Electrical and Computer Engineering Books Electrical and Computer Engineering

2016

Philosophical and Educational Perspectives onEngineering and Technological Literacy, IIIJohn W. BlakeAustin Peay State University

Alan ChevilleBucknell University

Kate A. DisneyMission College

Stephen T. FrezzaGannon University

John HeywoodUniversity of Dublin, Trinity College

See next page for additional authors

Follow this and additional works at: http://lib.dr.iastate.edu/ece_books

Part of the Electrical and Computer Engineering Commons, and the Engineering EducationCommons

This Book is brought to you for free and open access by the Electrical and Computer Engineering at Iowa State University Digital Repository. It hasbeen accepted for inclusion in Electrical and Computer Engineering Books by an authorized administrator of Iowa State University Digital Repository.For more information, please contact digirep@iastate.edu.

Recommended CitationBlake, John W.; Cheville, Alan; Disney, Kate A.; Frezza, Stephen T.; Heywood, John; Hilgarth, Carl O.; Krupczak, John Jr.; Libros,Randy; Mina, Mani; and Walk, Steven R., "Philosophical and Educational Perspectives on Engineering and Technological Literacy, III"(2016). Electrical and Computer Engineering Books. 3.http://lib.dr.iastate.edu/ece_books/3

AuthorsJohn W. Blake, Alan Cheville, Kate A. Disney, Stephen T. Frezza, John Heywood, Carl O. Hilgarth, JohnKrupczak Jr., Randy Libros, Mani Mina, and Steven R. Walk

This book is available at Iowa State University Digital Repository: http://lib.dr.iastate.edu/ece_books/3

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Philosophical and

Educational Perspectives in Engineering and Technological

Literacy 3

Technological and Engineering Literacy and Philosophy of Engineering Division of ASEE 2015 – 2016

ChairMani Mina, Electrical and Computer Engineering, Iowa State University, Ames, IA

Program ChairCarl Hilgarth, Department of Engineering Technology, Shawnee State University, Portsmouth, OH

Secretary/TreasurerAlan Cheville, Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Bucknell University, Lewisburg, PA

Past chairman2011 - 2013 John W. Blake, Engineering Technology, Austin Peay State University, Clarksville, TN2009 – 2011 John Krupczak Jr., Engineering Department, Hope College, Holland, MI

……………………………….

Philosophical and Educational Perspectives on Engineering and Technological Literacy handbooks are published by Members of theTechnological and Engineering Literacy and Philosophy of Engineering Division of the American Society for Engineering Education.

© The copyright of each paper is vested in its author. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any form or byany means- graphic, electronic, mechanical including photocopying, recording, taping or information storage and retrieval system withoutprior permission of of the author or authors.

©The copyright of the paper by J. Krupczak et al in this issue is vested with the American Society for Engineering Education.

Handbook No 3 is edited by John Heywood, Trinity College- the University of Dublin, Dublin 2, Ireland.

This issue is printed by Reads, Main St. Bray, Co. Wicklow, Ireland

Philosophical and Educational Perspectives on Engineering and Technological Literacy, 3

Contents

Editorial

Articles Page

Considering the engineering mindset-a response to “Does Engineering education BreedTerrorists?”Stephen T. FrezzaResponses from Alan Cheville and John Heywood

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Defining engineering and technological literacyJohn Krupczak jr, John W. Blake, Kate. A Disney, Carl O. Hilgarth, Randy Libros, ManiMina and Steven R. Walk

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The idea of a firm as a learning organization and its implications for learning-how-to learnJohn HeywoodResponses by John Krupczak jr, Mani Mina, John Blake and Alan Cheville.

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Non Nova, Sed Nove Part II: John Macmurray and Engineering EducationAlan Cheville

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John Dewey’s philosophical perspectives and engineering EducationMani Mina

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…………………………………………….

Contributors

Dr John W. Blake is Professor of Engineering Technology in the School of Technology and PublicManagement, Austin Peay State University.

Dr Alan Cheville is Professor and Chair of the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineeringat Bucknell University.

Dr Kate A. Disney is with the Engineering Faculty at Mission College.

Profesor Stephen T. Frezza is Professor of Software Engineering at Gannon University.

Dr John Heywood is a Professorial Emeritus of Trinity College Dublin-The University of Dublin.

Dr Carl O Hilgarth is Professor and Chairperson in the Department of Engineering Technologies atShawnee State University

Dr John Krupczak jr is Professor of Engineering at Hope College.

Dr Randy Libros is Associate Professor of Physics and Director of the Applied Science andEngineering Technology Program at the Community College of Philadelphia.

Dr Mani Mina is with the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Iowa StateUniversity.

Dr Steven R. Walk Is Assistant Professor of Electrical Engineering Technology at old DominionUniversity.

Acknowledgement

We are grateful to the American Society for Engineering Education for permission to publish thepaper Defining Engineering and Technological Literacy which was published in the 2012Proceedings of the Annual Conference of the Society and is their copyright. It is catalogued as ISSN2153-5965. Pages 25.381.1 – 25. 381.9. Permanent URL https://peer.asee.org/21139.

--------------------------------------------------

EDITORIAL

This is the third Handbook produced by members of The Technological and EngineeringLiteracy/ Philosophy Division (TELPHE) of The American Society for EngineeringEducation. The common theme is the curriculum (formal and hidden) and its discontents.

The publication of Engineers of Jihad by Diego Gambetta and Steffen Hertog (Princeton,2016) caused much discussion in ASEE and in particular among members of TELPHE, andled to a panel discussion at the annual conference. Stephen Frezza a contributor to theprevious Handbooks opens this issue with his response to the view that the engineeringcurriculum reinforces the mind-set that drives a person to commit terrorist acts. A keyquestion is, “what response should those in engaged in the teaching of technological andengineering literacy have to these criticisms of the curriculum?”

One of the reasons for embracing philosophy in the work of the Division was that apart fromthe fact that this growing field of interest had no home, any reform of the curriculum had tobegin with a fundamental discussion of the philosophy(ies) on which the curriculum isgrounded. This is illustrated by Mani Mina who shows that if the philosophy of John Deweyis followed it leads to an entirely different attitude to what the curriculum should achieve aswell as to inquiry base student centred teaching. Cheville continues his efforts todemonstrate the value of John Macmurray’s philosophy to this debate in particular hisanalysis of personal relationships, a matter that is held to be of some importance by thoseinvestigate the causes of terrorism.

The philosophy of the curriculum depends of clarity of terms. For this reason, with thepermission of ASEE, the divisions report on technological and engineering literacy whichwas given at the 2011 annual conference is reprinted. It is followed by a case study of anorganization in the aircraft industry that attempts to link the understanding of technology withlearning-how-to-learn now considered to be an important goal in higher education.

JOIN THE CONVERSATIONS

The Division hopes you will engage with the authors of these papers and those that havepreceded them in the previous issues by writing comments which can be incorporated in thenext issue of the Handbook. As a beginning we have attached comments to two of thecontributions in this issue. Please join in.

