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Engineering graduates require high-level cognitive abilities such as analysis, synthesis and evaluation to fulfill their obligations to society. But universities have not always been successful in developing such abilities. This paper questions whether engineering students in a civil engineering degree program at a university in South Africa are being adequately prepared to engage in higher-order cognitive activities such as reasoning, predicting, analyzing, and problem solving. The paper deploys the structure of the observed learning outcome (SOLO) taxonomy to classify assessment questions according to cognitive demand and compares first- and second-year students' abilities to deal with questions of varying cognitive complexity. The results show that the second-year cohort performed substantively better on questions requiring mathematical calculation but not in other question types. In fact, they performed slightly worse on high-cognitive-demand questions and substantially worse on questions requiring visual identification of problems. This may imply that the additional year of higher education serves to equip students with improved mathematical abilities but does little to enhance their ability to engage in high-cognitive-demand activities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Learning ability is one of the most distinctive characteristics that make humans social creatures. Numerous research has found that individuals learn in different ways, so every student has a different, individual learning style. The more instructors understand the learning differences of their students, the better their chances of success in civil engineering education. Therefore, determining the learning styles of civil engineering students is an important factor in their academic success. The research reported in this paper aims to explore the learning styles of civil engineering students in Turkey, and correlate their learning styles with success in construction management courses, gender, age, type of university, and year of engineering study. Data were collected using the Kolb Learning Style Inventory II, from civil engineering students in undergraduate programs at four different universities. The questionnaire was administered to students by direct contact, and 227 items of data were collected. At the end of the research reported in this paper, it was revealed that there is a correlation between learning styles and management success, age, year of civil engineering education, and type of university, but not gender. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Motivation is a psychological construct shown to influence an individual's success. Researchers have focused on factors affecting student motivation but have neglected to address the temporal changes in student motivation and the effects of these changes on academic performance. The purpose of this paper is to answer three main questions: What variables motivate students? Do the motivational variables change over time? And is there a relationship between the motivational variables that influence students and their academic performance as measured in grade point average (GPA)? Using a questionnaire survey approach, this study explores self-determinacy theory to evaluate students' progression over a three-year enrollment in an undergraduate civil and environmental engineering degree. The evaluation showed that internal factors are the primary motivators of students with high GPA. Also, students' quality and the quantity of motivation decreased with time in pursuit of a constant goal. Gender differences highlighted that females had superior self-regulatory practices to males. By setting intermediate report deadlines with performance feedback, educators would improve male students' self-regulatory practices through an improvement of their organization and goal setting skills. These findings provide a better understanding of student attrition than previously acknowledged in the literature. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a unique faculty development program called Gaining Retention and Achievement for Students Program (GRASP) developed at New Mexico State University. A fundamental assumption of GRASP is faculty are crucial to student retention and achievement, hence the primary focus on faculty. GRASP focuses on incorporating faculty’s teaching behaviors which increase student retention and achievement. The program is composed of four interlaced components: assessment of student learning styles; faculty development to cultivate and implement appropriate teaching strategies; in-class observations and feedback of faculty and students’ classroom behavior; and assessment of the impact on student retention and achievement. Student enrollment data is presented to demonstrate the success of GRASP in improving student retention and achievement. Faculty surveys indicate faculty changed teaching practices and intend to use program strategies in future semesters. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The new ASCE Vision and Body of Knowledge embraces the attitude toward and skills of lifelong learning, indicating the need of acquiring self-regulated learning (SRL) skills. Although civil engineering education has primarily focused on instilling technological knowledge to students, less attention has been paid toward offering deliberate training for nurturing such required high-order skills based on how people learn. This paper introduces the theoretical construct of SRL and the effective pedagogies of cultivating SRL skills from educational research findings, presents a novel instructional framework and its procedures to support students' SRL skill development, and reports its implementation outcomes in civil engineering curricula at a minority-serving institution. The key instructional strategy is to integrate the prompted self-assessment