Characterizing engineering work in a changing world: Synthesis of a typology for engineering students' occupational outcomes

Abstract

AbstractBackgroundEngineering education research frequently examines students' persistence (or intentions to persist) into engineering careers from engineering school. However, the variety of engineering‐related occupations has increased substantially in recent years, challenging researchers' abilities to discern what constitutes persistence in engineering.PurposeThis article investigates the question: How can researchers categorize students' occupational outcomes in terms of engineering relatedness in a manner that enables consistency across future studies and that is informed by enduring conceptions of engineering work? We develop an occupational outcomes typology in response to this question.Scope/MethodWe employed systematic literature reviews to substantiate the typology. In total, we reviewed 259 sources published between 1966 and 2016. Review 1 examined sources discussing or debating the presence of unifying occupational attributes across engineering practice. Review 2 examined sources discussing common job functions constituting unifying criteria identified in Review 1. Review 3 examined sources discussing specific work activities associated with functions identified in Review 2. Finally, Review 4 examined job profile data from the year 2017 on 1100 job titles to identify contemporary nonengineering‐titled jobs involving activities similar to activities found in Review 3.ConclusionsEngineering practitioners' possession of design responsibility—their responsibility for products' efficacy and safety through governance of designs (new or existing)—has served as a unifying work attribute over time. We find that the 21st century has given rise to interrelated roles encompassing and surrounding conventional engineering work and propose a typology that categorizes occupations in relation to engineering. The typology offers a responsibility‐based framing of engineering that helps educators illustrate key distinctions among contemporary engineering‐related occupations.