AC 2011-994: WORKING AS A TEAM: ENHANCING INTERDISCIPLINAR-ITY FOR THE ENGINEER OF 2020

Lisa R. Lattuca, Pennsylvania State University, University ParkLois Calian Trautvetter, Northwestern University

Lois Calian Trautvetter

Assistant Professor of Education and Director, Higher Education Administration and Policy Program,Northwestern University, l-trautvetter@northwestern.edu

Dr. Trautvetter studies faculty development and productivity issues, including those that enhance teachingand research, motivation, and new and junior faculty development. She also studies gender issues in theSTEM disciplines.

David B Knight, Pennsylvania State University, University Park

David Knight is a PhD candidate in the Higher Education Program at Pennsylvania State Universityand is a graduate research assistant on two NSF-funded engineering education projects. His researchinterests include STEM education, interdisciplinary teaching and research, organizational issues in highereducation, and leadership and administration in higher education. Email: dbk144@psu.edu

Carla M. Cortes, Northwestern University

Carla Cortes serves as an instructor and research associate in the Higher Education Administration &Policy program at Northwestern University. She also conducts analysis and manages projects for DePaulUniversity’s Division of Enrollment Management and Marketing.

c©American Society for Engineering Education, 2011

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Promoting Interdisciplinary Competence in the Engineers of 2020

Introduction A review of recent policy documents from the federal government reveals a consistent call for greater investments in interdisciplinary education at both the undergraduate and graduate levels (National Academy of Sciences, 20041; National Institutes of Health, 20062; Ramaley, 20013). These calls for greater interdisciplinarity in postsecondary and graduate education are based on the belief that interdisciplinary educational approaches are needed to foster innovation and may be more effective in doing so than discipline-based educational programs (National Academy of Engineering, 20044; U.S. Department of Education, 20065); interdisciplinarity in both research and education is presumed to promote global competitiveness, national security, and economic prosperity (National Science Board, 20106; U.S. Department of Education, 20065). As early as 1982, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development argued that the need to solve interdisciplinary societal problems had taken priority over internally driven approaches that focused on advancing knowledge without clear concern for its societal implications. By 1986, the National Research Council reported that most of the growth in knowledge production was interdisciplinary in nature in emerging scientific and technical fields such as biophysics, materials science, and energy, and microelectronics. A subsequent NRC report, Interdisciplinary Research (1990; cited in Klein, 20107), noted increasing collaborations between the physical sciences and engineering as well as in the life sciences and medicine. Klein points out that boundaries were crossed not only between academic fields, but between industry and academia, evidenced by the growth in numbers and importance of university technology transfer operations. Although it is the mission of most undergraduate engineering programs to prepare new engineers to solve real-world problems, which are arguably inherently interdisciplinary by nature, changes in the engineering curriculum have been slow to materialize. Engineering programs in the United States took a step toward interdisciplinarity with the implementation the EC2000 accreditation requirements which specified that all new engineers should have the ability to work on multidisciplinary teams (ABET, 20118). The National Academy of Engineering’s two reports on the “engineer of 2020” make a stronger case for interdisciplinarity as a feature of the engineering workplace of the future and as a personal attribute: “In the next twenty years, engineers and engineering students will be required to use new tools and apply ever-increasing knowledge in expanding engineering disciplines, all while considering societal repercussions and constraints with a complex landscape of old and new ideas” (National Academy of Engineering, 2004, p. 434). In 2006 and 2007, we began two related studies, one qualitative and one quantitative, designed to provide data on the current state of the undergraduate engineering curriculum. We were particularly interested in curricular and instructional changes that would strengthen students’ skills in the following learning outcomes: design, contextual competence, and interdisciplinary competence. In this paper, we focus on the question of how undergraduate engineering programs

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are preparing students to think and work in interdisciplinary ways by exploring the undergraduate engineering curriculum and the learning experiences of students, as well as the impact of different learning experiences on students’ interdisciplinary competence. Defining Interdisciplinarity and Interdisciplinary Educational Experiences Many terms, definitions, and interpretations confound “interdisciplinarity.” One of the most frequent distinctions in the literature contrasts the term “multidisciplinarity” and “interdisciplinarity”: typically scholars argue that multidisciplinarity brings two or more disciplines to bear on a problem but fails to integrate disciplinary components into a seamless whole, whereas interdisciplinarity is marked by a synthesis of disciplinary knowledge and methods to provide a more holistic understanding (e.g., Collin, 20099; Klein, 199610; Kockelmans, 197911; Miller, 198212; O’Donnell & Derry, 200513; Richards, 199614). Although many consider interdisciplinarity to be a product of research or teaching, recent scholarship argues that interdisciplinarity should also be understood as “a process of answering a question, solving a problem, or addressing a topic that is too broad or complex to be dealt with adequately by a single discipline or profession… [by] draw[ing] upon disciplinary perspectives and integrat[ing] their insights through construction of a more comprehensive perspective” (Klein & Newell, 1997, p. 393-394; authors’ italics15). Repko (200816) argues that this process-oriented view of interdisciplinarity is widely accepted in the interdisciplinary studies community (which includes educators who teach in interdisciplinary studies programs such as environmental sciences, neuroscience, women’s studies, ethnic studies, and general interdisciplinary studies programs themselves). As interdisciplinarity gains advocates in the engineering education community, new curricular and instructional approaches to engineering education are emerging in a variety of settings, joining existing general engineering programs which, some would argue, are inherently interdisciplinary. What does interdisciplinary learning look like in engineering programs? What kinds of curricular and co-curricular strategies do programs and faculty use to engage students in interdisciplinary work? And what are the outcomes of these strategies to promote interdisciplinary learning? In this paper, we describe interdisciplinary engineering educational efforts by drawing on data from two studies of how engineering programs in the U.S. are responding to calls to prepare undergraduate engineers to work in the interdisciplinary environments they will encounter as practicing engineers. We then explore the effects of interdisciplinary educational experiences on students’ interdisciplinary competencies. Balancing Disciplinary and Interdisciplinary Learning in Undergraduate Engineering The undergraduate engineering curriculum has undergone much scrutiny since the first programs were developed in the U.S. in the 1800s. The four-year curriculum, with its strong scientific, mathematical, and technical focus ran in “parallel” with requirements in the humanities in these early programs (Culligan& Pena-Mora, 201017). The emphasis on mathematical and theoretical foundations of the discipline strengthened in the 1920s as engineering theorists from Russia, Hungary, and Denmark influenced the American engineering community, and again during World War II as the U.S. federal government began to support academic researchers who could

