A Review of Outcome-Based Education and the Use of Engineering Design Competitions to Improve Underrepresented Attributes

摘要

Engineering as a profession is becoming increasingly complex and competitive. New technologies (advanced telecommunications and computer-aided engineering), and reduced barriers to international trade have allowed corporations to move engineering activities into emerging economies. These factors have allowed corporations to "unlock'' traditional forms of organizational integration and undergraduate engineering programs in universities in these developing countries are quickly approaching the quality of programs in western countries, vastly increasing the pool of engineers from which companies can draw. The reduced cost of operation in these emerging economies has put pressure on western countries to produce engineers that can encourage companies to keep high quality, technical engineering jobs local, instead of outsourcing. This raises the question: what are the attributes of a high-quality engineer, and what changes to the engineering curriculum need to occur to emphasize these attributes? In this paper, we examined the history of modern engineering education and the push toward an outcome based evaluation of graduate skills. We identified which where the most important graduate outcomes in engineering practice, and outlined how engineering design project courses can be used to emphasize these attributes. Engineering design competitions were highlighted as an ideal source for projects when coupled with the teaching techniques of problem based learning (PBL) and cooperative learning (CL).