Context: This paper reports on a study of the progress of vocational education and training (VET) and the need for further profession-oriented training of lecturers in public, technical vocational colleges in South Africa, under the consideration of societal and political conditions. Approach: The study is based on a mixed methods approach in…

The concept of hands-on, heads-on, and hearts-on (3Hs) education, which conceptualises "whole-child" development in terms of a child's cognitive, social, physical, and affective domain can be appropriately integrated into elementary engineering education. This study aimed to assess parents' perceptions on a 3Hs elementary engineering…

This mixed-method study examined the effect of Lightboard videos on student learning and perceptions in a Flipped Classroom Model (FCM). The study targeted 68 civil engineering undergraduate students at a 4-year public university in Southeastern USA. Lightboard videos were intentionally alternated between two consecutive semesters. Within the same…

There is a worldwide interest in developing quantitative faculty members' activity evaluation models. However, implementing a fair and reliable model is challenging. Without capable and high-quality faculty members, no education improvement effort subsequently can succeed. Based on the gap analysis of the literature, lack of a quantitative faculty…

The increasing industrial and biomedical applications of nanomaterials have enhanced the need to educate a well-trained nanotechnology workforce. This need has led to efforts to introduce hands-on, nanotechnology-based, experimental modules into high school and college level courses in science and engineering. However, the majority of such efforts…

For the past 15 years, pine forests across the United States have experienced devastating mountain and southern pine beetle outbreaks (Rosner 2015). These outbreaks are not uncommon but have become increasingly severe. Due to the effects of global warming, pine beetles have been able to survive warmer winters in their native habitats, producing…

Heat and temperature concepts are found at all levels in the science curricula and are well-known for creating conceptual difficulties for learners. Students have difficulty understanding concepts related to heat, temperature, and thermal radiation. Inquiry-based pedagogies that can foster the learning of these difficult concepts are needed.…

This study was framed within a quantitative research methodology to develop a concise measure of calculus self-efficacy with high psychometric properties. A survey research design was adopted in which 234 engineering and economics students rated their confidence in solving year-one calculus tasks on a 15-item inventory. The results of a series of…

The article aims to expand upon traditional case based instruction through role-play and to explore the effectiveness of the approach in raising students' awareness of the social dimension of the engineering profession. For this purpose, we added a contextual description to the case study "Cutting Roadside Trees" driven by a macroethical…

Contribution: Knowledge of students' Habits of Mind in a signal processing course, and a method for education research. The method identifies factors that may influence students' performance, but are not evident when analyzing agglomerated data; it is an alternative to the traditional case study method as it derives the cases after applying a…

Engineering design activities are a common way for teachers to incorporate engineering into their science classrooms, as called for by current science policy documents in the United States. However, little is known about how teachers prioritize different learning objectives during engineering design lessons. Understanding teachers' thinking on…

The new educational paradigm has led to a change in the teaching methodologies toward those more focused on the student, among these, project-based learning (PBL) is postulated as one of the most promising. This work is focused on the description of the experience of using PBL methodology in Materials Science courses, conducted by four different…

Asensor of the type BMP180, together with Arduino, is used to easily measure atmospheric pressure and temperature at schools. The open source Arduino microcontroller board presents countless teaching applications in science and engineering projects. It allows students to implant their creativity into a friendly environment and take ownership of…

Dynamics of Machine Elements is a junior-level course in mechanical engineering that covers the kinematics (motion) and kinetics (causes of motion) of machine elements such as linkages, cams, and gear trains. This paper describes the results of adding a Rube Goldberg Machine Contest® project to the course to address student concerns over the lack…

This article shows the benefits of active learning compared to traditional learning. It proves the importance of a fruitful discussion between peers. It is a sample of methodological change with no curricular change. It also shows the overall satisfaction of the students, who achieved an equal or better academic performance than the students in…