If you wish to make a submission please contact John Heywood or any of the current officersof the TELPHE division whose names can be found on the ASEE website.

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Considering the Engineering Mindset –

A Response to Does Engineering Education Breed Terrorists?Stephen T. Frezza

A recent Chronicle Review article raisedthe question Does Engineering EducationBreed Terrorists? (Berrett 2016). Thearticle centers on the recent book by DiegoGambetta and Steffen Hertog on this topic.The text focuses on a surprising fact:engineers are overrepresented amongviolent Islamist extremists. (Gambetta andHertog 2016, viii) These researchersnarrowed their list of identified Islamistterrorists to 207 people who pursuedhigher education and whose majors couldbe determined. A pattern emerged: 93 ofthem, nearly 45 percent, had studiedengineering. This frequency far exceededwhat would be predicted statistically;among male college students from the 19countries represented in the sample, fewerthan 12 percent studied engineering.

Seeking to bring nuance to what is knownabout the causes of terrorism, Gambettaand Hertog’s then examines the extent ofthe relationship between engineeringeducation and Islamist and other right-wing extremists groups. Raising thequestion about what makes engineeringunique, they go on to explain the linkbetween educational discipline and thistype of radicalism by looking at two keyfactors: A sociological one dealing withthe social mobility (or lack thereof) forengineers in the Muslim world, and aparticular mindset seeking order andhierarchy that is found more frequentlyamong engineers. (Gambetta and Hertog2016).

Through the study of Europeanengineering graduates responses, theyobserved that the engineers’ mindset haselements they claim is consistent with

those of violent terrorists and other right-wing extremists:

A need for cognitive closure, or apreference for order and distastefor ambiguity

An acceptance of prevailinghierarchies

The experience of high levels ofdisgust when confronted with theunfamiliar.

A significant issue that this researchexposes is that there is, statisticallyspeaking, an ‘Engineering Mindset’ that isin fact different from that of othermindsets for other majors. The particularchallenge to engineering educators is that,independent of what that mindset might becurrently, as observed across hundreds orthousands of graduates, what that mindsetshould be, and why.

Challenges of the Engineering Mindset:

While the article goes on to share typical(and also refuted) reasons for the unusuallylarge participation of engineers (mostlywestern-trained) in Jihad, it also raisesquestions from the Engineering Educationcommunity concerning the engineeringmindset. Donna M. Riley of Virginia Techcommented how traditional engineeringprograms not only attract certain kinds ofminds but also reinforce positivist patternsof thinking. “As it is,” she says, "engineersspend almost all their time with the sameset of epistemological rules."

The Chronicle Review article expandsthese ideas further, looking at the responseto the research, but also the findings ofothers that expose aspects of the

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engineering mindset. Other terroristresearchers such as Arie Kruglanskisuggest that engineers are particularlylikely to act on their beliefs, and liketerrorists, engineers are looking forclosure, certainty, and reassurance fromlike-minded individuals. Consistent withpositivist patterns of thinking, JeffreyVictoroff, comments that the need forclosure is an example of systematicthinking, or a preference for conductinganalysis without the distraction ofemotions.

Similarly, American engineering educationresearchers found related issues withengineers’ commitment to ethicalresponsibilities. For example, researchshows that between their freshman yearand graduation, engineering student surveyresponses showed drops in measures ofpublic-mindedness, including acommitment to professional and ethicalresponsibilities and a social consciousness.Similarly, that the discipline’s culture andcurricula emphasize "an ideology ofdepoliticization," which treatsnontechnical factors as irrelevant to thework of "real" engineering (Cech, 2014).

In contrast with traditional scienceeducation emphasizing theory (Frezza,Nordquest and Moodey, 2013), effectiveengineering education emphasizes“practice applied with judgment”(Cheville, 2014). But like most scienceeducation, current engineering programsand accreditation schemes emphasize thecognitive.The claim these and other criticsof current cognitive-oriented engineeringeducation raise is that there is anassessable ‘engineering mindset’ – in itscurrent form appears to make thesegraduates more likely to be candidates forinvolvement in terrorism and other right-wing extremism. The real challenge forengineering educators is realizing the ‘flip-side’ of Hertog and Gambetta’s research:

that students’ sense of their engineeringprogram’s emphasis directly effects theirown beliefs. (Cech, 2014).

The point here is that there are values andbeliefs that are communicated implicitlyand explicitly through the engineeringprograms, and students pick up on these.Through classes, internships, designprojects, and friendships, students aretransformed from laypersons intoengineers; they are expected to adopt theprofessions epistemologies, values, andnorms; identify with particular symbols,and learn to project a confident, capableimage of expertise (Cech, 2014).Significant research into students’ identitye.g., (Peters, 2014: Kinnunen et al 2016)into personal epistemologies, e.g.,(McDermott, et al. 2013), affective-domain outcomes (Fuller and Keim, 2008),or even the philosophical foundations ofengineering (Frezza, Nordquest andMoodey, 2013). All suggest that there arevalues and beliefs about engineering thatare common, communicated, affect studentidentity development, and shape students’mindset. That some perspectives onengineering education might help shapesome students’ mindsets toward terrorismshould come as no surprise, even if manymight agree that this is not the desiredoutcome.

The challenge of the Engineering Mindset,then is to shape engineering education insuch a way that it recognizes and shapesthese values and beliefs in ways consistentwith the goals of the discipline as a whole.Particularly challenging is that thesecommon disciplinary goals are bothaffective cognitive, oriented toward notjust what the student knows aboutengineering, but rather how they think andwhat they value, and most engineeringprograms present and assess engineeringthrough discipline specific cognitive

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(knowledge) rather than cross-culturalaffective (value) leases.

Cross-Disciplinary and Cross–CulturalGoals of Engineering

Any proposed ‘EngineeringMindset’clearly needs to extend beyondthe cognitive foundations current toengineering education. As a disciplinarygoal such a mindset must be both cross-disciplinary, and cross-cultural, as bothEngineering and Engineering Educationare fundamentally rooted in particularcultures, and largely relegated to sub-disciplines that do not generally talk to oneanother on a cross-disciplinary basis.Consequently, identifying what the goalsof engineering education are, or should be,is a social construction and not easilyestablished. Inquiry into these questionscertainly continues, but this authorsuggests that there are fundamental aspectsof an Engineering Mindset that are bothdiscipline- and culture-neutral. Yet thechallenge for the modern academy is todevelop disciplinary-neutral educationwhen most engineering educators are hiredfor their research and disciplinary-specificexpertise, not their ability to lead cross-disciplinary learning (Frezza 2014).

One such formulation of the EngineeringMindset offered by Samuel Flormansuggested the following cross-disciplinevalues as an ‘Engineering View’(Floorman 1987):

Belief in Scientific Truth, inverifiable truth, and that scientifictruth is insufficient. This includingthe values of independence andoriginality, dissent and freedomand tolerance, comfortablefamiliarity with the forces thatprevail in the physical universe.

