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Background: In Spring 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic sent universities into emergency remote education. The pandemic has been disruptive but offers the opportunity to learn about ways to support students in other situations where abrupt changes to teaching and learning are necessary. Purpose/Hypothesis: We described the responses of engineering and computer science students to a series of prompts about their experiences with remote learning. Design/Method Data: about students' remote learning experiences were collected from undergraduate engineering and computer science students at four different universities through an end-of-semester survey. Descriptive statistics were calculated, and qualitative responses were analyzed using qualitative content analysis through the lenses of master narrative theory and sociocultural theory. Results: Student responses revealed how their individual circumstances combined to reduce motivation, create home environments detrimental to completing schoolwork, and increase stress. Many students described the negative impacts of remote learning, but some students found positive aspects of the situation. The majority of students did not indicate a change in their desire or plans to pursue engineering or computer science majors. Conclusions: There was wide variation in how students experienced the disruption to university learning during Spring 2020. Implications of this paper can help not only in cases where emergency remote learning is needed in the future but also as universities seek to return to "normal" operations in 2022 and beyond.

Despite growing efforts, diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives have yet to address long-standing engineering participation disparities. Often, diversity and inclusion issues, along with other societal challenges, are perceived as unrelated to engineering. Conversely, engineering as currently practiced and taught is embedded in dominant culture norms that are frequently invisible to the majority of the students and faculty. One strategy to shift this erroneous "neutral" perspective is to integrate diversity and inclusion into engineering curricula. Using inclusive professional identities as a theoretical lens, we developed an activity that incorporates diversity and inclusion into the technical content of Engineering Mechanics: Statics. Using thematic analysis, we found that students' responses to prompts about their identities, engineering as a profession, and their perceived learning revealed two primary themes: teamwork and engineering/math-related skills/experiences. Although diversity and inclusion were included in responses, students did not connect diversity and inclusion to engineering as a profession. Therefore, students might need more support to make this connection. Although singular activities cannot explicitly overcome racism, sexism, or other deeply entrenched biases in our society, the activity type we describe might help students develop a more holistic perspective of engineering and understand the importance of addressing biases in their future engineering careers.

Ongoing efforts to broaden the participation of women and people of colour in engineering degree programmes and careers have had limited success. This paper describes a different approach to broadening participation that seeks to work with all students and develop inclusive engineering identities. Researchers worked with the instructors of two first-year engineering courses to integrate curriculum activities designed to promote the formation of engineering identities and build an appreciation for how diversity and inclusion strengthen engineering practice. Multilevel modelling results indicated positive effects of the intervention on appreciation for diversity but no effects on engineering identity, and qualitative results indicated students learned the most about diversity not through one of the intervention activities, but through team projects in the courses. We also describe lessons learned in how to teach engineering students about diversity in ways that are relevant to engineering.

Background: The lack of diversity within engineering degree programs and occupations has been an ongoing concern for decades. National engineering programs have placed a high priority on broadening participation in engineering and making the engineering culture more inclusive. Specifically, the cultivation of engineering students' inclusive professional engineering identities (IPEIs)—or the value these individuals place on diversity and their willingness to act inclusively within engineering contexts—might be one way to address this long‐standing lack of representation. Purpose: Rooted in theoretical contexts regarding professional identity development, the purpose of this study is to uncover developmental patterns of first‐year engineering students' IPEIs and factors that influence IPEI cultivation. Methods: This study built upon the previous variable‐centered research findings regarding IPEI development. Specifically, the person‐centered approach of random intercept latent transition analysis (RI‐LTA) was utilized. RI‐LTA allows for the detection of different meaningful groups of individuals demonstrating similarities on the construct and investigating these groups for probabilistic changes over time. Results: Four IPEI groups of students emerged with IPEI developmental patterns that were not always stable. Student IPEI classifications differed significantly across gender and students' levels of engineering identity. Furthermore, a series of intervention experiences instigated an even more malleable nature to student IPEIs. Conclusions: Engineering students' IPEIs demonstrate some likelihood to change over time, with intervention experiences enhancing the likelihoods for changes to occur. Continuing to investigate factors influencing the positive cultivation of students' IPEIs is fundamental to broadening participation in engineering and making the engineering culture more inclusive. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Working in small groups to solve problems is an instructional strategy that allows university students in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics disciplines the opportunity to practice interpersonal and professional skills while gaining and applying discipline-specific content knowledge. Previous research indicates that not all group work prompts result in the same experiences for students. In this study we posed two types of prompts (guided and open) to undergraduate engineering students in a statics course as they participated in group work projects. We measured student discourse, student performance, and perceptions of group work. We found that guided prompts were associated with higher-level discourse and higher performance (project scores) than open prompts. Students engaged in guided prompts were more likely to discuss distribution of labour and design/calculation details of their projects than when students responded to open prompts. We posit that guided prompts, which more clearly articulate expectations of students, help students determine how to divide tasks amongst themselves and, subsequently, jump to higher levels of discourse.

