Are We Preparing Our Students to Become Engineers of the Future or the Past?

作者：Villanueva Idalis^*; Nadelson Louis

来源：International Journal of Engineering Education, 2017, 33(2): 639-652.

• professional identity
• engineering education
• history
• undergraduate
• engineering student perceptions

A critical part of students' development and persistence as engineers is their acquisition of a professional identity. Prior research indicates that science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) students tend to over calibrate their level of professional identity. This suggests that their self-determined level of professional identities are likely inflated when compared to the levels of identity that their communication would indicate-which may appreciably influence their professional engagement and tenacity as an engineer as well as their perceptions of engineering as a profession. One area that has not been explored is the underlying factors that influence these self-elevated perspectives by the students. The study explores the individual, social, and systemic domains as well as historical foci of 275 undergraduate engineering students' perceptions of the engineering profession. Findings indicate that students' self-proclaimed levels of professional identity are higher than the development levels they convey in their survey responses. We found that their perceptions tended to be aligned with their individual view of engineering, which were guided by the historical notion that an engineer is a Mediator of science, math, and technology, a perspective that is not aligned to current definitions of 21st century engineering. Our exploratory study supports the importance of helping engineering students develop professional identities by attending to their understanding of the work, norms, and expectations of professional engineers and the role of a 21st century engineering professional.

• 出版日期2017