Pragmatic: Application of truth tohuman objectives; the goal is notabsolute truth, but rather to create aproduct that will perform and

function; a belief in hard work inthe quest for knowledge andunderstanding in the pursuit ofexcellence; a willingness to forgoperfection to get real and usefulproducts delivered.

Responsible: Accepts responsibilityin the face of risk and uncertainty;Dependable to achieve agreedgoals in an effective manner, withappropriate logic and precision: Abelief in hard work that valuescooperation and established socialstructures

Creative: A passion for creativity,that values tinkering, and changethat serves the common good, andthe good of the project

Given this and similar formulations (e.g.,(Frezza 2014)), the question is not whetherthere is an “Engineering Mindset” thatembodies disciplinary and cultural goals ofengineering, but rather what engineeringmindset a particular program, institution,or accreditation scheme targets for theirstudents, and how such mindset/values areimplemented in their program.

The research results from (Gambetta andHertog 2016) suggest that among theengineers-turned-terrorist and others theystudied, the engineering mindset they hadevidence for showed a preference fororder, but not necessarily the risk anduncertainty that go along with effectiveengineering. This mindset is one thatvalues established social structures, but notunderstanding, or accepting the ambiguityinvolved with real human problems andobjectives, or the humanity of the peopleserved by technology. Perhaps the reallesson of “engineering education breedsterrorists” is that the programs andaccreditation schemes sampled failed inconsciously educating students in morevalue centered, socially appropriateEngineering Mindset. They might have

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graduated from engineering programs, buthad they really taken on the values ofengineers?

ReferencesBerrett, D (2016). Does Engineering Education BreedTerrorists? The Chronicle of Higher Education, March23.

Cech, E. A (2014). A Culture of Disengagement inEngineering Education." Science, Technology, & HumanValues (Sage) 39(1), 42-72.

Floorman, S. C (1987). The Civilized Engineer. NewYork, NY: St. Martins Press.

Frezza, S (2014). A Knowledge Basis for EngineeringDesign. ASEE/IEEE Proceedings Frontiers in EducationConference. 158-165.

Frezza, S. T.,Nordquest, D and R. Moodey (2013).Knowledge-generation epistemology and the foundationsof engineering. ASEE/IEEE Proceedings Frontiers inEducation Conference, 818-824.

Fuller, U and B. Keim (2008). Assessing students'practice of professional values. 13th ACM annualconference on innovation and technology in computerscience education, Association of Computing Machinery(ACM), 88-92.

Gambetta, Diego, and Steffen Hertog (2016) Engineersof Jihad: The Curious Connection Between ViolentExtremism and Education. Princeton, NJ. PrincetonUniversity Press.

Kinnunen, P., et al (2016). Understanding initialundergraduate expectations and identity in computingstudies." European Journal of Engineering Education.,February : DOI:10.1080/03043797,2016.1146233.

Marra, Roe, and Betsy Palmer(1999). EncouragingIntellectual Growth: Senior Engineering Student Profiles.ASEE/IEEE Frontiers in Education Conference. 12c1-6.

McDermott, R., Pirie, I., Cajander, Mats Daniels, M.,and C. Laxer (2013). Contemplations on results frominvestigating the Personal Epistemology of computingstudents. ASEE/IEEE Frontiers in Education Conference.Oklahoma CIty, OK: IEEE-CS, 2013.

Peters, A-K (2014). Identity Development in ComputingEducation: Theoretical Perspectives and anImplementation in the Classroom. 9th Workshop inPrimary and Secondary Computing Education. Berlin,Germany.

Response from Alan Cheville.

For several years papers have beenpublished which claim that as a percentageof participation in violent Jihadist groupsthose with some higher education inengineering are significantly over-represented. This research has recentlybeen published in a book, Engineers ofJihad: The Curious Connection betweenViolent Extremism and Education byGambetta and Hertog, published this yearby Princeton University Press. The bookclaims that the over-representation is dueto a combination of low social mobilityand a mindset found more frequentlyamong engineers. As one might expect,and as should be the case with anyresearch that makes generalized claims,there has been much debate as well as avigorous refutation.

Regardless of the eventual merit ofGambetta and Hertog’s claims—and theactual truth is likely to be complex andnuanced—the publication of their bookdeserves a response from the engineeringeducation community that is more than amere denial. While it might be simpler tosimply ignore their conclusions, the realityis that we are in a time when technologycan spread rumor globally in a matter ofseconds, social media thrives on thesensational, and the political processreminds one of the lines of Yeat’s poemThe Second Coming: “…The best lack allconviction, while the worst / Are full ofpassionate intensity.” In such a timebeliefs and myths are given new power,and words, no matter the weight of factthat lies behind them, are able to influencepeople’s lives. But as engineers ourprofessional obligation as engineers is toboth search for and speak truth in anyresponse we make.

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Frezza’s editorial, in which he explores theengineering mindset, how it is developedin students, and what such a mindset is orshould be is one such response. Frezzaraises questions about our educationalprocess, and asks us if we can agree onwhat mindset our students leave theirdegree program with. Frezza, as well asothers who seek to understand theconstruct of a mindset will speak at a paneldiscussion at the 2016 American Societyof Engineering Education (ASEE) annualmeeting in New Orleans sponsored by theTechnological and Engineering Literacy /Philosophy of Engineering Division. Herea debate by experts on the merits of thearguments put forth by Gambetta andHertog will lead to insights that can frameother responses.

Nowhere will be found neatly packagedanswers to the questions raised by thepreponderance of engineers in violentorganizations. Truth is rarely simple evento the very wise, despite the fact that itprofits media companies and politicians tomake it seem so. The path to truth canonly by followed through vigorous dialogand a willingness to come together incommunity with both an open mind and anopen heart. Both philosophy and literacyare needed if one desires to walk this path.As difficult as it is to question our motivesand practices, the engineering educationcommunity should take a long moment toreflect on whether the actions we take aseducators have the potential to createharm, and if so what form such harmmight take. We hope you will join us aswe try to open new forums to debate issuesthat are not, and never shall be, fullyquantifiable.

Response from John Heywood

The book review in the The Chronicle ofHigher Education that began with the

question “Does Engineering EducationBreed Terrorists?” seems to have caused afurore among engineering educators in theUnited States. Not so on this side of theAtlantic although one of the authors,Steffen Hertog based at the London Schoolof Economics been interviewed twice onthe BBC to my knowledge. Perhapsengineering educators in these islandshappened to read an article in The Times(April 2nd 2016) by the distinguishedhistorian Michael Burleigh because hesummarily dismissed the book. Havingdone so his penultimate paragraph read“There is another serious flaw to theauthors’ approach. They do not evenexplore what engineers are taught-oracknowledge the differences between thevarious disciplines within the field.”