This study examined the impact of incorporating group design projects into a second-year engineering class on achievement goal orientations and two academic outcomes: concept inventory and final exam scores. In this study, two sections were taught using lecture format, but one section also completed three group design projects as part of their curriculum. The intervention of incorporating group design projects had a positive effect on mastery goals and a negative effect on performance-approach goals. The effect of the intervention on academic outcomes was mediated by mastery goals but not performance-approach or performance-avoidance goals. Implications and future directions are discussed.

Low-volume roads (LVRs) are restricted with limited maintenance funding due to the recent national economic downturn. Only few selected LVRs with deteriorated pavements are typically rehabilitated in which poor LVRs are expected to continue deteriorating to extreme levels of distress. Colorado Department of Transportation (CDOT) is evaluating pavement treatments on LVRs to find the most cost-effective maintenance strategies. As part of these efforts, a comprehensive optimization analysis is adopted in this paper to investigate alternative maintenance strategies and define the capital improvement plans for deteriorated LVRs with marginal pavement conditions. A proposed strategy was found to enhance the effectiveness of current policies followed by CDOT. However, the results emphasize the need for additional resources at network level for dealing with deteriorated LVRs. The optimization procedure described in this paper can be followed by other agencies nationwide to identify strategies and establish funding needs that secure higher funding from decision makers.Key words: low volume roads, pavement management system, pavement maintenance, optimization analysis, life-cycle cost analysis.Les routes a faible circulation (RFC) sont limitees par le financement reduit pour l'entretien en raison du ralentissement de l'economie nationale recent. Seules quelques RFC deteriorees sont typiquement choisies pour une remise en etat et on s'attend a ce que les RFC en mauvais etat continuent a se deteriorer a des niveaux de detresse extremes. Le<>(<< CDOT>>) evalue les types de chaussees sur les RFC pour trouver les strategies d'entretien les plus rentables. Dans le cadre de ces efforts, une analyse d'optimisation complete est adoptee dans cette etude afin d'examiner les strategies d'entretien en solution de rechange et de definir les plans d'amelioration des immobilisations pour les RFC deteriorees dont l'etat de la chaussee est limite. On a trouve une strategie proposee pour ameliorer l'efficacite des politiques actuelles suivies par le CDOT. Cependant, les resultats soulignent le besoin de ressources supplementaires au niveau du reseau afin de s'occuper des RFC deteriorees. La procedure d'optimisation decrite dans cette etude peut etre suivie par d'autres agences dans tout le pays afin d'elaborer des strategies et d'etablir les besoins de financement qui puissent garantir un financement plus important de la part des decideurs. [Traduit par la Redaction]Mots-cles: routes a faible circulation, systeme de gestion routiere, entretien des chaussees, analyse d'optimisation, analyse des couts sur la duree de la vie utile., IntroductionMaintaining poor roads is the most challenging task in pavement management systems (PMSs), especially when treatments are restricted with insufficient maintenance budgets (TRIP 2017). According to the American Society of [...]

