Asee peer logo

A game-based approach to teach delegation and organizational structure to engineering students

Download Paper |

Conference

ASEE Southeast Section Conference

Location

Arlington, Virginia

Publication Date

March 12, 2023

Start Date

March 12, 2023

End Date

March 14, 2023

Conference Session

Gamification

Tagged Topic

Professional Engineering Education Papers

Page Count

7

DOI

10.18260/1-2--44975

Permanent URL

https://peer.asee.org/44975

Download Count

41

Request a correction

Paper Authors

biography

Nahid Vesali The Citadel

visit author page

Dr. Nahid Vesali is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Engineering Leadership and Program Management (ELPM) in the School of Engineering (SOE) at The Citadel. She joined the program in Aug 2020. She teaches project management, technical planning

visit author page

biography

Mostafa Batouli The Citadel Orcid 16x16 orcid.org/0000-0002-8092-4187

visit author page

Dr. Mostafa Batouli is an Assistant Professor of Construction Engineering in the department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at The Citadel. Dr. Batouli received his PhD in Civil Engineering from Florida International University. He also holds Master of Public Administration and Graduate Certificate in Homeland Security and Emergency Management from FIU, Master of Science in Civil Engineering/Construction Engineering and Management from IAU, and Bachelor of Science in Civil Engineering/Surveying from University of Tehran. Dr. Batouli is a Professional Engineer (PE) registered in SC. He also holds Project Management Professional (PMP) international certificate. Dr. Batouli teaches diverse range of courses in civil engineering, construction engineering, and construction/project management. As a teacher, he aims to inspire his students to think intensively and critically and to live ethically and morally. Dr. Batouli received Harry Saxe Teaching award in 2022 based on students' votes and students evaluation of instruction.
His previous research has resulted in more than 30 referred journal and conference publications as well as five research reports. His past research received major awards and honors including a third-place best poster award from the construction research congress and a Dissertation Year Fellowship from Florida International University in 2016.

visit author page

Download Paper |

Abstract

Allocation of authority and responsibility is a key concept in engineering project management and leadership. Many engineering students struggle with understanding how the “span of control” and “level of specialization” affect the delegation of authority and responsibility in organizational structures. In this study, we created an engaging game to help students learn how the span of control and level of specialization in an organizational chart affect the efficiency and effectiveness of engineering organizations. The game consisted of two teams of students. These teams competed to produce as many US flags as possible. Team one had only one leader with a wide span of control, and low level of specialization for the team members. The other team was broken down into stars and stripes groups. Each group had its own leader with a narrower span of control and higher level of specialization for the team members. This game was conducted in two semesters among total of four classes of engineering students. Through this game, the students were able to explore the impact of different approaches for allocation of authority and responsibility on the team productivity and quality of end products in engineering organizations.

Vesali, N., & Batouli, M. (2023, March), A game-based approach to teach delegation and organizational structure to engineering students Paper presented at ASEE Southeast Section Conference, Arlington, Virginia. 10.18260/1-2--44975

ASEE holds the copyright on this document. It may be read by the public free of charge. Authors may archive their work on personal websites or in institutional repositories with the following citation: © 2023 American Society for Engineering Education. Other scholars may excerpt or quote from these materials with the same citation. When excerpting or quoting from Conference Proceedings, authors should, in addition to noting the ASEE copyright, list all the original authors and their institutions and name the host city of the conference. - Last updated April 1, 2015