Evaluating Students’ Perceptions of Executing a Construction Lab Project Using Procore®

Shaghayegh Kurzinski; Anne Anderson; Jonathan Robert Gomes

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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: Project/Problem Based Learning (PBL) in Construction Education
Tagged Division: Construction Engineering Division (CONST)
Tagged Topic: Diversity
Permanent URL: https://peer.asee.org/47347

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Paper Authors

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Shaghayegh Kurzinski Roger Williams University

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Assistant Professor of Construction Management, Roger Williams University, Bristol, RI.

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Anne Anderson Roger Williams University

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Anne Anderson is an Associate Professor at Roger Williams University. Her research focuses on improving construction coordination efforts through the use of emerging technologies.

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Jonathan Robert Gomes Roger Williams University

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Abstract

Construction education benefits from establishing a strong relationship with real-world industry practices. One important practice is the knowledge of software used in the industry to simplify the complex construction workflow and tasks throughout project execution. Procore® is considered a leading construction software providing a connection between technology and industry trades. The cloud-based software provides a central repository for the contract documents, e.g. bidding documents, prime contracts, change orders, drawings, and specifications, and enables sharing the project information with all project participants. While it is still needed to provide evidence-based studies measuring the effectiveness and transferability of implementing any individual software into CM education, the major benefits of similar technology integration in CM education reported by several studies are technical industry preparedness, improved learning outcomes, and increased student engagement in the course materials. This study assesses CM students' perspective and experience of using Procore® in a sophomore-level CM course in the Fall semester of 2023 at the School of Engineering, Computing, and Construction Management (SECCM) of Roger Williams University. This course comprises a three-credit lecture with an associated one-credit construction lab. There are a total of 76 students enrolled in one of three lecture sections and one of seven lab sections. The lab section allows students to apply topics taught in the lecture sections and construct a two-story single-family timber framing structure in the CM lab facility space that includes a foundation, wood framing, mechanical, electrical, and drywall. Historically, students were asked to submit lab reports after each lab session as weekly assignments. However, in the Fall 2023 semester, the course instructors changed the weekly assignments from lab reports to a series of Procore® deliverables. The content of the previous vs. new weekly deliverables is similar but is now delivered in a way that more closely aligns with real-world industry practices. Students in each lab section were given the roles of either a General Contractor or a Subcontractor, each with specific Procore assignments after every lab session. Roles are switched each week. This approach aims to transfer the knowledge of a commonly used tool while improving their leadership abilities and communication skills. The main objective of this study is to evaluate the effectiveness of implementing Procore® into the lab assignments on the students' learning, teamwork, and lab activity engagement. In order to accomplish the study’s main objective, a designed quasi-experiment survey was sent to the students asking for their feedback. The survey included questions aimed at the students’ perception of using Procore during and after the lab session to accomplish individual and group assignments. The results of this study support the development and implementation of practical collaborative training for construction education using real-world construction industry tools and software. This technology-based training can also inform the CM educational sector about the opportunity for utilizing this or similar project-controlling software in the classroom for semester projects to easily share the project information and communicate with students while monitoring their progress.

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Kurzinski, S., & Anderson, A., & Gomes, J. R. (2024, June), Evaluating Students’ Perceptions of Executing a Construction Lab Project Using Procore® Paper presented at 2024 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition, Portland, Oregon. https://peer.asee.org/47347

TY - CPAPER
AB - Construction education benefits from establishing a strong relationship with real-world industry practices. One important practice is the knowledge of software used in the industry to simplify the complex construction workflow and tasks throughout project execution. Procore® is considered a leading construction software providing a connection between technology and industry trades. The cloud-based software provides a central repository for the contract documents, e.g. bidding documents, prime contracts, change orders, drawings, and specifications, and enables sharing the project information with all project participants. While it is still needed to provide evidence-based studies measuring the effectiveness and transferability of implementing any individual software into CM education, the major benefits of similar technology integration in CM education reported by several studies are technical industry preparedness, improved learning outcomes, and increased student engagement in the course materials.
This study assesses CM students&#39; perspective and experience of using Procore® in a sophomore-level CM course in the Fall semester of 2023 at the School of Engineering, Computing, and Construction Management (SECCM) of Roger Williams University. This course comprises a three-credit lecture with an associated one-credit construction lab. There are a total of 76 students enrolled in one of three lecture sections and one of seven lab sections. The lab section allows students to apply topics taught in the lecture sections and construct a two-story single-family timber framing structure in the CM lab facility space that includes a foundation, wood framing, mechanical, electrical, and drywall. Historically, students were asked to submit lab reports after each lab session as weekly assignments. However, in the Fall 2023 semester, the course instructors changed the weekly assignments from lab reports to a series of Procore® deliverables. The content of the previous vs. new weekly deliverables is similar but is now delivered in a way that more closely aligns with real-world industry practices. Students in each lab section were given the roles of either a General Contractor or a Subcontractor, each with specific Procore assignments after every lab session. Roles are switched each week. This approach aims to transfer the knowledge of a commonly used tool while improving their leadership abilities and communication skills.
The main objective of this study is to evaluate the effectiveness of implementing Procore® into the lab assignments on the students&#39; learning, teamwork, and lab activity engagement.
In order to accomplish the study’s main objective, a designed quasi-experiment survey was sent to the students asking for their feedback. The survey included questions aimed at the students’ perception of using Procore during and after the lab session to accomplish individual and group assignments.
The results of this study support the development and implementation of practical collaborative training for construction education using real-world construction industry tools and software. This technology-based training can also inform the CM educational sector about the opportunity for utilizing this or similar project-controlling software in the classroom for semester projects to easily share the project information and communicate with students while monitoring their progress.
AU - Shaghayegh Kurzinski
AU - Anne Anderson
AU - Jonathan Robert Gomes
CY - Portland, Oregon
DA - 2024/06/23
PB - ASEE Conferences
TI - Evaluating Students’ Perceptions of Executing a Construction Lab Project Using Procore®
UR - https://peer.asee.org/47347
ER -