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contribute to the war effort (Prados, Peterson, & Lattuca, 200518). At different points in its history, the engineering curriculum has been criticized for overspecialization (Jackson, 193919) and for treating non-technical course requirements in the humanities and social sciences dismissively, but the backbone of science, math and technical courses has remained strong (Culligan & Pena-Mora, 201017). Prados (199220) argued that the engineering curriculum at many institutions was indistinguishable from applied science. During the 1980s and 1990s, the shortcomings of this highly technical and theoretical approach to engineering were enumerated in studies and reports by the National Academy of Engineering, the National Science Foundation, the National Science Board, and the American Society for Engineering Education (NAE, 198521; National Science Foundation, 199222; National Science Board, 198623; ASEE, 199424; Willenbrock et al, 198925). Dissatisfaction among engineering employers and leaders in the engineering education community reached the Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology (ABET) during the late 1980s, which was criticized for maintaining accreditation criteria that focused on “seat time” in mathematics, science, a technical courses and created a barrier to curricular reform (Prados et al., 200518). ABET responded with a series of meetings of engineering stakeholders designed to build consensus on changes to the accreditation process. These workshops led to the piloting of a new set of accreditation criteria that expanded the historical focus on technical competencies in engineering, which eventually became mandatory for all undergraduate engineering programs in the U.S. in 2001 (Prados et al., 200518). This shift in accreditation, Culligan and Pena-Mora (201017) argue, provide an opportunity to “revise a century-long trend of discipline-centric technical training” (19, p. 152; emphasis in original). The EC2000 accreditation criteria now specify that all engineering graduates must demonstrate the ability to work on multidisciplinary teams but also require that programs prepare students who understand contemporary issues and the societal contexts in which engineering practice occurs, as well as the professional and ethnical responsibilities of engineers. Curricular Changes Promoting Interdisciplinarity Ideally, this expanded focus allows the technical core of the engineering curriculum to remain strong as knowledge and skills from the humanities and social sciences are integrated into the educational experience. A study of the impact of the implementation of the EC2000 accreditation criteria on a nationally representative sample of engineering programs suggests, however, that some knowledge and skills have been more successfully integrated in the undergraduate curriculum than others (Lattuca, Strauss, & Volkwein, 200626; Lattuca, Terenzini,& Volkwein, 200627). Following EC2000, program chairs reported the greatest changes in emphasis in communication, teamwork, societal contexts, and ethics, with 75 to 90% of chairs indicating some or significant increases in emphases on these topics. About 60% of chairs reported some or a significant increase on contemporary issues. Faculty members, who reported on a single course that they regularly teach, were most likely to report changes in their emphasis on teamwork (52%), technical writing (39%) and verbal communication (34%). Nearly a third reported some or significant increases in their emphasis on professional responsibility and ethics. Faculty also reported moderate changes in attention to contemporary issues (43%), global and social contexts in engineering (41%), professional responsibility (37%), and professional ethics

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(34%). Attention to topics that would promote interdisciplinary connections appeared to be on the rise after EC2000. Although these curricular changes are positive, because this study measured change in the curriculum, it is not clear whether even a “significant” increase in curricular emphasis represents sustained attention to a knowledge or skill set; a significant increase may indicate a rise from virtually no emphasis to a few mentions during the course of a term. Reports from students regarding their confidence in their engineering skills and employers’ reports of the skills of new hires thus provide additional data points to aid interpretation of these findings. The average engineering senior surveyed in 2004 reported that he or she had “more than adequate ability” on communication and group skills (defined as interpersonal and teamwork skills), but was less confident of his or her ability to understand societal and global contexts. Three quarters of the 1,622 employers responding to the EC2000 study surveys similarly reported that new bachelors’ degree hires were adequately to well-prepared in communication and teamwork, but only half said the same about new hires’ understanding of the societal contexts and constraints; almost 50% of employers considered new hires to be inadequately prepared in this area (Lattuca, Terenzini, & Volkwein, 200627). These findings regarding new graduates’ readiness to understand the societal contexts in which engineering is practiced may suggest that engineering programs should give additional curricular and instructional attention to interdisciplinary topics. Although interest in interdisciplinarity is high, there are few empirical studies that assess the learning outcomes of students engaged in interdisciplinary educational experiences in engineering or in higher education in general. Studies of college students in interdisciplinary and non-interdisciplinary programs in several single-institution studies reveal differences in cognitive outcomes. Newell (199228), for example, found that students in the former School of Interdisciplinary Studies at Miami University (Ohio) performed better than students in disciplinary programs on ACT/COMP assessments; unfortunately, the research did not control for potentially confounding factors such as self-selection into interdisciplinary programs. Schilling (199129) and Wright (199230) examined the effect of an interdisciplinary general education program on students’ ability to solve ill-structured problems with conflicting or incomplete information, multiple potential solutions, and no verifiably correct answer. Because ill-structured problems require workers to consider multiple perspectives in arriving at solutions (Klein, 20107), they are ostensibly interdisciplinary in nature. Schilling found that seniors who enrolled in the interdisciplinary core curriculum scored higher on a measure of problem-solving than other seniors in the institution. Another study of a one-year interdisciplinary general education program revealed that the number of interdisciplinary courses in which students enrolled was positively associated with scores on the Learning in Context Questionnaire, which measures postformal reasoning, or the ability to solve ill-structured problems (Wright, 199230). In one of the few published studies of interdisciplinarity in undergraduate engineering, Pierrakos (200731) studied the learning outcomes of students in interdisciplinary and disciplinary teams in a senior design course. Students on the interdisciplinary biomedical engineering teams interacted with non-engineers and had to learn physiology, biology, and biomedical engineering to engage in problem solving. “Disciplinary” student teams were comprised of mechanical engineers working on automotive projects who only interacted with mechanical engineering faculty. The

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most profound difference between the teams was in technical learning/outcomes, with the interdisciplinary teams showing greater gains. This study of 125 students on 11 design teams found that fundamental skills of students on the interdisciplinary teams were enhanced relative to those of students enrolled in a design course with a single disciplinary focus. In summary, there has been limited exploration of the impact of calls for interdisciplinarity in engineering education and, where interdisciplinarity is taking root, of its effect on engineering students’ learning outcomes. Two studies, referred to collectively as “the Engineer of 2020 (or E2020)” studies, were designed, in part, to address this lack of information on interdisciplinarity in undergraduate engineering education. The Conceptual Framework for the Engineer of 2020 Studies For the past several years, our research team has been refining a conceptual framework (Terenzini & Reason, 200532, 201033) that offers a systems view of college-level learning that 1) addresses the role of students’ prior learning and social experiences, and 2) acknowledges the role of organizational conditions (e.g., policies that influence faculty decisions about teaching), program-level culture, and program policies and practices related to teaching and learning. This combination of factors, depicted in Figure 1, affects the nature and quality of student learning. Figure 1.Conceptual framework

The elements of the conceptual framework (identified in the boxes and ovals in Figure 1) are supported by more than 30 years of research in higher education, including studies of engineering education. The framework has been used successfully to guide data collection and analysis in several recent, large-scale studies (Lattuca, Terenzini, & Volkwein, 200627; Reason, Cox, Lutovsky-Quaye, & Terenzini, 201034; Reason, Terenzini, & Domingo, 200635, 200736). Specifically, the existence of these elements and the linkages among them have been empirically verified in multiple analyses of data from engineering students, faculty, program chairs, and administrators. The most complete analysis is based on data from engineering students and

