Critical Pedagogies and First-year Engineering Students' Conceptions of 'What it Means to be an Engineer'

Popular stereotypes regarding the type of work engineers do, the values of the engineering profession, and the types of people that become engineers tend to emphasize technical skills and logical problem-solving—often positioning broader global or societal implications as peripheral, secondary concerns. Though numerous studies of engineering practice run counter to such perceptions, these misconceptions persist nonetheless, creating barriers to participation and often causing engineers to overlook critical factors throughout the design process and when evaluating the impacts of their solutions. Thus, we argue that in order to enhance the quality of both the engineering profession and engineers themselves, learning environments should engage students with content that accentuates the connections between engineering and society and addresses the conflict between popular perceptions and actual engineering practice. One successful approach to creating such learning environments is through the use of critical pedagogies. Albeit underutilized in engineering education, critical pedagogies can engage students with knowledge and ways of thinking that enable thoughtful critique of the systems, rules, artifacts, and other worldly aspects that are often taken for granted. The purpose of this paper is to explore the ways in which critical pedagogies used during a summer bridge program can influence incoming, first-year college students’ perceptions of what it means to be an engineer. Through open-ended entrance surveys and written responses on a final exam, participants were asked to define what it meant to be an engineer. Thematic analysis was used to explore student responses. Findings demonstrate shifts in both students’ perceptions of the engineering profession and their own engineering identities. While entry survey responses focused predominantly on notions of problem solving using math and/or science, students’ final responses discussed topics such as the importance of collaboration in engineering, the need for diverse thinking, and the broader social impact of engineering decision-making. Students articulated increased interest in, as well as more, comprehensive definitions of engineering. Our results suggest that critical pedagogies, particularly situated in summer bridge programs, may be an effective strategy for expanding perceptions of engineering held by first year engineering students. Furthermore, this research has broader implications for pre-college engineering activities and serves to further the conversation surrounding outreach and recruitment of students in engineering. Introduction To the optimist, the glass is half full. To the pessimist, the glass is half empty. To the engineer, the glass is twice as big as it needs to be. We begin this paper with a common joke told about and among engineers. An engineer observes a glass and, in contrast to two others’ observations about the level of liquid, decides that the glass is simply too big. The joke here being that while the thoughts of optimists and pessimists are clouded by notions of subjectivity and relativism, the engineer is able to see things as they truly are and make a judgment about—importantly—how things ought to be. The engineer in this joke does not recognize the validity of personal observation or viewpoints in decision-making and instead sees a world that can be objectively experienced and quantifiable. In some ways this joke even implies that both the optimist and pessimist are wrong about their observations, and that the engineer redefines the situation so as to solve the “right” problem. Although seemingly harmless, such a joke has important implications for how engineers and engineering students conceive of their work: engineers not only pride themselves on their logical (read, objective) problemsolving abilities, they eschew subjectivity altogether. Donna Riley (2008), in her book Engineering and Social Justice, points out this joke and others as consequences of potentially problematic stereotypes about engineers’ worldviews. Popular notions about the kinds of work engineers do, the values of the profession, and the types of people that become engineers tend to emphasize technical skills and logical problem solving— often relegating social concerns (Riley, 2008). When we think about engineers and what they do, we often conjure up images of “hardcore nerds” who love to apply math and science (“College Majors and Stereotypes, What Does Your Major Say About You? ,” 2012). They love building and tinkering and making things. They are sitting alone in a lab or with a computer, some equations on a whiteboard behind them. Engineers are often painted in such a light, which not only perpetuates these stereotypes, but can limit the way engineers think about problems and make decisions in everyday practice (Trevelyan, 2010). Problematic Perceptions In contrast to popular conceptions, we know from ethnographic and phenomenological research that engineering is a fundamentally social activity (Bucciarelli, 2001). Engineers work together to solve complex problems that have global, societal, environmental, and economic implications (K. Lewis et al., 2011). From observations and interviews, Trevelyan (2010) found that engineers’ work is enabled through complex networks within and across departments and organizations, and that cooperative relationships are critical for effective practice. At the same time, however, engineers maintain strict, rigid boundaries around what is—and importantly, what is not—real engineering work (Trevelyan, 2010). Even though practicing engineers spend more time in engaged social interactions (e.g., meetings, phone calls) and coordinating information (Trevelyan & Tilli, 2008), they consistently describe such activities as “nonengineering. ” Given the difference between what engineers do and what people think engineers do, it is perhaps not surprising that even practicing engineers have conflicting ideas about how they spend their time at work. These findings are also consistent with ethnographic work with software engineers (Faulkner, 2000). In addition to drawing distinct boundaries around real engineering and social activities, Faulkner (2000) found that engineers also hold implicit values on these different dimensions that value technical skills and relegate social proficiency. Through observations and interviews, Faulkner showed how engineers are prone to dichotomous styles of thought broadly, which prompts them to distinguish between technical and social, specifically (i.e., that which is technical is not social, and vice versa). In this way, to use technical skills is to do “real engineering” while social skills are seen as peripheral and therefore less valuable. Further, by positioning them as opposite poles of a spectrum, Faulkner (2000) demonstrates how these stereotypes almost naturally map onto notions of gender performance, with technical being decidedly masculine and social markedly feminine. Thus, not only do engineers make clear distinctions between what kind of work is important and what is not, they are tacitly assigning gender to different roles and the skills required for them. One can see how the findings from Faulkner (2000) in the context of those from Trevelyan combine to produce problematic relationships surrounding what is engineering practice and what kinds of skills are valued within it. In other words, if technical and social are seen as opposite ends of a spectrum, and if technical work is perceived as the “real work” then the social aspects of engineering will necessarily be devalued. Further, if this technical/social dualism is inherently gendered, then we can see not only how common stereotypes paint inaccurate portraits of and perpetuate misconceptions about engineering but also how these misconceptions create barriers to participation for those who might not identify with those stereotypical, albeit false, perceptions of the profession. Changing the Conversation Trevelyan calls for a re-conceptualization of engineering in ways that position it as “a much broader human social performance than traditional narratives that focus just on design and technical problem-solving” (Trevelyan, 2010, p. 175). Given what we understand about the kinds of work engineers do and the skills needed to solve modern engineering problems, engineers need to understand the broader scope of their practice as well as its impacts within a larger society. In changing the conversation around who engineers are and what engineers do, we can both develop more useful, relevant curricula and in turn, break down some of the popular cultural notions of engineering that perpetuate barriers to entry. One way to promote these changes in perceptions of engineering is through critical pedagogy. Critical pedagogy has its roots in the philosophical and educational traditions of Paulo Freire, whose work has inspired new and alternative approaches to the “banking model” of education (Freire, 2000). The banking model refers to the structure of education in which knowledge is positioned as a currency which the professor possesses and which the students seek. In this model, students act as passive receivers of knowledge. Moreover, the knowledge is mostly sought after in order to perform on homework, quizzes, and exams—that is, rarely is knowledge acquired for purposes beyond acquisition and subsequent demonstration (Giroux, 2011). In contrast, critical pedagogies promote student-centered, active learning environments that give students control over their own knowledge creation. By creating a more equitable distribution of power in the classroom, critical pedagogies provide students with opportunities to deconstruct and critique knowledge that is often taken for granted (Riley, 2003). Though this approach is more common in humanities, arts, and social sciences, it is precisely the notions of objectivity and positivism rampant in engineering cult