Over the last two decades, many researchers have focused on providing new ideas and frameworks to help improve conventional bridge inspection planning approaches, however, little guidance is provided for implementing these new ideas in practice, resulting in limited change. Accordingly, this qualitative study aims to identify the factors that can help improve research products and accelerate research transfer to bridge inspection departments with the goal of enhancing bridge inspection practice. This study used semi-structured interviews, written interviews, and questionnaires for data collection to provide rich results. Responses from twenty-six bridge personnel from state Departments of Transportation (DOTs) across the United States (U.S.) were included in this study. The study found that most participants support a fixed inspection interval over a variable interval since fixed intervals are easier in scheduling and budget planning. Also, participants indicated that the barriers hindering the use of nondestructive techniques are the training required by inspectors, traffic control, and the required access equipment. The study presents the factors change leaders should focus on to facilitate organizational change in DOTs such as enhancing the capacity of DOT staff members and gaining support from the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Engineering programs strive to retain students and prepare them for engineering careers. Introducing group design projects into courses may help keep students interested while also improving their learning outcomes. Purpose/Hypothesis: This study measures differences in student content knowledge and intention to persist in engineering between an intervention section with group design projects and a comparison section without. We hypothesized that students in the intervention section would show an increase in both outcomes that could be demonstrated with structural equation models based on social cognitive career theory (SCCT). Design/Method: Intervention and comparison sections of a statics course were taught by the same instructor with predominately lectures. Students in the intervention section participated in three group design projects that supplemented the course content. All students took pre-tests and post-tests that assessed statics content knowledge and variables in SCCT. Data were analyzed using structural equation modeling. Results: The use of projects did not result in higher self-efficacy, outcome expectations, content knowledge, or intention to persist for students in the intervention. However, for students in the intervention section, there were strong positive relationships between self-efficacy and outcome expectations and between intention to persist and content knowledge that were not demonstrated in the comparison section. Conclusions: By using SCCT to model how students develop into engineers, we could detect the effect of introducing projects into a statics course. Connections formed by students in the intervention section between their own abilities, goals, and success in engineering demonstrate that group design projects do benefit students.

Sustainability is a vital interdisciplinary concept to address within engineering education. Furthermore, the natural connections that exist between sustainability and social justice provide an optimal opportunity to integrate both into curricula. We argue that engineering curricula ought to include sustainability and social justice so future engineers are trained to understand both societal and technical implications of their work, while acknowledging the challenges engineering faculty may face in conceptualizing social justice or social sustainability. We then highlight how new sustainable design rating systems, such as Envision and The Living Building Challenge, embed inclusion and social justice into their ratings and how these sustainability rating systems can help engineering faculty bring social justice into their classrooms in ways that meaningfully link to engineering content. Finally, we present two examples of how sustainability and social justice can be incorporated into the civil engineering curriculum through inclusive pedagogy and new curricula: (1) a semester-long effort to document, design, and improve the inclusive pedagogical practices in a first-year engineering course that included the theme of sustainability throughout much of the class meetings; and (2) a new assignment about the Envision rating system and the societal implications of rebuilding a major component of regional infrastructure. We conclude with recommendations that other instructors can use to begin incorporating social justice in their courses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Most transportation agencies employ low-cost surface treatments and light pavement rehabilitation as affordable maintenance strategies on Low-volume roads (LVRs). Yet, decisions about these treatments are made based primarily on local experience and can differ significantly in different management regions. Therefore, the effectiveness of different treatments should be documented. In the state of Colorado, specific maintenance policies are implemented on the pavement management of LVRs due to limited funding. In 2018, a regional survey of practice was conducted to collect information on managing LVRs in Colorado. The objective is to identify efficient pavement management systems for the benefit of implementation and guidance nationwide. This paper summarises the main results of the survey and provides a comprehensive discussion of key issues related to managing LVRs. The optimisation strategies and target levels were proposed, and a case study was optimised as part of a multi-year maintenance planning. As a result of this study, transportation agencies can determine future budget needs, funding allocations and treatment policy in order to demonstrate the best possible use of pavement management resources on LVRs. It also provides useful guidelines for LVRs practitioners who understand the importance of promoting the education of considering effective maintenance practices and funding for roads in the lower management levels. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]