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alumni from 147 engineering programs in 40 institutions. The EC2000 study (Lattuca et al., 200627) demonstrated empirical linkages between the activities of faculty (including what topics they teach, how they teach, and their engagement in assessment and professional development) and enhancements in student learning experiences inside and outside the classroom. In turn, improvements in the curricular and extracurricular experiences of students were empirically linked to improvements in students’ learning outcomes. This semi-causal chain of influences strongly suggests that a broad array of factors influence the quality of engineering students’ learning. Although students’ classroom experiences were the strongest indicators on how well they learned, a supportive organizational culture was also positively related to superior learning outcomes (Lattuca et al., 200627). This conceptual framework guided the data collection and organization of the two studies reported here. Methods The studies described here were funded by two grants from the National Science Foundation. The study entitled, Prototyping the Engineer of 2020: Conditions and Processes of Effective Education (P360), collected qualitative case study data at six engineering schools (NSF DUE- 0618712). The study entitled, Prototype to Production: Conditions and Processes for Educating the Engineer of 2020 (P2P), collected survey data from a nationally representative group of 30 institutions (NSF EEC- 0550608). Prototyping the Engineer of 2020: Conditions and Processes of Effective Education (P360) The P360 study took its inspiration from the National Academy of Engineering’s report entitled, Educating the Engineer of 2020:Visions of Engineering in the New Century (20044), which distinguishes the attributes and skills needed for engineers to maintain U.S. technological and economic competitiveness. It envisions the workplace of the near future as one of dynamic technological change that requires an understanding of complex societal, global, and professional contexts. The attributes included in the report strongly suggest that the engineer of the future must be able to work effectively with others on projects that require interdisciplinary thinking and skills. The goal of the P360 study is to identify and analyze the curricular, pedagogical, cultural, and organizational features that support engineering education that appear to be aligned with the goals of the Engineer of 2020. We concentrate on educational practices and programs that foster interdisciplinary competence in this paper. Site Selection The research team used a nationally representative dataset developed for the EC2000 study (Lattuca et al., 200627) which assessed the impact of ABET’s outcomes-based EC2000 accreditation criteria, to empirically select six case study sites. We created a proxy for interdisciplinary competence that was used to identify programs and institutions in which graduates reported both a high level of ability in working on multidisciplinary teams (EC2000 Criterion 3.d) and understanding the impact of engineering solutions in a global and societal context (EC2000 Criterion 3.h). In consultation with a National Advisory Board, the team identified five institutions that exhibited superior performance on the focal learning outcomes and/or in recruiting and graduating women and underrepresented students: Arizona State

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University (ASU), Howard University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), the University of Michigan (UM), and Virginia Tech (VT). Upon the recommendation of the Board, Harvey Mudd College (HMC) was added to the study in recognition of its national reputation for graduating engineers with superior design and problem-solving skills. Data Collection and Analysis In 2007–08, the research team divided into three smaller teams, each comprised of four to five faculty and graduate research assistants from the fields of engineering and education. Each team was responsible for data collection and reporting for two case studies. Data collection relied on multiple sources of evidence: personal and group (or focus) interviews with faculty, administrators, students, and professional staff (e.g., student support services); observations of classes and events (e.g., Projects Day), archival records (e.g., meeting minutes), and other artifacts (websites, documents). Triangulation of these data sources enabled corroboration of facts and events at each case study site. In addition, the use of multiple investigators for each site (each team included at least one faculty member from engineering and one from education), contributed to construct validity (Yin, 200937). Each case study site was visited at least twice to identify and study the factors shaping each institution's performance. The full team developed a set of protocols for different groups of interviewees for the first set of case study site visits. This visit examined organizational and curricular structures and policies identified from websites, engineering education literature, and discussions with academic administrators at each site. Researchers also identified additional individuals and educational experiences to be studied during the second site visit. For the subsequent visits, the teams customized protocols for the various groups of participants. Data collection was completed by fall 2008. Personal and group interviews were fully transcribed and entered into Nvivo, a software program that supports the management and analysis of qualitative data. Each team analyzed the data from the two case studies it conducted. Coding and preliminary analysis of data began when each team completed its visits. During fall 2009 and spring 2010, the research teams completed their analyses in preparation for a cross-case analysis held in July 2010 that identified common themes across the six case study sites. Prototype to Production: Conditions and Processes for Educating the Engineer of 2020 (P2P) In this study, we also use a newly-constructed data set that focuses on the education of undergraduate engineers. This nationally representative sample includes 31 four-year institutions (Table 1). This survey-based instruments for the study were developed following a rigorous, two-year process, including: 1) literature reviews on key survey topics using the ASEE database, Compendex, and various higher education databases; 2) individual interviews with administrators, faculty, and alumni at Penn State University and City College of New York; and 3) focus-group interviews with students at those same institutions. Three instruments produced following these information gathering efforts are analyzed in this study: one for engineering students, one for engineering faculty members, and one for engineering program chairs. To

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ensure that both content validity and items/response options were comprehendible and appropriate, we conducted focus group interviews with Penn State faculty and students to review the instruments. Sample and Data Collection The sampling frame for this data set was drawn from the American Society for Engineering Education’s database using institution and program-level information for the 2007–08 academic year for currently enrolled students and faculty. It is a disproportionate, random, 6 x 3 x 2 stratified sampling that was drawn using the following strata: 6 engineering disciplines (biomedical/bioengineering, chemical, civil, electrical, industrial, and mechanical); 3 levels of highest degree offered (bachelor’s, master’s, and doctorate); and two levels of institutional control (public and private). This sampling design ensured that institutions in the final sample are representative of the population with respect to type, mission, and highest degree offered. In addition, programs offering a general engineering degree were added to the final sample. Together, these seven programs accounted for 70% of all baccalaureate engineering degrees awarded in 2007. The sample was “pre-seeded” with pre-selected institutions, including case study institutions that were participants in the P360 project and three institutions with general engineering programs. Since one of the case study institutions offers only a general engineering degree, three institutions with general engineering programs were purposely selected for the sample. Penn State’s Survey Research Center selected 23 additional institutions at random from the population within the 6x3x2 framework, including two historically black colleges and universities and three Hispanic serving institutions. Table 1: P2P Institutional Sample

Research Institutions: Arizona State University (Main & Polytechnic)1 Brigham Young University Case Western Reserve University Colorado School of Mines Dartmouth College Johns Hopkins University Massachusetts Institute of Technology1 Morgan State University2 New Jersey Institute of Technology North Carolina A&T2 Purdue University Stony Brook University University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign University of Michigan1 University of New Mexico3 University of Texas, El Paso3 University of Toledo Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University1

Master’s/Special Institutions: California Polytechnic State University3 California State University, Long Beach Manhattan College Mercer University Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology University of South Alabama Baccalaureate Institutions: Harvey Mudd College1 Lafayette College Milwaukee School of Engineering Ohio Northern University Penn State Erie, The Behrend College West Virginia University Institute of Technology

