An outcome of a 1998 forum sponsored by the National Research Council was a recognition that topics related to food production and agriculture are excellent mechanisms for integrating science topics taught in the K-12 education system and for providing many avenues for inquiry based and project based learning. The engineering design process is…

Earlier research on doctoral education has associated study progress with the student's own capabilities and faculty support. The purpose of this study is to investigate how students' personal commitment and various forms of support, as well as their complementary effects, explain progress in doctoral studies. Data were collected by a…

Zoomable user interfaces (ZUIs) have received a significant amount of attention in the 18 years since they were introduced. They have enjoyed some success, and elements of ZUIs are widely used in computers today, although the grand vision of a zoomable desktop has not materialised. This paper describes the premise and promise of ZUIs along with…

This paper discusses the results of a study of the requirements for developing a remote radio frequency (RF) laboratory for electrical engineering students. It investigates students' preferred usage of the technical content of a state-of-the-art RF laboratory. The results of this study are compared to previous findings, which dealt with other user…

This paper presents the development and implementation of Problem-Based Learning (PBL) in an engineering thermodynamics course at Kettering University. In this project, the thermodynamics course was restructured as modules presenting practical applications first, whereas principles were introduced just-in-time and as encountered. Theoretical…

Faculty of Engineering Technology of the Open University of Sri Lanka has been offering engineering programmes at a distance for the last two decades or so. However, completion rates in Faculty of Engineering Technology are lower compared to the other faculties of the University. This paper investigates the reasons for low completion rates in the…

In this paper, the authors develop an analytical framework referred to as "Becoming an Engineer" that focuses upon changes occurring over time as students traverse their undergraduate educations in engineering. This paper discusses three conceptual dimensions used to follow the engineering students' educational pathways: the development of…

Science educators face the challenge of piquing students' interest in subjects whose concepts are often entirely foreign to them. The author wanted to give her students a hands-on, "real world" experience rooted in scientific concepts. What evolved was an engineering design competition. The point of the project was two-fold: to work on real-world…

This research effort examined current mechanical engineering educational programmes in America and Australia to determine the degree of holistic, systems thinking of each programme. Faculty from ten American universities and ten Australian universities participated in online surveys and interviews. Resulting data analysis and interpretation…

The assessment of degree level engineering mathematics students using the computer-aided assessment package MapleTA is discussed. Experience of academic and practical issues for both online coursework and examination assessments is presented, hopefully benefiting other academics in this novel area of activity. (Contains 6 figures and 1 table.)

This article reports a mixed-method research probing the effect of utilizing a blog-buddy system on English for academic purposes learners' writing performance. Sixty Iranian undergraduate engineering students at Iran University of Science and Technology Virtual Campus participated in this study. Our analysis of the students' writings indicated…

During the last few years, the number of university students choosing to follow engineering degrees has decreased dramatically in Spain. For that reason, several university departments, in collaboration with some high schools, have developed a range of activities in order to promote a higher enrollment rate, to improve the level of mathematics and…

Two-year college teachers face great difficulty when they teach the principle of operation of the bipolar junction transistor--a subject which forms the basis for electronics studies. The difficulty arises from both the complexity of the device and by the lack of adequate scientific background among the students. We, therefore, developed a unique…

This article discusses the 4-H Gateway Academies specifically designed to enhance science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) skills and knowledge in middle school youth. The innovative summer day camps partnered Project Lead the Way--trained teachers with county 4-H staff from University of Wisconsin-Extension (UW-Extension) Cooperative…

In this paper we describe the development and refinement of "evidence rules" and "measurement models" within the "evidence model" of the "evidence-centered design" (ECD) framework in the context of the "Packet Tracer" digital learning environment of the "Cisco Networking Academy." Using…