Mani Mina had told us that it was notsurprising that the proportion of engineersshould be high, or be followed by medicsbecause in the Middle East the statussubjects were Engineering, Medicine, andLaw from which many national leaders aredrawn. In his second broadcast Hertogapplied relative deprivation theory to theproblem. It suggests that the failure of somany students to have their expectationsmet led to high levels of frustration withthe consequences observed. Asked byProfessor Laurie Taylor (a sociologist)what he would recommend, Hertog repliedthat governments in the Middle -Eastshould concentrate on reforming primaryand secondary (elementary and highschool) education. What was perhaps moresurprising he went on to say that thenumbers studying engineering should bereduced (BBC Radio 4. “Thinking Aloud”4 pm, June 8th 2016).

As a counterpoint to Hertog, RaffaelloPantucchi another researcher working inthe field argued that it was important tounderstand the social dynamics that madea person become involved and committed

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to terror. This process was a socialactivity, so understanding how terroristcells socialise their reports of considerablesignificance. While we are familiar withBucciarelli’s (1994) concept of design as asocial activity we tend to forget that highereducation is experienced as a socialactivity as well. It is through the socialorganization that the students find thesupport they need not the classroom. Astinafter his monumental longitudinal studiesof students in American liberal artscolleges wrote “The student’s peer groupis the single most potent-source ofinfluence on growth and developmentduring the undergraduate years, and in sofar as the affective development ofstudents are concerned students’ values,beliefs, and aspirations tend to change inthe direction of the dominant values,beliefs and aspirations of the peer group.”A hundred years previously Newman hadwritten “when a multitude of young men,keen, open-hearted, sympathetic andobservant as young men are, cometogether and freely mix with each other,they are sure to learn one from another,even if there be no one to teach them, theconversation of all is a series of lectures toeach, and they gain for themselves newideas and views….” What matters is thatthey should be students of all kinds andnot simply from a subject specialism suchas engineering. That this should be ofconcern to those responsible forengineering in their particular colleges.

A key question that Astin presents toengineering educators is the extent towhich the affective development of theindividual is catered for by theorganization of the university, curriculum,and teaching. As Frezza points outstudents are very immature when theyenter university. Developmentalpsychologists like William Perry and,King and Kitchener have shown that theway instruction is given can impede

development leaving the student not muchmore mature than when they entered theinstitution. In this respect Gambetta andHertog might be given leeway for notmentioning instruction in engineering for itis an issue that faces higher educationgenerally. Nevertheless it surely time thatengineering educators re-visited thedevelopmental curriculum developed at theColorado School of Mines Pavelich andMoore, 1996), and the investigationscarried out by Marra, Palmer and Litzinger(2000) at Penn State university.

More specifically Gambetta and Hertogare open to the criticism that they shouldhave looked at the research on personalitythat has been done among engineeringstudents.

My starting point was a paper by Furneauxwho in 1962 reported that the mechanicalengineering students likely to perform bestin the school of engineering of one ofBritain’s leading universities were likely tobe neurotic introverts which might, justmight support the theory given thatextraverts are supposedly less susceptibleto social conditioning than introverts.Other studies which were made ofpersonality and performance do not helpthe case made by Gambetta and Hertog.Two distinguished British educators –Noel Entwistle and John Wilson (1970)concluded from a literature survey thatFurneaux’s students were atypical ofuniversity students as a whole. Lest youthink that lends support to the argumentconsider that twenty years later Paul Kline(1993) an equally distinguishedpsychometrician concluded from a studyof students at five British Universities thatthere were no differences betweenengineering students and other students inthese universities in respect of extraversionand emotional stability (Kline andLapham, 1992).

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In the same period in the United States theOmnibus Personality Inventory was usedto study engineering students by C. F.Elton and H. A. Rose (1966). They found asignificant difference between engineeringstudents on the dimension of “intellectualdisposition.” Strangely, an absence of highintellectual interests was found amongthose who persisted. In another study theconcluded that personality differencesamong students sharing accommodationcould impede or enhance performance.There was also in the nineteen-seventiesand eighties interest in the Myers-BriggsIndicator (MBTI) as expressed in articlesin Engineering Education. They led MaryMcCauley (1990) to argue that peopleskills were undervalued by engineeringeducators as measured by the “Feeling”dimension of the MBTI. As Frezza arguesthe affective domain continues to beundervalued by engineering educatorscontinues to be made, a view that issupported by other writers (Heywood,2016).

There would seem to be nothing in theavailable evidence on personality andperformance in engineering education inwestern universities to confirm thepersonality dimension of the thesis putforward by Gambetta and Hertog. Neitherdo these studies have they anything to sayabout the curriculum and its impact, butthen neither do Gambetta and Hertog.

Nevertheless, since we believe that whatwe do in engineering education changes

students, and since we don’t appear tostudy the impact of the curriculum ondevelopment Gambetta and Hertog shouldmake us begin to think about what it is weare doing, and with what effect.

References

Bucciarelli, L. L (1994). Designing Engineers.Cambridge, MA. MIT Press.

Elton, C. F and H. A. Rose (1966). Within universitytransfer. Its relation to personality characteristics.Journal of Applied Psychology. 50(6), 539.

Entwistle, N. J. and J. D. Wilson (1970). Personality,study methods, and academic performance. UniversitiesQuarterly, 24(2), 147-156.

Furneaux, W. D (1962). The psychologist and theuniversity. Universities Quarterly, 17(1), 33-47.

Heywood, J (2016). The Assessment of Learning inEngineering Education. Policy and Practice .Hoboken,NJ. IEEE Press/Wiley,

Kline, P (1993). The Handbook of Psychological Testing.London, Routledge.

McCauley, M. M (1990). The MBTI and individualpathways in engineering design. Engineering Education.66(7), 729-716.

King, P. M and K. S. Kitchener 91994). Developingreflective Judgment. San Fransico. Jossey-Bass.

Kline, P and S. Lapham (1992). Personality and facultyin British Universities. Personality and IndividualDifferences, 13, 855-857.

Marra, R., Palmer, B and T. A. Litzinger (2000). Theeffects of first year design course on student intellectualdevelopment as measured by the Perry scheme. Journalof Engineering Education. 89(1), 39-45.

Pavelich,, M. J and W. S. Moore (1996). Measuring theeffect of experiential education using the Perry model.Journal of Engineering Education. 85, 287-292.

Perry, W. G (1970). Forms of Intellectual and EthicalDevelopment in the College Years. A Scheme. Troy, Mo.Holt, Rinehart and Winston.