1 P360 Institution 2 Historically Black College or University 3 Hispanic-Serving Institution

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Surveys were administered to engineering undergraduates, faculty members, and program chairs to generate a better understanding of current curriculum and instructional techniques, learning environments, administrative and organizational policies/practices, and student educational experiences and outcomes. The survey research organization handled data collection through a web-based questionnaire and followed procedures recommended by Dillman, Smith and Christian (200938). Table 2 displays the response rate for the three surveys. Students’ answers were weighted and adjusted by the response rate of institutions and by gender, discipline, and race/ethnicity within an institution. For the purposes of this study, we only include responses from students in the fourth or fifth year of study (n=2,422). Faculty answers were weighted and adjusted by the response rate of institutions, by gender, race/ethnicity, program, and faculty rank. Responses from the program chairs were not weighted. Table 2. P2P Response Rates

Number of Surveys Sent Number of Respondents Response Rate Program Chairs 125 86 69%

Faculty 2942 1119 38% Students 32737 5249 16%

In addition, missing data were imputed based on procedures recommended by Dempster, Laird & Rubin (1977)39 and Graham (2009)40 using the Expectation-Maximization (EM) algorithm of the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) software (v.18). To reduce data from several survey questions into fewer scales, a principal axis analysis (Oblimin with Kaiser Normalization rotation) was completed. Items were assigned to a factor based on the magnitude of the loading, the effect of keeping or discarding the item on the scale’s internal consistency reliability, and according to professional judgment. Factor scales were formed by taking the sum of respondents’ scores on the component items on a factor and dividing by the number of items in the scale as prescribed by Armor (196441). Variables In accordance with the conceptual framework, we include information about demographic characteristics (for all groups surveyed) and student pre-college academic abilities, using student-reported SAT sub-section scores (critical reading, writing, and math). Faculty members were asked to provide information about a single course that they regularly teach, so we took into account course type as well as the faculty’s rank in our analyses. Several variables related to the curriculum, co-curriculum, and interdisciplinarity were used throughout this study. Students were asked several questions about their participation in co-curricular activities. These questions varied between open-ended estimates of time spent in various activities and Likert-style questions regarding participation in the co-curriculum (Table 3). In addition, students, faculty members, and program chairs were asked to indicate the emphasis of various topics and skills throughout the curriculum. Curriculum emphases scales incorporated in this study are shown in Table 4. Finally, students were asked to rate proficiencies in various skills and topics. Outcome scales related to interdisciplinarity are shown in Table 5, and include interdisciplinary skills, recognizing disciplinary perspectives, reflective behavior, and teamwork skills.

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Analytical Procedures We provide several descriptive statistics to identify where and to what extent in the curriculum and co-curriculum interdisciplinary education occurs, according to students, faculty, and program chairs. Analyses of variance (ANOVA) were run to compare multiple groups (such as across disciplines) with the appropriate post-hoc test implemented to identify specific differences. In addition, we also examine the impact of these efforts on student learning outcomes. A correlation matrix identifies the relationships between student self-reports of interdisciplinary skills and other related skills (see Table 9). To explore the influence of the co-curriculum and curriculum (broad perspectives curricular emphasis) on the interdisciplinary skills self-reported student learning outcome, we use a multiple regression analysis, controlling for students’ demographics and pre-college academic abilities. Because differences are apparent across disciplines, we also include separate analyses for each engineering discipline. Table 3. Student survey questions regarding participation in co-curricular activities.

Since starting your engineering program, approximately how many months have you spent participating in:

Undergraduate research activities Engineering internship An engineering cooperative education experience

During the past year, how active have you been inA: An engineering club or student chapter of a professional society (IEEE, ASME, ASCE, etc.) Other engineering-related clubs or programs for women and/or minority students (e.g. NSBE, SHPE, SWE, WISE, etc.) Other clubs or activities (hobbies, civic or church organizations, campus publications, student government, Greek life, sports, etc.)

During the past year, about how many weeks did you spend participating in: Study abroad or on an international school-related tour Humanitarian engineering projects (Engineers without Borders, etc.) Non-engineering related community service or volunteer work Student design project(s)/competitions(s) beyond class requirements

A1: Not active; 2: Slightly active (attend occasionally); 3: moderately active (attend regularly); 4: Highly active (participate in most activities); 5: extremely (hold a leadership post) Table 4. Curriculum emphases scales for students, faculty, and program chairs. The Cronbach’s alpha indicates the internal consistency reliability. Values can range from .00 to 1.00–psychometricians consider scales greater than .70 to be acceptable.

Students - Broad and Systems Perspectives (alpha=.84) Overall, how much have the courses you’ve taken in your engineering program emphasized each of the followingA:

Understanding how an engineering solution can be shaped by environment, cultural, economics, and other considerations. Understanding how non-engineering fields can help solve engineering problems.

Systems thinking.

Applying knowledge from other fields to solve an engineering problem.

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Faculty and Program Chairs – Interdisciplinarity (alpha=.86 for both) Faculty: In this course, how much do you emphasizeA: Program Chairs: How much does your program curriculum emphasizeA:

Understanding how non-engineering fields can help solve engineering problems. Applying knowledge from other fields to solve an engineering problem. Understanding how an engineering solution can shape and be shaped by environmental, social, cultural, political, legal, economic, and other considerations. Making explicit connections to knowledge and skills from other fields.

Integrating knowledge from engineering and other fields to solve engineering problems. Faculty and Program Chairs – Design Skills (alpha=.85 and alpha=.78, respectively) Faculty: In this course, how much do you emphasizeA: Program Chairs: How much does your program curriculum emphasizeA:

Generating and evaluating a variety of ideas about how to solve a problem.

Emerging engineering technologies.

Defining a design problem. Creativity and innovation.

Solving problems from real clients (industry, government, etc.).

Producing a product (prototype, program, simulation, etc.).

Systems thinking. A1: Little/no emphasis; 2: Slight; 3: Moderate; 4: Strong; 5: Very strong Table 5.Student learning outcome scales related to interdisciplinarity.

Interdisciplinary Skills (alpha=.80) Do you agree or disagree?A

I value reading about topics outside of engineering.

I enjoy thinking about how different fields approach the same problem in different ways.

Not all engineering problems have purely technical solutions. In solving engineering problems I often seek information from experts in other academic fields. Given knowledge and ideas from different fields, I can figure out what is appropriate for solving a problem. I see connections between ideas in engineering and ideas in the humanities and social sciences.

I can take ideas from outside engineering and synthesize them in ways to better understand a problem. I can use what I have learned in one field in another setting or to solve a new problem.

Recognizing Disciplinary Perspectives (alpha = .69) Do you agree or disagree?A

I recognize the kinds of evidence that different fields of study rely on. If asked, I could identify the kinds of knowledge and ideas that are distinctive to different fields of study. I'm good at figuring out what experts in different fields have missed in explaining a problem or proposing a solution

Reflective Behavior (alpha = .73) Do you agree or disagree?A

I frequently stop to think about where I might be going wrong or right with a problem solution.

I often step back and reflect on what I am thinking to determine whether I might be missing something. Teamwork Skills (alpha = .86) Please rate your ability to:A

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Work in teams of people with a variety of skills and backgrounds.

Work with others to accomplish group goals. Work in teams where knowledge and ideas from multiple engineering fields must be applied.

