Capstone design courses are a critical component of undergraduate civil engineering education, meeting accreditation requirements while preparing students for professional practice. Typically, these courses replicate industry contexts through sponsor-driven projects and discipline-specific role assignments; however, less is known about how such structures shape students’ engagement in design. This study investigates how features of civil engineering capstone courses, particularly role assignment, feedback systems, and project scope, influence student engagement. Guided by the question, How and why do civil engineering capstone course structures impact student engagement in design?, the study draws on 39 semistructured interviews with 17 students across four teams in a 20-week capstone course at a large US research university. Using a constructivist grounded theory approach, data were analyzed through iterative coding and memo-writing to identify patterns of engagement linked to course structures. Findings reveal three interrelated dimensions shaping engagement: collaboration, which was strongest when students worked with peers who shared disciplinary expertise; feedback, which enhanced engagement when structured, discipline-relevant, and from qualified sources; and scope, with greater engagement emerging when students had agency in early stage design. Engagement diminished when roles were isolating, feedback unqualified or unstructured, or projects narrowly constrained students to replicating existing designs. These results suggest that capstone courses can better foster authentic engagement by prioritizing both inter- and intradisciplinary collaboration, embedding structured feedback from qualified sources, and providing students with ownership of early design stages, thereby supporting meaningful participation in the technical and social dimensions of engineering design.
Clement et al. (Tue,) studied this question.