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Defining Engineering and Technological LiteracyJohn Krupczak, John W. Blake, Kate A. Disney, Carl O. Hilgarth,

Randy Libros, Mani Mina, Steven R. Walk

Many Americans lack even a rudimentaryunderstanding of the principles underlyingthe technology essential for daily life.Engineering concepts are pervasive indecision making within industry,government, education, and health care,yet most people complete formal educationwith little exposure to the central ideas andprinciples underlying our technologicalsociety. The terms engineering literacy andtechnological literacy have been used todescribe aspects of this understanding ofhuman-developed process and products.This work addresses some of thedifferences and similarities between theconcepts of engineering literacy andtechnological literacy. A clear well-defined understanding of each of theseareas is an essential first step in developinga means to promote these understandingsin the undergraduate general educationprogram. Engineering literacy is viewed ashaving a focus directed more toward theprocess of creating or designingtechnological artifacts or systems. It isargued that technological literacy includesa broader view of the products or results ofthe engineering process as well as therelation between technology and society.Each literacy is seen as having a time-independent and a constantly evolving orchanging component. The engineeringprocesses can be viewed as independent ofthe specific nature of technology whichchanges over time as technology evolves.The specific artifacts, processes, andsystems that define any technological eraare transient. The hardware aspects oftechnological literacy will be an ever-changing subject. The interactions andrelationships of society to technology are

viewed as constant and little-changed asdifferent artifacts and systems move intoand out of importance to daily life. Thiswork will use the process of a comparisonof engineering and technological literacyto help define and describe each area ofknowledge.

The Need for UnderstandingTechnology and Engineering

Technology affects nearly every aspect ofour lives, and informed citizens need anunderstanding of what technology is, howit works, how it is created, how it shapessociety, and how society influencestechnological development. The criticalrole of technology in creating andmaintaining our modern standard of livinghas been emphasized by the NationalAcademy of Engineering in TechnicallySpeaking: Why All Americans Need toKnow More about Technology (Pearsonand Young, 2002). The NAE promotestechnological literacy as means by whichindividuals can function more effectivelyin modern technological society. This isconsistent with E.D. Hirsch’s generaldefinition of “literacy” as “informationthat is taken for granted in public discourse” (Hirsch and Trefil, 1987).

The importance of understandingengineering has also been advocated. TheNational Academy of Engineering (NAE)has published Changing the Conversation:Messages for Improving the PublicUnderstanding of Engineering (NAE,2008). The NAE document outlines theimportance of clarifying the nature ofengineering and the role engineers play inimproving the quality of life. It has also

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been argued that a person who has noperception of the contribution thatengineering can make to ourunderstandings of behavior and society isnot liberally educated (Heywood, 2010).

The American Society for EngineeringEducation (ASEE) has an establishedTechnological Literacy Division. A goalof the division is to advance “broadtechnological understanding” by allindividuals. Based on topics addressed bypapers in the divisional sessions at ASEEnational conferences it is apparent that thesubject matter of technological literacyencompasses a wide range of issues relatedto helping all types of students tounderstand engineering and technology.

Recently the authors, who are alsomembers of the ASEE TechnologicalLiteracy Division, have noticed that theterms technological literacy andengineering literacy appear in discussionsin similar contexts with differingmeanings. In some discussionstechnological literacy and engineeringliteracy are treated as synonyms. In othersthe two are treated as separate concepts.There appears to be a need to clarify theideas of engineering and technologicalliteracy. This paper intends to begin adiscussion about the differences andsimilarities that might exist betweenengineering and technological literacy.

There are a number of possible types ofliteracy relevant to engineering andtechnological literacy. These include suchconcepts as computer literacy,mathematics literacy, and financialliteracy. A more thorough and wide-rangereview of literacies should include thesimilarities, differences, and nuanceddistinctions between these concepts andtechnological literacy. The presentanalysis will be confined to engineeringand technological literacy as a first step.

Definitions of Technological Literacy

Technology is all of the many products ofthe engineering disciplines not justpersonal computers and informationtechnology. Technology, in a broad sense,is any modification of the natural worldmade to fulfil human needs and wants.This includes not only its tangibleproducts, but also the knowledge andprocesses necessary to create and operatethose products. The infrastructure used forthe design, manufacture, operation, andrepair of technological artifacts is alsoconsidered part of technology.

At the start, it is essential to distinguishtechnology and engineering from science(Pearson and Young, 2002: NAE, 2008).Science is the development of anunderstanding of the natural world, whileengineering is the creation of newtechnologies to improve human welfare(NAE, 2008). The separate, but relatedgoals, of engineering and sciencenecessitate a differentiation betweentechnological literacy, engineeringliteracy, and knowledge of science.

For a number of years groups seeking todefine the content and curriculum ofscience and mathematics have included thehuman-built world, or technology, whendeveloping content standards. Initiallythese efforts included technology as aperipheral aspect of science content(AAAS, 1993: NRC, 1996) In a recent K-12 effort, the International Technology andEngineering Educators Association(ITEEA, formerly the InternationalTechnology Education Association)developed Technology Literacy Standards( ITEA, 2000) explicitly addressingtechnology. While these efforts aredirected at K-12 students, the generaltopics and organization of the technicalworld provide useful information for

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efforts intended for the undergraduatelevel.

Project 2061: Benchmarks for ScienceLiteracy (1993)

In 1993, the American Association for theAdvancement of Science (AAAS)published, Project 2061: Benchmarks forScience Literacy (AAAS, 1993). TheAAAS devoted one of the twelve chaptersto the Designed World. The focus was onthe products of engineering and theirimpact on daily life. Eight topics wereconsidered: Agriculture, Materials andManufacturing, Energy Sources and Use,Communications, Information Processing,and Health Technologies. The benchmarkrecommendations emphasized thattechnology is a human activity that shapesour environment and lives.

The National Science Education Standards(1996)

In 1996 the National Academies producedthe National Science Education Standards(NRC, 1996). This document contained asection devoted to technology. A notableinclusion in these standards was ahighlighting of the importance of thedesign process as a defining aspect oftechnological endeavors.

ITEEA Standards for TechnologicalLiteracy (2000)

In 2000 the then International TechnologyEducation Association publishedStandards for Technological Literacy:Content for the Study of Technology(ITEA, 2000). The ITEEA standardsproject was a broadly based effort thatincluded more than 150 reviewers from K-12 education, the sciences, and theengineering disciplines. An intent of thiseffort was to encourage educational

curricula that would provide technologicalliteracy to K-12 students.

The ITEEA 2000 Standards arecomprehensive in scope. They are dividedinto five main categories that sub-divideinto 20 specific standards. The five maincategories used to define technologicalunderstanding include:

1. Understanding the Nature ofTechnology,

2. Understanding of Technology andSociety,

3. Understanding of Design,4. Abilities for a Technological

World, and5. Understanding of the Designed

World.

Important features of the scope ofunderstanding technology are seen in theITEEA standards. The standards considerthe nature of technology or helping K-12learners to be able to distinguishtechnology from other aspects of theirenvironment. The standards also highlightthe importance of specifically studying thecomplex interaction between technologyand the society which creates it. Thedesign process as the mechanism oftechnological development is a separatearea of the standards. The standards theninclude specific abilities related totechnology such as the ability to selecttechnological products appropriate for aspecific set of requirements, or to carry outbasic problem-solving in the context oftechnological systems. The last maincategory attempts to identify certain broadareas of the human-built world such ascommunication, manufacturing, andenergy technologies. The ITEEAstandards represented a significant advanceand elaboration of the parameters definingthe technological world, and therecognition that, given the importance, allstudents should begin to develop anincreasingly sophisticated understanding

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of technology starting at the earliest yearsof school.