Work in teams that include people from fields outside engineering.

Put aside differences within a design team to get the work done. A1: Strongly disagree; 2: Disagree; 3: Neither agree nor disagree; 4: Agree; 5: Strongly agree B1: Weak/none; 2: Fair; 3: Good; 4: Very good; 5: Excellent Findings from the Engineer of 2020 Studies In the following sections we first present findings from the P360 case studies to provide an overview of the kinds of curricular and co-curricular activities thought to promote the development of interdisciplinary learning outcomes in the case study institutions. This section provides examples of how engineering faculty in these institutions created interdisciplinary experiences for students as well as the extent to which they relied on the co-curriculum to provide these experiences when the curriculum could not. We then present findings that estimate the impact that the engineering curriculum and engineering seniors’ engagement in co-curricular activities have on students’ interdisciplinary learning skills. Case Study Findings During our site visits, we found a mix of curricular and co-curricular activities intentionally designed to, or simply presumed to, enhance students’ interdisciplinarity. Although each of our case study institutions relied on the co-curriculum to teach interdisciplinarity, they did so to varying degrees. In all institutions, much interdisciplinary learning was assumed to happen in the co-curriculum, particularly in student activities such as design competitions or humanitarian engineering projects and as a result of undergraduate research opportunities or participation in student chapters of professional societies. The balance of this array of curricular and co-curricular interdisciplinary activities at each site was unique. Following this brief overview, we examine key strategies for achieving interdisciplinary learning. Two of our case study institutions – Harvey Mudd College (HMC) and Arizona State University (ASU)-Polytechnic Campus – had introduced interdisciplinarity into the engineering program via a general engineering major. At HMC and MIT, the required general education curricula also stressed disciplinary connections and thus interdisciplinarity. Institutions – particularly ASU, Howard, and the University of Michigan (UM) – incorporated interdisciplinarity into courses and programs: ASU’s Innovation Space course brings together students from business and engineering; at Howard, senior design courses are interdisciplinary, involving students within engineering and from other fields as well; the focus at UM was on the development of three interdisciplinary minor programs that would allow students to combine studies across engineering majors to meet their career goals. At Virginia Tech (VT) and UM, curricular efforts were greatly supplemented by co-curricular activities that were presumed to play a critical role in developing students’ interdisciplinary skills. Interdisciplinarity in the Curriculum

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Of the six institutions we studied, the general engineering programs at HMC and ASU’s Polytechnic campus demonstrated the most sustained attention to interdisciplinarity. At Harvey Mudd, a liberal arts institution founded in 1955 with a specific focus on science and technology, a recognition of the role of many disciplines in engineering practice is evident in the College’s mission statement, which states “Harvey Mudd College seeks to educate engineers, scientists, and mathematicians, well versed in all of these areas and in the humanities and the social sciences so that they may assume leadership in their fields with a clear understanding of the impact of their work on society.” To complement this mission, the engineering program developed a series of goals for its graduates in 1963. According to HMC’s 2003 ABET Self Study report, these goals, most recently revised in 1999, inform “the development of a broad multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary engineering curriculum focused on authentic professional engineering design projects” (p. 7). General engineering is the only engineering major at HMC (and only one of nine majors offered). Until recently, the College’s curriculum was divided into four components: the common core, major, program in the humanities and social sciences, and the integrative experience (the last is now an elective rather than required component of the program). The Common Core, taken by all HMC students in all majors, consists of foundational courses (Core web site: http://www.hmc.edu/academicsclinicresearch/ourcurriculum/commoncore.html). It is designed to give students the “essential knowledge” required to move forward into upper level coursework. It also provides students with a common learning experience that facilitates their conversations with their classmates. A physics faculty member we interviewed noted: “We don’t think of students as having majors when they walk in the door.” “Our job,” he argued, “is to present our material in a way that will be engaging, interesting and useful to students in all of these different majors.” An engineering faculty member agreed that this core experience challenges faculty to make connections across courses, but also builds students’ abilities to make similar connections across disciplines: “even the [students] in computer science are required to do a full year of chemistry and chemistry lab and so and our students have to do, you know everything, in this core curriculum. So they have that background too. So they are good at making the connections.” Since the engineering faculty at HMC earned their doctorates in no less than nine different engineering disciplines, team teaching is a common and accepted approach to ensuring that faculty are prepared to teach in what one faculty member called a “horizontally integrated” program. Among the required courses at HMC is a sequence of four systems courses grounded in transformation-based mathematics, which one professor described as “the universal language for learning” in engineering. It is, he explained, “the thing that allows you to be able to talk to the electrical engineer, the mechanical, the civil… It opens up everything for you.” When asked about where the curriculum promotes interdisciplinarity, HMC faculty often pointed to the systems sequence, which demonstrates to students, both through curricular content and pedagogical choices, how what they are learning can be applied across engineering disciplines. A respect for disciplines outside engineering and interdisciplinary connections is further encouraged by the requirement that all HMC students plan a coherent program of study in

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general education with the assistance of a humanities and social science advisor. The goal of this requirement, according to HMC’s 2003 Self Study, is to help students develop “breadth in a series of courses from different [humanities and social sciences] disciplines and depth in a concentration of courses in a single discipline [outside their field of study]” (p. 11). Cumulatively, the humanities and social sciences requirements comprise about one-third of a HMC student’s course work. At MIT, like Harvey Mudd, the college-wide general education curriculum also promotes interdisciplinary connections. At MIT all majors must similarly take 17 General Institute Requirements (GIRs) in addition to their requirements for a major. GIRs include a science core (calculus, physics, chemistry, and biology), humanities, arts and social sciences (8 subjects), a communication requirement, and a physical education requirement. These general education classes are designed to provide both breadth and depth, and most first-year students complete 8 of the GIRs.

Courses that combine subject matter are also encouraged at MIT. “Solving Complex Problems,” a course for first-year students that enrolls between 50 and 120 students each time it is offered, poses big questions such as, “Has there ever been life on Mars?” Students in this course worked in teams, acquiring knowledge in biology, chemistry, physics, math (some ventured into philosophy and religion) to work toward answers to these complex questions.

Purposeful pedagogies are also apparent at MIT. Echoing faculty at HMC, who also gave numerous examples of how they helped students see the connections among different disciplines, an MIT faculty member talked about his approach with first-year students: “It is, see my class isn’t chemistry, it is chemistry-centered. There is a big difference.” He continued, saying “That is the problem with engineering education – it is all these silos, and it is so domain-focused. And if the faculty don’t model interfaces, how are the students supposed to get there?”

Leadership within the MIT School of Engineering and the Institute at large recognizes, and articulates, the importance of interdisciplinarity. Concrete reminders of interdisciplinary collaboration are visible in the long-standing existence of interdisciplinary centers and research. A commitment to innovative teaching and learning promotes collaborative teaching across disciplines, as well as thoughtful critiques that are used to modify lectures and labs to improve student learning. Interdisciplinarity is also supported by curricular flexibility, which one administrator argued, is needed to accommodate the high-achieving students who attend MIT. Rather than fitting the stereotypical geek, she explained, students accepted at MIT are multi-dimensional and multi-talented. Although all MIT students affiliate with a degree program, they are able to take subjects in whichever program interests them.