with the course learning tasks into the students' learning processes. Its effect has been evaluated through the feasible assessment practice. Assessment results reveal that the presented framework may benefit students' learning performance, and the majority of students perceived the importance of SRL skills and were interested in developing SRL skills. The limitations of this study and future improvement are also discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As the field of civil engineering evolves to address twenty-first century challenges, the demand for creative and innovative thinking rises. Engineering institutions around the nation have begun to integrate sustainability into the curriculum. Topics such as innovation and entrepreneurship are highly correlated with sustainability goals; however, many times they are viewed as market or management-driven principles. The Kern Entrepreneurship Education Network (KEEN) Program was established to transform the U.S. workforce through equipping graduate engineers with an entrepreneurial mindset. This program is based on KEEN student outcomes (KSOs), which can be incorporated into department level, as well as course level, curricula. This paper focuses on the integration of KSOs into a senior civil engineering capstone course through two course activities over two years. KEEN rubrics are used to assess student achievement of the KSOs focused on innovative thinking and productive collaboration. The assessment results indicate that there are existing strengths as well as future opportunities to enhance student performance of innovative thinking and open-ended problem solving--skills that are essential to promoting sustainable design and development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Learning more about the career outcome expectations of students interested in civil engineering can help identify gaps between their expectations and sustainability challenges. The authors used data from two national surveys to compare students interested in civil engineering and other engineering disciplines. Those interested in civil engineering are more likely to address such sustainability topics as environmental degradation, water supply, and climate change. However, civil engineering students are less likely to have outcome expectations related to disease and saving lives. Particularly, female students interested in civil engineering have similar expectations to males but also hope to address poverty and opportunities for women and minorities. The gaps in outcome expectations related to disease and saving lives are troubling for a profession that is so instrumental in providing, for example, clean water and safe shelter. Showing the connection between societal needs and civil engineering may broaden participation, including among underrepresented female students. Recruiting more undergraduates using these outcome expectations would bring sorely needed new ideas and ways of thinking to help civil engineering respond to sustainability challenges. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Forum papers are thought-provoking opinion pieces or essays founded in fact, sometimes containing speculation, on a civil engineering topic of general interest and relevance to the readership of the journal. The views expressed in this Forum article do not necessarily reflect the views of ASCE or the Editorial Board of the journal. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There are various teaching approaches that instructors may adopt in their quest to teach effectively, and students can choose from a range of learning approaches to help them achieve good grades. This study investigates the effectiveness of personal learning approaches adopted by undergraduates and the teaching approaches employed by instructors in the context of construction engineering courses. The research questions are as follows. (1) What are the students' learning approaches that lead to better academic achievement? (2) What are the instructors' teaching approaches that give rise to better academic achievement? The study also aims to construct a model to predict a student's likely academic performance in a construction engineering course. The research design is a self-administered survey. Using a structured questionnaire consisting of questions relating to learning strategies and teaching approaches, data were collected from undergraduates who majored in construction engineering. Statistical analyses undertaken include Pearson correlation and multiple linear regression modeling. Pearson correlation analysis shows that both the Growing Teaching approach and the students' Achieving Motive learning approach are significantly correlated with academic performance. A robust grade prediction model was developed, whereby a student's grade in a construction engineering course may be predicted using one teaching approach (Growing Teaching) and three learning approaches (Achieving Motive, Achieving Strategy, and Deep Motive). To help students obtain higher grades in a construction engineering course, instructors should adopt the Growing Teaching approach, and students should adopt the Achieving Motive learning approach. Because students who adopt the Deep Motive learning approach are penalized with lower grades, it is recommended that instructors modify their teaching methods and approaches so that students do not take shortcuts in their learning without deeper regard for higher-order learning outcomes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on the life and works of engineer Corydon Tyler Purdy in the U.S. It discusses the involvement of Purdy in the design of more skyscrapers and his significant contributions to the advancement of structural design and the establishment of the consulting structural engineering profession. It elaborates Purdy's relationship with his family, career development and educational achievement.