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The Formation of Engineers to Address Wicked Problems (FEW) Model: Investigating Impacts of a Humanitarian Engineering Minor on Students' Intercultural Competence

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Conference

2024 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Location

Portland, Oregon

Publication Date

June 23, 2024

Start Date

June 23, 2024

End Date

July 12, 2024

Conference Session

Community Engagement and Humanitarian Engineering: Creating Inclusive Engineers

Tagged Division

Community Engagement Division (COMMENG)

Tagged Topic

Diversity

Permanent URL

https://peer.asee.org/48099

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Paper Authors

biography

Patrick John Sours The Ohio State University

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Dr. Patrick Sours is an Assistant Professor of Professional Practice in Engineering for Sustainable Development and serves as the Faculty Lead of the Humanitarian Engineering Program at The Ohio State University. In this role, he leads high-impact experiential learning programs, conducts engineering education research, and instructs courses related to Engineering for Sustainable Development. He is passionate about developing engineers' sociotechnical competency to prepare them to address complex global sustainability challenges

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xinquan Jiang The Ohio State University

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Abstract

This effort explores the challenges of addressing complex global sustainability issues, known as Wicked Sustainability Problems, emphasizing the need for engineers to take and understand interdisciplinary approaches to navigate stakeholder disagreements and dynamics through the development of intercultural competence. The Humanitarian Engineering (HE) minor program at X University is designed to equip future engineers with skills beyond technical expertise to prepare them to address such challenges was the foci of this effort. A multi method approach was taken to explore to investigate potential impacts of student curricular pathways and experiences in the HE minor program on students' intercultural competence, using quantitative data provided by pre and post student results from the Intercultural Development Inventory (IDI) and qualitative insights from semi-structured interviews, focus groups, and course artifacts. While a longitudinal research effort is underway, the preliminary findings presented here highlight that students completing the HE minor experienced increased intercultural competence, fostering their ability to understand stakeholder values and navigate societal complexities, but that further research efforts are required to correlate specific drivers of intercultural competence development in engineering students. A conceptual framework, the Formation of Engineers to Address Wicked Problems (FEW) Model, is proposed to highlight pedagogical structures that integrate the desired educational outcomes effectively and is built on prior literature and similar conceptual frameworks within the Engineering for Sustainable Development and Intercultural Competency domains. This paper highlights the importance of preparing engineers to address multidimensional challenges from an interdisciplinary approach while positioning Humanitarian Engineering as potentially an effective pedagogical process to prepare engineers to address sustainability related challenges.

Sours, P. J., & Jiang, X. (2024, June), The Formation of Engineers to Address Wicked Problems (FEW) Model: Investigating Impacts of a Humanitarian Engineering Minor on Students' Intercultural Competence Paper presented at 2024 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition, Portland, Oregon. https://peer.asee.org/48099

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