HEA STEM: Understanding Engineering fundamentals: how and why are they ‘fundamental’?

Nationwide, England (Yorkshire & the Humber)

01.03.2012

This seminar links to an HE-STEM/RAE funded research project in which Martyn Clark and Anthea Connolly have investigated the factors that contribute to a successful graduate transition to employment.

Martyn and Anthea have carried out a number of in-depth interviews with recent graduates to examine how the skills and knowledge that they accrued whilst at university have been useful to them in the workplace. A number of these interviewees, as well as the managers interviewed, have talked about the Engineering ‘fundamentals’: how, when and why these crop up in the workplace.

The perception that students come to university to get their ‘Engineering fundamentals’ which they take into the workplace and apply, is common.

So what is an Engineering fundamental, and how do we recognise one?

This event will ask what evidence can we gather to show, one way or the other, that the model of Engineering fundamentals is working, and if we believe that the model is working, what are the implications for engineering education?

The event will encourage participants to consider why higher education institutions are thinking about more active and problem based learning, and to reflect on what this model of engineering education is based upon.