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Work in Progress: Are Project Teams Actually Developing Professional Skills?

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Conference

2023 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Location

Baltimore , Maryland

Publication Date

June 25, 2023

Start Date

June 25, 2023

End Date

June 28, 2023

Conference Session

Experiential Learning and Professional Skills and Competencies: Attainment, Assessment, and Evaluation.

Tagged Division

Cooperative and Experiential Education Division (CEED)

Page Count

9

DOI

10.18260/1-2--44171

Permanent URL

https://peer.asee.org/44171

Download Count

139

Paper Authors

biography

Emily Buten University of Michigan

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Emily (she/her) is a Ph.D. student in the Engineering Education Research program at the University of Michigan and received her B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Dayton. She is interested in researching individuals' development from students to professional engineers. She is particularly interested in studying experiential learning settings such as co-op and internship programs and diverse student experiences in those settings.

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biography

Jack Boomer Perry University of Michigan

biography

Aaron W. Johnson University of Michigan

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Aaron W. Johnson (he/him/his) is an Assistant Professor in the Aerospace Engineering Department and a Core Faculty member of the Engineering Education Research Program at the University of Michigan. He believes in a strong connection between engineering education research and practice, and his research leverages his experience teaching engineering science courses to bridge the gap between theoretical, well-defined coursework and ill-defined, sociotechnical engineering practice. He received a B.S. in Aerospace Engineering from Michigan, and a Ph.D. in Aeronautics and Astronautics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Prior to re-joining Michigan, he was an instructor in Aerospace Engineering Sciences at the University of Colorado Boulder.

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Abstract

This work-in-progress research paper investigates how professional skills are developed on engineering project teams. Project teams, or engineering competition teams, are co-curricular student organizations that design and build a system based on competition guidelines that are typically set by engineering organizations. After the system is built there is usually a competition element that takes place between university teams. Professional skills are the non-technical abilities that individuals utilize to succeed in the professional world (e.g. communication, time management, creativity). Previous research has investigated the types, benefits, and necessity of professional skills for engineering students. Meanwhile many extra- and co-curricular activities, including project teams, have been cited as opportunities for students to develop professional skills. Even though these organizations are now popular amongst universities, the mechanisms in project teams that assist in the development of these skills are yet to be understood.

Undergraduate engineering students who were active members of project teams at a large, historically white, research-intensive, public institute in the Midwest were interviewed. Prior to the interview, students completed a survey. The survey, guided by the Student Involvement Framework (Fisher et al., 2017), asked students to select the skills they associated with their experience on project teams. Based on the survey information, semi-structured interviews were conducted with two students from different project teams. The interviews focused on the students’ experiences on project teams and the development of professional skills. The student responses were transcribed and coded based on Kolb’s Experiential Learning Theory (ELT) (Kolb, 1984, 2015) to examine the types of actions students have done to develop professional skills.

Buten, E., & Perry, J. B., & Johnson, A. W. (2023, June), Work in Progress: Are Project Teams Actually Developing Professional Skills? Paper presented at 2023 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition, Baltimore , Maryland. 10.18260/1-2--44171

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