphics courses.     

Engineering As Applied Social Science

In this paper, I use the case of the defective rear cargo door on the DC-10 aircraft and specifically the actions of the chief engineer at Convair to illustrate the sometimes frustrating problem of deciding just what skills are most useful to engineers if they are to best serve the public need. I suggest that although colleges of engineering are required by society (and accrediting agencies) to prepare engineers to solve technical problems using applied natural sciences such as physics and chemistry, they also should require engineering students to obtain a background in social sciences such as economics, political science, management, and ethics. I argue that engineering should therefore be thought of as not only an “applied natural science,” but also an “applied social science.”     

Integrated Civil Engineering Curriculum: Five-Year Review

An integrated curriculum, which draws material from different areas to teach students about design and problem-solving, offers civil engineering educators an option for accommodating new topics without increasing the number of courses. Freshman engineering and the senior capstone course are two examples of integrated courses, and the writers present a 5-year perspective on an approach that extends the concept of integration to six additional courses, comprised of an 8-course, integrated civil engineering core curriculum. Drawing on their combined experiences with the courses and assessment in a review by the Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology, the writers conclude that the curriculum offers a useful vehicle by which to add material to the 4-year program without increasing the number of credit hours, and offers flexible courses to meet goals of professional groups. The paper describes lessons learned, challenges that remain, and current approaches to improvement.     

Short-term and long-term consequences of achievement goals: Predicting interest and performance over time.

Why do some students excel in their college classes and develop interest in an academic discipline? The authors examined both the short-term and long-term consequences of students' achievement goals in an introductory psychology course. Mastery goals positively predicted subsequent interest in the course, but not course grades. Performance goals positively predicted grades, but not interest. Three semesters later, the authors obtained measures of continued interest in the discipline and long-term performance. Mastery goals predicted subsequent enrollment in psychology courses, whereas performance goals predicted long-term academic performance. These positive and complementary effects of mastery and performance goals on different measures of academic success are consistent with a multiple-goals perspective in which both goals can have beneficial consequences in college education. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Perceptions of a sex-fair counselor and her client.

Investigated the effects of sex-fair counseling on 18 male and 21 female undergraduates' perceptions of (a) a female counselor, (b) a same-sex client, and (c) their own attitudes. The experimental design was a 2?×?2 factorial in which a female or a male client discussed traditional or nontraditional career plans with the counselor. The only significant findings regarding perceptions of the counselor were that women anticipated that they would feel more comfortable with the counselor who facilitated nontraditional career exploration than did men. Women tended to evaluate traditional and nontraditional clients similarly, whereas men evaluated the traditional client more favorably regarding academic achievement. Ss' own attitudes regarding occupational choice did not differ significantly between the 2 types of counseling, although the nontraditional condition did seem to result in greater flexibility among women. (29 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Practical Summer Training in Civil and Construction Engineering for Cultivation of Professional Ability

The cultivation of professional ability for undergraduate civil and construction engineering students is very important to help them meet the challenges that await them in the fast changing world. This paper presents a thorough study of practical training in the field of civil and construction engineering. Based upon an extensive literature review of the practical training curriculum worldwide, questionnaires were provided to contractors, educators and students in Taiwan to assess problems in traditional summer practical training courses for civil and construction engineering in Taiwan. At the outset of the study, it was thought that the lack of available jobs for students might be related solely to the economy but the findings indicated that the reasons were more complex ranging from concerns about liability for students working in construction sites to traditional cultural concerns about whether apprentices should be paid. The Delphi method was used to study the problems that were identified, relating to planning, execution, evaluation, and development of the existing practical training programs. A refined and improved summer practical training curriculum is proposed for civil and construction engineering education in Taiwan based upon the findings. Although the survey related to practical training programs for engineering students was conducted in Taiwan, the results might vary in other countries. The procedures used, and results obtained may be valuable resources and have a potential use for other countries. What is certain is that practical training can play an important role in readying engineering students for the work place in any location and making the practical training as effective and as safe as possible should be a universal goal.