Exploring Engineering Students' Attitudes: Impacts of Sociotechnical vs. Technical Courses

Current engineering curricula fail to recognize the sociotechnical nature of engineering problems (i.e., technical and non-technical factors), and rather primarily focus on technical problem solving. This is problematic because in order for engineering graduates to be able to solve the complex engineering problems facing the world today and in the future, they will need to understand the technical and non-technical (social, political, economic, environmental, cultural, legal, safety, etc. factors) implications of their work. In addition, women continue to be underrepresented in engineering education. Previous research has suggested that presenting engineering within a societal context can help attract and retain women in engineering. Courses that are designed to present engineering from a sociotechnical perspective may allow female-identified students to find social relevance to the field, which could help them to find a sense of belonging in engineering, which could lead to an increase in the retention rate of women engineering students. These sociotechnical courses will also allow engineering students to understand the technical and non-technical factors that are incorporated in engineering design and work. The purpose of this study is to examine how undergraduate engineering students' attitudes (i.e., sense of belonging, self-confidence, satisfaction with engineering, and social responsibility) toward and understanding of engineering are affected after taking sociotechnical vs. more technical focused engineering courses at Clarkson University. Undergraduate engineering students enrolled in "middle year" sociotechnical and technical engineering courses at Clarkson University will complete a pre-/post-survey during the spring 2022 semester, with a few students participating in a post-interview at the end of the semester. This presentation will cover the background behind the project, the methods that will be used in the study, the results of pilot data collected during the fall 2021 semester, and plans moving forward.