ASU’s Polytechnic Campus benefits from an institution-wide focus on interdisciplinarity. ASU’s President since 2002, Michael Crow, has long been a proponent of interdisciplinarity, and his vision of the “New American University” supports the cause. This vision, which focuses on interdisciplinary work that responds to societal needs, has helped develop new research centers and schools at ASU that address issues of sustainability and biotechnology. These university-level ventures contribute to a culture of interdisciplinary research and curriculum development.

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The Bachelor of Science in Engineering (B.S.E.) degree program at ASU’s Polytechnic campus is the culmination of efforts of a core group of engineering faculty from several disciplines who moved from ASU’s main (Tempe) campus in 2004 to develop a new curriculum for the new campus. The general engineering program enrolled its first students in fall of 2005 and graduated the first cohort of students in May 2009. The B.S.E curriculum stresses hands-on learning, asking students to complete a project every semester. The website for the B.S.E. program notes that it

integrates a broad knowledge base with study in multiple concentrations, providing both breadth and depth. This provides a greater flexibility in curricular and career pathways allowing for multidisciplinary experiences and novel combinations of expertise. The engineering program provides an immersive experience-based education for success in a high technology-oriented world.)

Students can pursue four possible focus areas: Robotics, Mechanical Engineering Systems, Electrical Engineering Systems, and Civil Engineering—Land Development. Faculty at the Polytechnic Campus described the projects that the engineering students work on each semester as industry-driven and focused on connecting theory to practice. Each project is connected with students’ coursework until the students reach the senior level. An example of one project, a water purification device for Ghana, described by a faculty member, illustrates the need to draw on multiple disciplines in problem-solving and design:

So the students had to do a very difficult problem because it was actually a graduate-level problem where they had to do mass flow, they had to do water going down this side, and then they had to have a heat exchanger, and they had to contextualize all of that. We had steam tables out; we looked at dew points, absolute humidities, and all these types of things. So we were contextualizing every semester. So I think that is a big difference.

The structure of the general engineering curriculum at ASU-Poly is intentionally flexible so that it can remain responsive to emerging engineering fields. HMC, MIT and ASU’s Polytechnic campus strive to promote students’ interdisciplinary competence through intentionally planned curricular experiences. At each, a commitment to practical learning underlies the recognition that multiple fields of study can contribute to the solution of important engineering problems.

Curricular Flexibility Creates Interdisciplinary Opportunities Leadership within the MIT School of Engineering and the Institute at large recognizes, and articulates, the importance of interdisciplinarity. Concrete reminders of interdisciplinary collaboration are visible in the long-standing existence of interdisciplinary centers and research. A commitment to innovative teaching and learning promotes collaborative teaching across disciplines, as well as thoughtful critiques that are used to modify lectures and labs to improve student learning. Interdisciplinarity is also supported by curricular flexibility, which one administrator argued, is needed to accommodate the high-achieving students who attend MIT. Rather than fitting the stereotypical geek, she explained, students accepted at MIT are multi-

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dimensional and multi-talented. Although every MIT student affiliates with a degree program, they are able to take subjects in whichever program interests them.

HMC, MIT and ASU’s Polytechnic campus strive to promote students’ interdisciplinary competence through intentionally planned curricular experiences. At each, a commitment to practical learning underlies the recognition that multiple fields of study can contribute to the solution of important engineering problems.

Interdisciplinary Majors and Minors At MIT, new majors and minors promote interdisciplinary competence. Recently new departments were formed in biological engineering and biochemical engineering. At the time of our site visits, the creation of an engineering minor for those students focusing on other majors at MIT was also under discussion. The first interdepartmental minor, in bioprocess engineering, was prompted by students’ interest. Similarly, programs in multidisciplinary design, leadership and entrepreneurship at Michigan were “pushed” into the curriculum as a result of students’ interest in co-curricular activities in these areas. UM’s 15-credit minor in multidisciplinary design, for example, requires two cycles (at least one year) of design-build-test projects. The first cycle is a preparatory, with an introductory design-build-test experience and coursework outside the major department to prepare students for the multidisciplinary work to follow. Although the University of Michigan faculty acknowledged the ubiquity of interdisciplinarity in engineering research and practice, their efforts to provide coordinated interdisciplinary experiences were just beginning to infiltrate the curriculum. These multi- and interdisciplinary programs were being managed so they would cause little disruption to the curriculum of the various majors, allowing students to benefit from interdisciplinary learning while circumventing the sometimes onerous process of changing the curriculum. This strategy was an intentional one. Interdisciplinary Options in Select Courses At Howard, the mission of the College of Engineering, Architecture and Computer Science (CEACS) informs its emphasis on interdisciplinarity:

The core values of the College include community and professional services, ethical responsibility and environmental stewardship. We expect our graduates to make significant contributions to the Nation’s productivity and technological advancement while remaining committed to improving the quality of life for all people, especially those who have the least power and fewest privileges.

Howard’s dean of engineering argued that students must be attuned to an understanding of business practices and processes and entrepreneurship. Technical knowledge alone, he explained, is insufficient; students must learn to communicate their ideas and designs effectively to a variety of stakeholders. The emphasis on interdisciplinarity is most evident in the senior capstone design courses, which may include students from mechanical engineering, business, and art, working with a sponsoring company. An art student reflected on how students from different discipline interact: “When we pick a design of the car we think of the aesthetics of the car, when they think of it, as like, is this going to work, is that going to work?”

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At VT, faculty circumvented the rigid curriculum by incorporating interdisciplinary team experiences in courses that are required of more than one major, for example, requiring teams of EE and CE majors to work collaboratively in an a microprocessor systems design course. In a human computer interaction course, students worked with faculty from the College of Architecture and Urban Studies and personnel in the Systems Technology Office and the Alumni Outreach Office to build a tablet interface so that individuals in wheelchairs could report problems entering campus buildings. Similarly, a new year-long course called Innovative Space, allows four to six engineering students to work with students from the School of Business and the School of Design Innovation at ASU. This multidisciplinary team works together for a year on projects and problems posed by industry. The course culminates with a prototype, which is presented to the industry client. Two engineering faculty are members of the teaching team for Innovation Space. An engineering alumnus commented on his experience in Innovation Space during a focus group interview:

You go through everything, not just the engineering of it, but of course you have the business person working on the business plan and then you have industrial designers and graphic designers working on making it look pretty and functional and ergonomic. And then you go through that entire thing and at the end it is an actual product that they’re going to take and bring it to, you know, try to sell the product to other people or license it out. . .

