TY - GEN
T1 - Between flexibility and relativism
T2 - 51st Annual Conference of the European Society for Engineering Education, SEFI 2023
AU - Bohm, Nina L.
AU - Klaassen, R. G.
AU - van Bueren, E. M.
AU - den Brok, P.
PY - 2023
Y1 - 2023
N2 - Universities open their doors to society, inviting the complexity of the world to enter engineering education through challenge-based courses. While working on complex issues, engineering students learn to deal with different kinds of uncertainty: uncertainty about the dynamics of a real-world challenge, the knowledge gaps in the problem, or the conflicting perspectives amongst the people involved. Although we know from previous research that students are likely to encounter these uncertainties in sustainability challenges, which metacognitive strategies they use to deal with them is unclear. We interviewed nine MSc students at the end of a challenge-based course at a Dutch university of technology. We asked the students how they dealt with uncertainty in collaboration with the commissioner, their student team, and the teachers. The interviews were analyzed through grounded, consensus-based coding by two researchers. Preliminary results show students use three main strategies. First, the different perspectives from peers in their team inform the position of the student. Second, students find expectation management of the commissioner essential, yet students struggle with how to do this in a professional and timely way. Third, students frame the uncertainties they encounter as part of the learning process, which allows them to accept the possibility of failure. This study provides first insights in metacognitive uncertainty strategies and suggests those strategies should become a more prominent topic in coaching students. When uncertainty becomes an explicit part of challenge-based education, students learn to deal with both the known and unknown in the transition to a sustainable society.
AB - Universities open their doors to society, inviting the complexity of the world to enter engineering education through challenge-based courses. While working on complex issues, engineering students learn to deal with different kinds of uncertainty: uncertainty about the dynamics of a real-world challenge, the knowledge gaps in the problem, or the conflicting perspectives amongst the people involved. Although we know from previous research that students are likely to encounter these uncertainties in sustainability challenges, which metacognitive strategies they use to deal with them is unclear. We interviewed nine MSc students at the end of a challenge-based course at a Dutch university of technology. We asked the students how they dealt with uncertainty in collaboration with the commissioner, their student team, and the teachers. The interviews were analyzed through grounded, consensus-based coding by two researchers. Preliminary results show students use three main strategies. First, the different perspectives from peers in their team inform the position of the student. Second, students find expectation management of the commissioner essential, yet students struggle with how to do this in a professional and timely way. Third, students frame the uncertainties they encounter as part of the learning process, which allows them to accept the possibility of failure. This study provides first insights in metacognitive uncertainty strategies and suggests those strategies should become a more prominent topic in coaching students. When uncertainty becomes an explicit part of challenge-based education, students learn to deal with both the known and unknown in the transition to a sustainable society.
KW - challenge-based learning
KW - metacognition
KW - uncertainty
KW - urban sustainability
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85179846399&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.21427/PCG5-D760
DO - 10.21427/PCG5-D760
M3 - Conference contribution
AN - SCOPUS:85179846399
T3 - SEFI 2023 - 51st Annual Conference of the European Society for Engineering Education: Engineering Education for Sustainability, Proceedings
SP - 212
EP - 221
BT - SEFI 2023 - 51st Annual Conference of the European Society for Engineering Education
A2 - Reilly, Ger
A2 - Murphy, Mike
A2 - Nagy, Balazs Vince
A2 - Jarvinen, Hannu-Matti
PB - European Society for Engineering Education (SEFI)
Y2 - 11 September 2023 through 14 September 2023
ER -