Using the example of responses from civil engineering students at a very highly ranked participating university, this guide demonstrates the importance of comparative data when using student questionnaire data for undergraduate academic program review. It also emphasizes the advantage of using factor structures for better questionnaire-based…

When instructional designers develop content-targeted pedagogical situations, their practice can be theorized as engineering students' development of conceptual schemes. To account for the contributions of students' prior schemes and situated experiences towards their development of conceptual schemes, I suggest a distinction between the evocation…

In this article, the author presents the science and engineering practices from the recently released "A Framework for K-12 Science Education: Practices, Crosscutting Concepts, and Core Ideas" (NRC 2011). The author recognizes the changes implied by the new framework, and eventually a new generation of science education standards will present new…

Gliders and sailplanes provide a great launching platform for teaching about technology and scientific principles. Soaring is technological innovation in action, using earth's natural resources for energy and endurance during flight. This article focuses on the basics of soaring, which educators can use to increase excitement and interest in the…

Students enrolled in the author's commercial arts program design and publish the school's yearbook. For the 2010-2011 school year, the students applied Quick Response (QR) code technology to include links to events that occurred after the yearbook's print deadline, including graduation. The technology has many applications in the school setting,…

An excellent common activity in technology and engineering classes involves dropping an egg from a significant height in a protective device designed and built by students. This article describes how the author uses the classic "egg drop" as an inspiration to have students modify a small crash test vehicle that speeds down a track and crashes into…

Many experimenters, starting with Ernst Mach in 1883, have reported that if a device alternately sucks in and then expels a surrounding fluid, it moves in the same direction as if it only expelled fluid. This surprising phenomenon, which we call "Machian propulsion", is explained by conservation of momentum: the outflow efficiently transfers…

Cross-departmental schemes to broaden the inter-professional and skills-focused development of engineering students, and to emphasise engineering in its context of societal priorities, are presented. The central coordination of the schemes has streamlined implementation of the developments and promoted a culture of shared responsibility for…

Using undergraduate student records from six large public universities from 1990 to 2003, the authors analyze the characteristics and performance of students by major in two economics courses: Principles of Microeconomics and Intermediate Microeconomics. This article documents important differences across students by major in the principles course…

In recent years learning how to work in teams has become a common subject in higher education. Communication between student team members can be monitored using a bulletin board system, and hence, analyse individual and group role development. The composition and distribution of roles in a team are relevant characteristics that will considerably…

The ACE Mentor Program provides early career exposure, mentoring, and scholarships to high school students in an attempt to encourage them to enter one of the three fields that make up the ACE acronym: (1) architecture; (2) construction; and (3) engineering. Founded in 1993 by longtime engineering consultant Charles Thornton, the program is…

K-12-level competitive robotics is growing in popularity around the country and worldwide. According to one of the leading organizers of these events, FIRST--For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology--250,000 students from 56 countries take part in its competitions. FIRST Tech Challenge (FTC) is a yearly event the organization puts…

This paper considers gendered patterns of participation in post-compulsory STEM education. It examines the trajectory of learning that takes students from A-level qualifications, through undergraduate work and into employment or further study. It also uses a long-term view to look at the best available evidence to monitor participation and…

Programmable logic devices (PLDs) are used at many universities in introductory digital logic laboratories, where kits containing a single high-capacity PLD replace "standard" sets containing breadboards, wires, and small- or medium-scale integration (SSI/MSI) chips. From the pedagogical point of view, two problems arise in these…

International postdoctoral researchers are growing in number and importance in academic research around the world. This is contextualised by a shift to international and enterprise modes of academic production. Through a multiple case study, this paper analyses the role of international postdoctoral employment in life sciences and engineering…