Developing industry-aware engineering students in the classroom: The role of desktop site tours

Alicia Shih; Sarah Grundy; Peter Neal

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Conference: 2023 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition
Location: Baltimore , Maryland
Publication Date: June 25, 2023
Start Date: June 25, 2023
End Date: June 28, 2023
Conference Session: Experiential Learning : Global Models and Perspectives
Tagged Division: Cooperative and Experiential Education Division (CEED)
Tagged Topic: Diversity
Page Count: 13
DOI: 10.18260/1-2--43088
Permanent URL: https://strategy.asee.org/43088
Download Count: 115

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Paper Authors

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Alicia Shih School of Chemical Engineering, The University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia

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Alicia is a final year Chemical Engineering and Computer Science student at UNSW. Throughout her tertiary degree, she has had experience working as a process engineer for Glencore Coal Assets Australia, a site reliability engineer and technical program manager for Google, and most recently presented at the Australasian Association for Engineering Education 2022 conference. Her UNSW Research Scholarship and Honours thesis have been focused on the use of authentic learning implementation in tertiary education for student professional development.

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Sarah Grundy School of Chemical Engineering, The University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia

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Dr Sarah Grundy is a Lecturer at the School of Chemical Engineering. Sarah has over 15 years' experience in industry developing graduate engineers and scientists. She has come back to UNSW (2020) as an Education Focused (EF) academic teaching postgraduate and undergraduate engineering students, focusing on design courses from first year through to final year and course convenor of several Work Integrated Learning activities and courses for the Faculty.

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Peter Neal School of Chemical Engineering, The University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia

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Dr Peter Neal is a Senior Lecturer in Process Engineering (Education Focussed) with the School of Chemical Engineering at the University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia. He has more than 15 years’ experience teaching undergraduate and postgraduate engineering, focusing on developing his students’ design, inquiry, and professional skills. He currently leads the Faculty of Engineering’s work to increase participation of students from low SES backgrounds and co-leads the University’s Teamwork Community of Practice. In 2022, Peter was made a Fellow of the UNSW Scientia Education Academy – a select group of outstanding educators. Previously, he conducted techno-economic research with Dairy Australia and CO2CRC and was Deputy Head of School (External Relations) with the UNSW School of Petroleum Engineering.

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Abstract

In recognition of the importance of interpersonal and professional skills, Engineers Australia (EA) have made it an accreditation requirement for all tertiary engineering students to engage with industrial practice throughout their degree. This experience is obtained through work-integrated learning (WIL) activities, including completing relevant internships, participation in site visits, and enrolment in industry-based learning (IBL) courses. Even prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, increasing numbers of engineering students have made it more difficult for individuals to secure internships. It is also not possible for large numbers of students to visit most industry sites due to remote locations, visitor limits and/or safety restrictions. In fact, a study from 2019 of final year students across 11 Australian institutions reported that 29% of final year students had not completed their industrial practice, and hence were unable to graduate despite completing their studies. The COVID-19 pandemic has further exacerbated these issues, with a transition to online learning causing decreased student attendance and participation.

This has required innovative approaches to integrating WIL into engineering courses to provide students with industry exposure. From four authentic learning practices, virtual work integrated learning (VWIL) was selected as the best choice for students to achieve the WIL objective of exposing students to relevant real-world experience. It was also the most robust option for an online learning environment and was adaptable to changing course learning outcomes. A review of popular VWIL implementations identified desktop site tours (DSTs) as a flexible, user-friendly and time efficient method for academics to increase student exposure to industry. This study follows the implementation of a DST in undergraduate chemical engineering courses, evaluating its capacity to help students achieve professional competencies.

Students spent two hours in a sustainable engineering design course observing the various types of chemical engineering flow diagrams. Afterwards, they asked to identify unit operations from the DST that could be classified as raw materials, production, or finishing. Prior to and after the tutorial, students were asked to indicate their agreement to a series of survey statements to observe their response to the DST’s ability to aid their professional development. Students’ responses to these statements were mixed. Over 90% of students reported that they found the module effective in improving their understanding of sustainable product design and engineering processes. However, at least 15% of students disagreed that it helped to improve problem solving, teamwork, and communication skills, with significant differences observed between pre- and post-survey responses (p < 0.05).

Recommendations for future study are to assess improvement objectively by incorporating DSTs into student assessments, and to observe the impact of the DST on improving student professional skills over a longer period.

Citation
Format

Shih, A., & Grundy, S., & Neal, P. (2023, June), Developing industry-aware engineering students in the classroom: The role of desktop site tours Paper presented at 2023 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition, Baltimore , Maryland. 10.18260/1-2--43088

TY - CPAPER
AB - In recognition of the importance of interpersonal and professional skills, Engineers Australia (EA) have made it an accreditation requirement for all tertiary engineering students to engage with industrial practice throughout their degree. This experience is obtained through work-integrated learning (WIL) activities, including completing relevant internships, participation in site visits, and enrolment in industry-based learning (IBL) courses. Even prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, increasing numbers of engineering students have made it more difficult for individuals to secure internships. It is also not possible for large numbers of students to visit most industry sites due to remote locations, visitor limits and/or safety restrictions. In fact, a study from 2019 of final year students across 11 Australian institutions reported that 29% of final year students had not completed their industrial practice, and hence were unable to graduate despite completing their studies. The COVID-19 pandemic has further exacerbated these issues, with a transition to online learning causing decreased student attendance and participation.

This has required innovative approaches to integrating WIL into engineering courses to provide students with industry exposure. From four authentic learning practices, virtual work integrated learning (VWIL) was selected as the best choice for students to achieve the WIL objective of exposing students to relevant real-world experience. It was also the most robust option for an online learning environment and was adaptable to changing course learning outcomes. A review of popular VWIL implementations identified desktop site tours (DSTs) as a flexible, user-friendly and time efficient method for academics to increase student exposure to industry. This study follows the implementation of a DST in undergraduate chemical engineering courses, evaluating its capacity to help students achieve professional competencies.

Students spent two hours in a sustainable engineering design course observing the various types of chemical engineering flow diagrams. Afterwards, they asked to identify unit operations from the DST that could be classified as raw materials, production, or finishing. Prior to and after the tutorial, students were asked to indicate their agreement to a series of survey statements to observe their response to the DST’s ability to aid their professional development. Students’ responses to these statements were mixed. Over 90% of students reported that they found the module effective in improving their understanding of sustainable product design and engineering processes. However, at least 15% of students disagreed that it helped to improve problem solving, teamwork, and communication skills, with significant differences observed between pre- and post-survey responses (p &amp;lt; 0.05).

Recommendations for future study are to assess improvement objectively by incorporating DSTs into student assessments, and to observe the impact of the DST on improving student professional skills over a longer period.

AU - Alicia Shih
AU - Sarah Grundy
AU - Peter Neal
CY - Baltimore , Maryland
DA - 2023/06/25
PB - ASEE Conferences
TI - Developing industry-aware engineering students in the classroom: The role of desktop site tours
UR - https://strategy.asee.org/43088
DO - 10.18260/1-2--43088
ER -