Castaneda, D., & Merritt, J., & Mejia, J. (2022, August), Exploring engineering students’ critical consciousness using an ill-structured, project-based learning unit in an engineering mechanics course  Paper presented at 2022 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition, Minneapolis, MN. 10.18260/1-2--40690

\bibitem{asee_peer_40690}
  Castaneda, D., \& Merritt, J., \& Mejia, J. (2022, August), \emph{Exploring engineering students’ critical consciousness using an ill-structured, project-based learning unit in an engineering mechanics course}
  Paper presented at 2022 ASEE Annual Conference \& Exposition, Minneapolis, MN.
  10.18260/1-2--40690

Daniel Castaneda, Joi Merritt, and Joel Mejia.  "Exploring engineering students’ critical consciousness using an ill-structured, project-based learning unit in an engineering mechanics course".  2022 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition, Minneapolis, MN, 2022, August.  ASEE Conferences, 2022.  https://peer.asee.org/40690 Internet.  15 Dec, 2024

\bibitem{asee_peer_40690}
  Daniel Castaneda, Joi Merritt, and Joel Mejia.
  "Exploring engineering students’ critical consciousness using an ill-structured, project-based learning unit in an engineering mechanics course".
  \emph{2022 ASEE Annual Conference \& Exposition, Minneapolis, MN, 2022, August}.
  ASEE Conferences, 2022.
  https://peer.asee.org/40690 Internet.  15 Dec, 2024

@INPROCEEDINGS{asee_peer_40690
author = "Daniel Castaneda, Joi Merritt, and Joel Mejia"
title = "Exploring engineering students’ critical consciousness using an ill-structured, project-based learning unit in an engineering mechanics course"
booktitle = "2022 ASEE Annual Conference \& Exposition"
year = "2022"
month = "August"
address = "Minneapolis, MN"
publisher = "ASEE Conferences"
note = {https://peer.asee.org/40690}
number = {10.18260/1-2--40690}
}

TY  - CPAPER
AB  - This Work in Progress paper describes preliminary findings of a qualitative study that explored how critical consciousness manifested in engineering learners (n = 33) in a project-based learning (PBL) unit, specifically in an engineering mechanics class context. Typical engineering mechanics curricula emphasize technical concepts, which reinforces to engineering learners that problem-solving efforts are solely technical undertakings that are devoid of socioeconomic, environmental, and political dimensions. This narrow emphasis fuels asocial, apolitical, and apathetic attitudes in engineering, which is glaringly incompatible with the real-world complexity of engineering activities amidst the increasingly multi-ethnic nature of the nation. A multi-part PBL unit was created using the human-centered design (HCD) for communities design framework to foster team-based exploration of an engineering mechanics-based design problem in a sociocultural context. The PBL unit was ill-structured in that a deliberative learning process was required to weigh competing sociotechnical tradeoffs. For each deliverable, students were asked to write reflectively in response to a series of prompts. Two-cycle coding was used to analyze the students’ reflective writing, specifically using Carlson et al.’s 4-stage understanding of critical consciousness as a baseline framework. This data analysis was done to examine the extent to which critical consciousness manifested in engineering learners and how the ill-structured nature of the PBL unit and the HCD for communities design framework impacted that manifestation. We found that students used empathy in performative ways to inform their engineering problem solving efforts and that students’ critical consciousness was mostly manifested at lower-levels of the 4-stage model. This finding suggests that relying upon the ill-structured characteristic in PBL alone is insufficient in developing engineering learners’ critical consciousness. Our preliminary findings highlight the need for engineering educators to find ways to support authentic inspection of social realities depicted in PBL settings in order to develop critical consciousness in engineering learners, who will become the next generation of engineering practitioners striving to solve complex, sociotechnical challenges in our increasingly diverse nation. 
AU  - Daniel Castaneda
AU  - Joi Merritt
AU  - Joel Mejia
CY  - Minneapolis, MN
DA  - 2022/08/23
PB  - ASEE Conferences
TI  - Exploring engineering students’ critical consciousness using an ill-structured, project-based learning unit in an engineering mechanics course
UR  - https://peer.asee.org/40690
DO  - 10.18260/1-2--40690
ER  -