National Academy of Engineering:Technically Speaking (2002)

During the same time period that ITEAwas addressing technologicalunderstanding in the K-12 realm, theNational Academy of Engineering beganpromoting the importance of publicunderstanding of technology andengineering. This lead to the publication ofTechnically Speaking (NAE, 2002). Whilethe ITEA work was intended to influencethe K-12 curriculum, Technically Speakingwas intended to reach a broad audienceand inform the general public.

Technically Speaking emphasized thattechnology consisted of the broad array ofproducts and processes that are created bypeople to satisfy human needs and wants.This was an attempt to redirect theassociation of the word “technology” withpersonal computers and the internet to abroader definition encompassing all thetechnology of our human-built world.Technically Speaking also fostered therecognition that engineering and scienceare distinct but related activities.Technically Speaking advocated thatknowledge in the technical realm might becategorized in a series of levels consistingof Knowledge, Capabilities, and Ways ofThinking and Acting.

The NAE makes an effort to distinguishtechnology and engineering from science(NAE, 2002; 2008). Science is thedevelopment of an understanding of thenatural world, while engineering is thecreation of new technologies to improvehuman welfare (NAE, 2008). Theseparate, but related goals, of engineeringand science developed a differentiation

between technological literacy andknowledge of science.

Engineering Literacy

While technological literacy has beenwell-defined, comparable standards ordefinitions of engineering literacy have notbeen developed. The various existingstandards for technological literacy includeelements that can be recognized as aspectsof engineering. For example the designprocess is included in nearly all of thestandards. This process is normallyconsidered to be a hallmark of engineeringactivity. However the term engineering isnot treated systematically by any of thetechnological literacy standards.

There is a need to distinguish between theterms engineering literacy andtechnological literacy. The two areinterconnected and the potential forconfusion is understandable. Never-the-less some effort should be made to clarifyengineering literacy.

Distinctions Between EngineeringLiteracy and Technological Literacy

In this section some means to helpdistinguish engineering and technologicalliteracy are described. This is consideredto be an initial effort and the starting pointfor a discussion. Refinement of theengineering literacy concept is anticipatedas was the case for technological literacy.Some area of distinction betweenengineering and technological literacy arelisted in Table 1.

Engineering Literacy Technological Literacy

Process Product

Verb (Actions) Noun (Objects)

Narrow focus Broader focus

Table 1: Some Areas of Distinction between Engineering andTechnological Literacy.

Process versus Product

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One means to distinguish engineering fromtechnology is by considering the differencebetween process and product. Engineeringcan be viewed as a process. The process ofcreating physical artifacts and proceduresthat meet human needs and wants.Technology on the other hand might beseen as the product of the process.Technology is the created device, system,or component that is brought intoexistence by humans engaging in acreative problem-solving process.

For example a person who istechnologically literate might have aknowledge of the major systems of anautomobile such as the engine, powertrain, and brakes along with the basicprinciples underlying the functioning ofthese systems. This is knowledge of theproduct. Engineering literacy wouldinclude knowledge or ability to design,analyze or otherwise create the constituentcomponents of the automobile.

Verb versus Noun

A more general way to emphasize thedistinction between engineering andtechnology is to introduce the idea that thedifference between the two is related to thefundamental difference between a verb anda noun. In this discussion, engineering canbe considered to be a verb. Engineering isan action. Something is happening whichis identified as engineering. Engineeringactivity results in a transformation ofmaterials, energy, or information.Something is different before and afterengineering activity takes place.

Technology can then be classified as anoun. Technology can be viewed as theidentifiable things that result fromengineering or related work. Technologicalliteracy would then include someknowledge of these components, systems,and processes.

As an example, consider an integratedcircuit chip. An integrated circuit is atechnological device. A person who istechnologically literate might be able torecognize an integrated circuit, describewhat it is, and explain the general uses andimportance of integrated circuits. Anengineering literate individual would bemore familiar with how an integratedcircuit can be used as a means ofconverting an abstract schematic designinto a working physical object.

Narrow versus Broader Focus

Another area to help distinguishengineering from technological literacywould be to consider one as having abroader or more diverse focus than theother. If engineering literacy is viewed ashaving a focus directed more towardunderstanding the process of creating ordesigning technological artifacts orsystems, then technological literacyincludes a broader view of the products orresults of the engineering process as wellas the relation between technology andsociety.

For example, while it is not necessarily thedesired situation, it is true that individualscan engineer or create technologicalartifacts in a state of near isolation fromother concerns or interests. Theengineering design process can create itsown isolated internal value system. Asuccessful engineering effort can bedefined as a design that works according tothe specifications of those providing theresources to carry out the project.Incarcerated individuals might becompelled to create a particulartechnological device with no knowledge ofthe intended use of that device. If thedevice functioned as intended and met allspecified design requirements it would bedifficult to argue that the creators were notengineering literate. However without

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knowledge about why the particular designrequirements were chosen, and what usethe device served, it could be said that theprisoner-engineers did not fully understandthe technology and were therefore nottechnologically literate.

Evolution or Change Over Time

It may be helpful to consider how theunderstanding of engineering ortechnology may evolve or change overtime. It can be seen that both engineeringand technology have both a time-independent or permanent nature and alsoa constantly evolving or changing aspects.The engineering processes can be viewedas independent of the specific nature oftechnology which changes over time astechnology evolves. The specific artifacts,processes, and systems that define anytechnological era are transient. Thehardware aspects of technological literacywill be an ever-changing subject. Theinteractions and relationships of society totechnology are viewed as constant andlittle-changed as different artifacts andsystems move into and out of importanceto daily life.

Role of Analysis

Since engineering literacy appears to bedirected more toward the process creatingor improving technological objects it maybe that computation and analysis appeardifferently in engineering literacy thantechnological literacy. It may be that anindividual who is technologically literatemight acquire an ability to usetechnological tools and mathematicalmethods in a problem-solving context. Itwould seem that in engineering thepurposes of analysis are more narrowlyfocused toward creating and improvingtechnological products.

For example, a person who istechnologically literate may sample a drop

of water from a pond and then count thenumber of single-celled organisms in onedrop of pond water by correct use of anappropriate microscope. This person maythen be able to use information obtainedfrom maps and other published data todetermine the volume of the pond. Theymay then be able to use a spreadsheet todetermine an estimate of the total numberof single-celled organisms in the pond.This process has involved technologicalsystems and quantitative analysis but itwould not appear that this activity wouldbe classified as an engineering project.

Degree of Overlap and Open Questions

Once a distinction is made betweenengineering literacy and technologicalliteracy, the question of the degree ofoverlap between the two concepts becomesan interesting potential area of discussion.What is the overlap or commonalitybetween engineering literacy andtechnological literacy? Is one completelycontained within the other? Is engineeringliteracy a subset of technological literacyor is the opposite the case?

