First-year engineering students' views of the nature of engineering: implications for engineering programmes

Abstract

A study was conducted on the views of the nature of engineering held by 114 first-year engineering majors; the study built on prior work on views of the nature of science held by students, their instructors, and the general public. Open-coding analysis of responses to a 12-item questionnaire suggested that the participants held tacit beliefs that engineering (1) involves problem solving; (2) is a form of applied science; (3) involves the design of artefacts or systems; (4) is subject to various constraints; and (5) requires teamwork. These beliefs, however, were often unsophisticated, and significant aspects of the field of engineering as described in the literature on engineering practices were missing from the student responses. The results of this study are important because students' beliefs have a strong influence on what they value in a classroom situation, what they attend to in class, and how they choose to study for a course.