Likewise, the Technology Venture Clinic course teams students with legal experts to research patents for ASU-developed inventions. Interdisciplinary Learning in the Co-Curriculum

Faculty at all of our case study institutions viewed design projects and teams as a natural setting for interdisciplinary learning. While some capstone design courses offered interdisciplinary team options, most faculty members pointed to design competitions as key venues for building interdisciplinary skills and knowledge. At VT, engineering design competitions found a permanent home in 1998 in the Joseph Fulton Ware Jr. Advanced Engineering Laboratory (Ware Lab) and included Design Build Fly (DBF), Baja, Hybrid Electric Vehicle, (HEV) Formula, and Human-Powered Submarine (HPS). Faculty interviewed for this study estimated that between one-quarter and one-third of all Virginia Tech undergraduates participate in a design team at some point in their undergraduate careers. Design team participation can serve as a senior design capstone project in some departments, where students can earn up to six credits toward degree requirements, even if those design credits are earned in another engineering major. The persistent interest of UM students in interdisciplinary co-curricular activities was cited as a strong impetus for the development of interdisciplinary minor programs, but support for the co-curriculum – in terms of resources and faculty time – was also quite evident. Similar to VT’s WareLab, UM recently opened the Wilson Student Team Project Center, a 10,000 square-foot facility that houses space for design, assembly, machining, electronics, and painting, and is accessible 24-hours a day, seven days a week. Industry ties contribute to a focus on

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interdisciplinary experiences for students at ASU’s Polytechnic campus. The Polytechnic campus also has a new project space, the Advanced Technology Innovation Collaboratory, supports projects in which students, with faculty help, work on small projects with industry. Students, however, across our case study institutions also pointed to other types of co-curricular activities as contributing to their interdisciplinary knowledge and skills. Interdisciplinary research was often cited as an opportunity to work with faculty as well as peers on interdisciplinary projects. Clubs focusing on sustainability and humanitarian engineering projects, as well as entrepreneurship activities, similarly offered students chances to work with students from other majors as well as with those outside academia. National Study Findings In the following sections, we present findings from the national study to place the findings from the qualitative case studies in a broader context. We focus on curricular and co-curricular opportunities for interdisciplinarity and also report on student learning outcomes related to interdisciplinarity from our sample of 31 institutions (including the case study institutions). To what extent do engineering fields emphasize interdisciplinarity in the curriculum? Interdisciplinary content is emphasized differently in the curriculum across engineering subdisciplines, according to the engineering students, faculty and program chairs (Table 6). Across the three populations, means for the three scales measuring interdisciplinary curricular emphases were in the moderate range (on a 5-point scale where 1=Little/no emphasis; 2=Slight; 3=Moderate; 4=Strong; 5=Very strong). According to students, the field of industrial engineering emphasizes “broad perspectives” significantly more than any other discipline. Similarly, IE faculty members and chairs ranked at or near the top of the engineering disciplines in their reporting of emphasizing interdisciplinarity in courses and programs. Not surprisingly because of its interdisciplinary content, biomedical/bioengineering also ranked among the top few programs across all three surveys. Respondents from both of these disciplines noted a moderate to strong emphasis on interdisciplinarity. Electrical, chemical, and mechanical engineering consistently ranked in the bottom three disciplines in emphasis on interdisciplinary topics (the one exception is for chemical engineering chairs). Respondents on average across these disciplines indicated only a moderate level of emphasis. Though students, faculty, and program chairs report different magnitudes of emphasis in their engineering fields, the typical rankings of the disciplines are remarkably similar. Because faculty report on a single course, program chairs describe an entire curriculum, and students may not recognize certain aspects of a curriculum as interdisciplinary, the similarities in patterns across the disciplines lend support to the finding that certain disciplines emphasize interdisciplinarity more than others. If it is the assumption that general engineering programs are interdisciplinary, their ranking in the middle of the pack for each population is surprising; instead it appears that these programs are perceived as building disciplinary strength across several engineering fields. Alternatively, it may be that since nearly every aspect of these

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programs is designed to incorporate broad perspectives, respondents may simply not recognize this intention on a daily basis. Table 6. Mean curricular emphases related to interdisciplinarity as reported by students, faculty, and program chairs (standard deviations are in parentheses).

Students Faculty Program Chairs

n Broad Perspectives n Interdisciplinarity n Interdisciplinarity

Bio 127 3.14 (.86) 69 3.37 (.92)B 5 3.48 (.82)

Chem 230 2.99 (.75) 133 2.96 (.95) 12 3.44 (.85)

Civil 437 3.01 (.82) 245 3.26 (.86)B 18 3.27 (.78)

Elec 418 3.00 (.82) 471 2.82 (.97)C 17 2.86 (.88)

Gen 42 3.28 (.93) 74 3.07 (1.13) 1 3.20

Indus 120 3.56 (.82)A 87 3.35 (.84)B 10 3.48 (.63)

Mech 764 2.91 (.89) 305 2.98 (.82)C 19 3.14 (.65) AAccording to an ANOVA, this mean is significantly greater than all others. B,CAccording to an ANOVA, these are significantly different groups of disciplines by mean. What kinds of co-curricular experiences promote interdisciplinary learning? Studies of college-level learning indicate that much learning happens outside of the classroom in the co-curriculum. The P2P study asked students to report on their involvement in an array of co-curricular activities. Those displayed in Table 7 provide opportunities for students to interact with individuals and topics outside of their academic majors, and thus may promote students’ interdisciplinary learning. We observe disciplinary differences in the way in which students spend their time outside classes. Biomedical/bioengineers spend significantly more time in undergraduate research and completing community service. Cooperative education experiences tend to be pursued by civil, mechanical, and industrial engineers more frequently than by biomedical/bio- or chemical engineers. General engineering majors indicated that they spend more time than other majors studying abroad and engaged in humanitarian engineering projects. In addition, general, biomedical/bio-, electrical, and mechanical engineers spend more time than chemical or industrial engineers on design teams. Table 7.Students’reports of time spent participating in co-curricular activities.

Months:

Undergrad research

Months: Intern

Months: Co-op

Weeks: Study abroad

Weeks: Humanitarian

work

Weeks: Community

service

Weeks: Design teams

Bio 11.5 2.5 2.2 1.2 1.6 7.4 3.1

Chem 7.8 3.3 2.3 0.9 0.9 4.7 2.2

Civ 3.0 6.9 1.8 1.0 1.1 3.7 2.8

Elec 4.5 4.6 1.9 1.0 1.0 4.2 3.4

Gen 4.4 6.1 2.3 2.5 1.3 3.5 4.2

Indus 3.9 5.5 2.3 0.7 1.3 3.1 2.6

Mech 4.6 5.1 2.0 1.1 0.9 3.9 3.4

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How do interdisciplinary curricular and co-curricular experiences influence student learning? The student survey allows us to draw conclusions about interdisciplinary learning outcomes. The scores for the four scales used in this analysis, with the exception of teamwork, were derived from the interdisciplinary skills construct using factor analysis. The teamwork construct includes items related to both multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary teamwork (see Table 5), so we included it in our analyses. Averages from the four scales are shown by discipline in Table 8. On average, these scale scores provide evidence that seniors tend to agree, though not strongly agree, that they are proficient in this areas. As expected, scale scores are highest for the programs that are thought to be more interdisciplinary in nature (general engineering, biomedical engineering, and industrial engineering). A separate analysis found no differences in outcomes by race/ethnicity or gender. These scales moderately co-vary with one another (Table 9). Interestingly, the interdisciplinary skills scale has a higher correlation coefficient with teamwork skills than reflective behavior practice. The moderately high correlation between interdisciplinary and teamwork skills provides empirical evidence for the assertion by Borrego and Newswander (201042) that interdisciplinarity in science and engineering fields occurs in team activities. Table 8. Mean scale scores for student-reported learning outcomes.