One way to help frame the question of therelationship between engineering literacyand technological literacy is to ask: areengineers technological literate? If notwhy not? Is this because of a deficiency incurrent engineering education or is it dueto a fundamental difference between thescope of engineering and technologicalliteracy? Alternatively, in consideringgeneral education, what are the appropriateelements of engineering and technologicalliteracy to be included?

Summary and Conclusions

An initial effort to distinguish betweenengineering and technological literacy hasbeen made. A clear well-definedunderstanding of each of these areas is an

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essential part of developing theseliteracies. Engineering literacy is directedmore toward the process of creating ordesigning technological artifacts orsystems. Technological literacy includes awider ranging scope including the productsor results of the engineering process aswell as the relation between technologyand society. The extent to whichengineering and technological literacyform a subset of each other remains a topicfor future discussion and investigation.

Acknowledgement

This work was supported by the NationalScience Foundation under awards: DUE-0633277 and DUE-0920164. Anyopinions, findings, and conclusions orrecommendations expressed in thismaterial are those of the authors and do notnecessarily reflect the views of theNational Science Foundation.

References

AAAS (1993). Project 2061: Benchmarks for ScienceLiteracy, American Association for the Advancement ofScience, Oxford University Press, (1993).

Heywood, J (2010). Engineering Literacy: A Componentof Liberal Education” Proceedinsg of the 2010 AmericanSociety for Engineering Education Annual Conference.

Hirsch, E. D and J. S. Trefil (1987) Cultural Literacy:What Every American Needs to Know, New York.Random House.

Hirsch, E. D and J S. Trefil (1987) Cultural Literacy:What Every American Needs to Know. New York.Random House.

ITEA (2000). Standards for Technological Literacy,Reston, VA. International Technology EducationAssociation.<http://www.iteaconnect.org/TAA/Publications/TAA_Publications.html> (accessed December 15,2011).

NAE (2008).Changing the Conversation: Messages forImproving the Public Understanding of Engineering,Committee on Public Understanding of EngineeringMessages. National Academy of Engineering.Washington DC, National Academies Press

NRC (1996). National Science Education Standards.National Research Council, National Academies Press,(1996).

Pearson, G and A. Thomas Young,(editors) (2002).Technically speaking: Why all Americans need to knowmore about technology. National Academy ofEngineering. Washington DC. National AcademiesPress.

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The Idea of a Firm as a Learning Organization and its Implications forLearning-how-to Learn

John Heywood

Abstract

Recent attempts to define engineering and technologicalliteracy show that the process of producing a product iscomplex and that different levels of engineering andtechnological literacy are required by non-engineers whoengage in the management of technology and itsproducts. The dimensions of engineering andtechnological literacy cover a broad range of activitiesfrom how to make things (artefacts, software) to studyingthe impact those things make on society. The public atlarge are likely to be more interested in the impact oftechnology than the nitty-gritty of making things that arerightly the interest of the manager. Common to both isthe need to understand people. In society failures tounderstand the impact of technologies on individuals canhave adverse consequences. Similarly failures tounderstand one’s employees can lead to the withdrawalof labour or a loss of motivation. It is incumbenttherefore, that those who would wish to manageengineers or those who design artefacts have a criticalunderstanding of human behaviour.

One approach to understanding people and organizationsis to understand how we learn; for learning is anecessary, if contingent, activity in which success andfailure contribute to our future actions. All life isnecessarily a learning activity that contributes to ourbehaviour. We all have theories or philosophies(explicitly or unconsciously held) of how people learnthat contribute to our personal behaviour. In spite of thisvery little attention is paid to how we learn in theeducation system except for one or two courses onlearning-how-to learn. Yet we do expect the products ofeducation to be able to think critically and those whostudy critical thinking regard meta-cognition, the abilityto reflect on our own learning, as a key skill in criticalthinking. At the same time many students find thinking-about-thinking difficult.

One impediment to such understanding is the view thateach person thinks differently to the other. Many peoplefind that the idea that there are others with the samelearning style as themselves disconcerting and reject theidea that there are instruments that can detect theselearning styles, and that an instructors knowledge of thelearning styles can influence the way a lesson isstructured and improve the effectiveness of learning. Apossible way to interest students in their own learning isthrough case studies of learning organizations.Organizations that are successful continually learn. Inany event organizations are at their simplest aggregatesof learners. The factors that impede and enhance learningin classrooms also impede and enhance learning inorganizations. The purpose of this paper is to

demonstrate this case by means of a case study of amanufacturing organization. It is shown that study of theorganization leads to a number questions that shouldenable the reader to reflect on their own thinking skills.

Introduction

The idea that organizations are learningsystems has received much attention sincePeter Senge published “The FifthDiscipline” in 1990 (Senge,1990) althoughthe concept can be traced back to at leastto work by Argyris in the nineteen-fifties(Argyris and Schön, 1974). An alternativeand/or complementary approach suggestedby this writer [Heywood, 1989:2000] is todescribe the learning curve of anorganization in terms of models oflearning, problem solving, decisionmaking and critical thinking that arecommonly discussed in the literature.Many of them are linear and have commonelements. This writer demonstrated thispoint by reference to an organization in theaircraft industry in which he and severalcolleagues task analysed the work done bythose persons classified as engineers(Youngman et al, 1978). As part of theinvestigation he carried out an illuminativeevaluation (Heywood, 1976) that includeda study of the firm’s history. From thisstudy he constructed learning curves usingmodels of decision making similar to thatproposed by McDonald to explain thework of teachers (exhibit 1(McDonald,1968) and that which he andother colleagues had developed for theassessment of project work in engineeringscience (Carter, Heywood,& Kelly, 1986).The history of the organization had beendocumented by Langrish et al (1972) andGledhill (1966). It was analysed in terms

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of problem solving/decision making byHeywood (1974). It began with thestatement of the origins of the organizationfound in Langrish et al (1972).

The history of the organization showingits stages of learning

Langrish and his colleagues record of theAircraft Equipment Division of theEnglish Electric Co states that “During the1940’s the English Electric Co., atBradford were involved in manufacturingindustrial motors and generators.Manufacture of aircraft actuators forEnglish Electric at Preston and a separatesection was formed to deal with thisequipment. When the decision was takenin 1953 to extend the activities of thissection into aircraft generating equipment,it was felt by some including Mr P. J.Dalglish, the Divisional Manager, that therequirements of the aircraft manufacturersnot only for increased capacity (i.eelectrical power output) but also for lighterweights and better reliability would not beresolved by an extension of the sameconcepts to higher voltages. Theysuggested that further developments couldonly be made using alternating currenttechniques; indeed this trend had alreadybegun to emerge in the United States.”