Teamwork

Skills Interdisciplinary

Skills Reflective Behavior

Practice Recognizing Disciplinary

Perspectives

Bio 4.10 4.14 4.04 3.75

Chem 3.92 3.97 3.99 3.61

Civ 4.03 3.98 4.03 3.60

Elec 3.98 4.01 4.05 3.68

Gen 4.32 4.30 4.14 3.68

Indus 4.19 4.09 4.02 3.69

Mech 3.98 4.02 4.03 3.66

Table 9.Correlation coefficients between scales of student-reported learning outcomes.

Teamwork Skills

Interdisciplinary Skills

Reflective Behavior Practice

Recognizing Disciplinary Perspectives

Teamwork Skills 1

Interdisciplinary Skills .377 1 Reflective Behavior Practice .206 .299 1

Recognizing Disciplinary Perspectives .278 .441 .316 1

Finally, we ran a multiple regression analysis to determine the impact of both the co-curriculum and curriculum on the interdisciplinary skills outcome. Results from an overall regression as

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well as regressions for individual disciplines are shown in Table 10. Several observations can be made from this table:

1. Both the co-curriculum and the curriculum are important predictors of seniors’ interdisciplinary skills in the engineering fields studied. Because the R2 value of each increases with the inclusion of the other, both explain the variance in the learning outcome. This finding provides additional empirical support for the conceptual framework that guided the study.

2. Future analyses should examine each engineering discipline separately rather than controlling for discipline. Table 10 shows that different aspects of the control variables, co-curriculum, and curriculum are important depending on the discipline of focus.

3. The “broad perspectives” scale, which measures curricular emphasis on interdisciplinarity, is

a powerful predictor of interdisciplinary skills. For the most part, the Betas for this variable exceed that of all other variables.

4. These co-curriculum, curriculum, and control variables have varying abilities across

engineering disciplines to predict interdisciplinary skills. At most, they predict 39% of the variance for industrial engineers; at least, they predict 16% of the variance for civil engineers.

5. A student’s SAT critical reading score is a good predictor of their senior-year, self-reported

interdisciplinary skills for several engineering subdisciplines.

6. Participation in different co-curricular activities is related to interdisciplinary skills, dependent upon the engineering subdiscipline.

Table 10.Statistically significant betas for multiple regression analyses (dependent variable: student-reported interdisciplinary skills outcome). Each column represents a separate regression. Two sets of R2 values show the differential influence of entering the co-curriculum variables prior to the curriculum variable and vice versa. Shading indicates whether entering the co-curriculum variable or curriculum variable explained a greater amount of variance.

All Bio Chem Civ Elec Gen1 Ind Mech

Control Variables

Gender (reference=female)

Race (reference=White)

African American -.07***

Asian American Hispanic/Latino/a

American

Other -.15*

Pre-College Academics

SAT Critical Reading Score .20*** .20* .34*** .20** .26***

SAT Math Score -.17** -.19***

Institution Size (ref=large)

Small -.05* -.12**

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Medium -.08*

Highest Degree (ref=doctorate)

Bachelors

Masters .05*

Curriculum Broad and systems perspectives emphasis (Students’ reports) .34*** .37*** .*** .33*** .33*** .31* .38*** .32***

Co-Curriculum

Undergraduate research .08*** .16** .12* .07*

Internship .04*

Cooperative education internship -.15*

Engin club for prof society -0.05* -.13* Engin club for women/minorities

Other clubs/activities .07** .12* .17***

Study abroad

Humanitarian project .05* .18*** .27*

Community service

Student design .05* .14**

R2

Controls .039 .080 .046 .047 .042 .083 .175 .062

Controls + Curriculum .153 .200 .181 .148 .151 .174 .326 .179

Controls + Co-Curriculum .070 .134 .151 .062 .093 .249 .284 .135

Controls + Curriculum + Co-Curriculum .174 .250 .283 .159 .185 .317 .393 .230

***Statistically significant difference at the p<0.001 level. **Statistically significant difference at the p<0.01 level. *Statistically significant difference at the p<0.05 level. 1Model is not statistically significant. Discussion and Conclusions Our qualitative case studies of six institutions revealed numerous efforts to promote interdisciplinary learning in engineering programs, through general engineering majors, general education requirements, minor programs, and design courses. Faculty also pointed to industry-sponsored projects and design competitions, whether for academic credit or as supplements to the formal curriculum, as opportunities to encourage interdisciplinary teamwork and skills. The results of our statistical analyses of survey data from 31 institutions (including our case study institutions) provides evidence that both curricula and co-curricular activities contribute to students’ interdisciplinary learning, although the contribution that each makes to student learning outcomes appears to vary by discipline. Our findings suggest that regardless of discipline, a curricular emphasis on “broad and systems perspectives” promotes interdisciplinary learning outcomes. All types of engineering programs, it appears, can encourage interdisciplinary learning by asking students to consider the contexts in which engineering is practiced, by making explicit connections among disciplinary concepts, and by stressing systems perspectives and the application of knowledge from different disciplines in engineering problem-solving. Studies at the classroom-level to examine the relative effectiveness

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of these varied curricular approaches, as well as others not examined in this study, are needed to help engineering faculty promote interdisciplinary habits of thinking among undergraduates. Although the influence of students’ participation in co-curricular activities on their interdisciplinary learning outcomes varied across the seven engineering fields we studied, our results suggest that particular kinds of experiences foster interdisciplinary skills in certain fields. For example, if students in an engineering field are more likely to participate in undergraduate research, programs seeking to promote interdisciplinary learning might take advantage of this by focusing resources on such co-curricular options. Future research should examine why student engagement in internships and engineering-related clubs appears to have a small but negative influence on interdisciplinary skills. It may be that such activities focus students squarely on, and deepen their understanding of, their chosen field of study. Participation in non-engineering clubs and activities appears, in contrast, seems to have a positive, albeit limited, influence on students’ interdisciplinary habits of mind. The extent to which engineering programs should encourage co-curricular involvements that take students out of engineering, but engage them in significant ways with students from other fields of study, is a question engineering faculty may wish to consider. When students have limited time to spend on co-curricular activities such as design competitions because of work and other obligations, increasing the emphasis on interdisciplinary learning in the formal curriculum is both warranted and responsive to the needs of a changing student population. Findings from our case study institutions provide some suggestions for how interdisciplinarity can be incorporated into and throughout undergraduate curricula. Future research should explore the relationship between particular types of curricular emphasis – for example, core curricula, major programs, and stand-alone courses – and student learning outcomes. References 1. National Academy of Sciences (2004). Facilitating interdisciplinary research. Washington, D.C.: National

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