The problem as formulated was tomanufacture alternating, as opposed todirect current machines. It is evident fromthe statement that the Divisional Managerthought that this goal could be reached bythe vertical transfer of learning.Examination of the organization’shistorical development shows that theengineer’s knowledge was structured bythe purchase of information in the form ofa licence to manufacture a constant speeddrive from the Sundstrand Corporation ofIllinois. It should be noted that McDonald1968 and others make a quite cleardistinction between problem finding,

problem formulation, and problem solving,a distinction that is maintained by thiswriter as result of the assessment ofperformance in project work inengineering science (Carter, Heywood &Kelly, 1986)

A constant speed drive maintains thegenerator at a constant speed when drivendirectly from the main engines of theaircraft. Without this interveningmechanism the transmission speed of thegenerator would vary with that of theaircraft engine.

This arrangement enabled the firm tomanufacture alternating current generatorsystems. Improving the system involvedthe engineers in the restructuring ofknowledge that was already wellorganized. They learnt and this example isa good example of that definition oflearning which says that it is that processby which experience develops new, andreorganizes old, concepts (Saupe,1961).

Even so, both ac and dc machinesremained highly unreliable, particularly athigh altitudes. By the mid-nineteen-fiftiesjets had emerged and plans for supersonicflight were under way. One reason for thisunreliability was the fact that thecommutator brushes were subject toexcessive wear under conditions of low airpressure and humidity. So in 1956 Englishelectric began to develop brushlessrotating rectifier machines. They weregiven “additional impetus when a Valiantbomber in 1952 and a Vulcan 1 in 1958crashed as a consequence of the failure oftheir 112 volt dc systems.” Both aircraftwere part of the British Nuclear deterrent;the Vulcan was the first delta wing bomberbuilt in the UK: (in the same period of the1950’s the Convair F102-Delta Daggerwas developed in the US).

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By 1957 with the introduction of suitablesemi-conductor diodes the AircraftEquipment Division went wholly over to anew programme of engineering which hadas its objectives the development of bothac and dc brushless generators and afurther reduction in the weight of aircraftelectrical generating systems.

In 1966 Gledhill explained that “its basicformat is essentially the same as thatdeveloped from the initial design studyundertaken in 1956. Over the interveningyears the potential of this basically soundconcept has been steadily exploited in aseries of applied investigation programmesinto five fundamentals: heat transfer,electromagnetic design, insulationselection, rectification and mechanicaldesign” (Gledhill, 1966).

It will be seen that the solution of theproblem caused the structuring ofrelatively disorganized knowledge. Forexample “…a more reliable and cheapersystem is sometimes obtained by theaddition of a third stage to the generatorcomprising a permanent magnet pilotexciter…the continuously availablevoltage-derived power source provided bythe pilot exciter obviates the need forcurrent-derived excitation power to caterfor the condition of symmetrical shortcircuit. This has made possible thedevelopment of extremely lightweightcontrol gear packages…”

The effects of this advance are that at 7.5lbs it weighs some 10lbs less than theprevious comparable unit. Gledhillillustrated the radical changes in size andweight which have been achieved firstwith printed circuits, then miniatureprinted circuits and finally modularpackaging of the regulator and controlpanels.

If the data provided by Gledhill (figures 1and 2) and Langrish in their articles isplotted in learning curves of the kindimplicit in models of learning and decisionmaking suggested by McDonald (1968) apattern of the kind displayed in figure 4emerges. Each development (curve)follows the pattern of the model shown infigure 3 which is related to the probabledemand for the work force.

In addition to continually reorganizing itsknowledge of existing products the firmwas from time to time faced withsubstantially new problems arising fromthe demand for the delivery of much moreelectric power at higher altitudes andhigher speeds of flight. These faced theengineers with a total reformulation oftheir thinking.

At the same time, advances in other firmssuch as the application of differentmaterial (e.g high cobalt iron alloys in themagnetic circuits of both rotor and stator),new technologies (e.g. printed circuits,semi-conductors) and new techniques (e.g.computer-aided design) - aided theacquisition of knowledge.

But it is equally important to remember theother side of the coin for adaptation to thisnew knowledge demanded substantialrelearning on the part of individuals in thedivision. Moreover, this was stimulated byrelatively quick changes in demand forimproved equipment in output, reliabilityand weight culminating in a design studyfor Concorde in 1964.

The phrases and sentences that have beenput in italics highlight problemformulation and identification, structuringand restructuring of knowledge. Theyshow that these are continuously recurringphenomena and they account for thecomplexity of exhibit 4. But theindividuals who contribute to these curves

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are also using similar heuristics. Wales,Nardi and Stager (1976) go so far as toargue that their heuristic of guided design

is a general method used across the realmsof knowledge for making decisions andsolving problems and they

Figure 1. Progressive increases in aircraft operational altitudes from J. D. Gledhill (1966). Recentdevelopment in electric power generating equipment for aircraft. The English Electric Journal, 21(6),35.

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Figure 2. Trends in weight and coolant inlet temperatures of aircraft generators from J.D. Gledhill(1966). Recent development in electric power generating equipment for aircraft. The English ElectricJournal, 21(6),36.

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Figure 3. An organizational learning curve related to probable demand for manpower from J. Heywood(1972). A Note on the employment of qualified personnel in the sixties and seventies. Final report No 9 tothe UK Employment Department of The Industrial Training Research Project, Department ofEducational research, University of Lancaster.

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Figure 4. Learning curves of an organization making aircraft generating equipment from J. Heywood(1972). A Note on the employment of qualified personnel in the sixties and seventies. Final report No 9 tothe UK Employment Department of The Industrial Training Research Project, Department ofEducational research, University of Lancaster.

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illustrate this point by numerous cases thatSherlock Holmes might have solved. Theguided design heuristic is:

Define the situation.

State the goal

Generate ideas

Prepare a Plan

Take action

Eck and Wilhelm (1979) modified theWales and Stager model thus

Identify the problem

Gather information

State objectives

Identify constraints and assumptions

Generate solutions

Analyze

Synthesize

Evaluate alternatives.

The engineering science model puts theevaluation of alternatives immediatelyafter the finding of solutions. Whileevaluation, the final stage, requiresreflection on what was achieved andwhether it could have been improved.

Many students in second level education inIreland (ie years 6 – 12) found thatheuristics of this kind (mainly Wales andStager’s but some Polya (1957)) wereuseful in decision making and problemsolving. One reason given for this was thestructure it gave to their learning(Heywood, 1996). Data obtained from theassessment of engineering science projectssuggested that some students havedifficulty with problem finding. Othershad difficulty in generating suitable

alternative solutions, and others withevaluation. Some students fail tounderstand the assumptions they makewhen undertaking projects andinvestigations.

A series of questions arise from the use ofsuch heuristics that should help studentsreflect on their learning process(es). Someexamples are expressed in the first personare.

1. Do I find problem solving aheuristic useful? If not, why not?

2. Am I able to define problems ofmy own making succinctly?

3. Do I find it easy/difficult togenerate alternative solutions?

4. Do I find it easy/difficult tounderstand the assumptions I ammaking in completing any activity?

5. Do I find it easy/difficult to changestrategy? To the extent of changingwhat it is I want to do?

6. Do I find it easy/difficult to reflecton what I have achieved?

7. How easy/difficult do I findlearning?

Some students find learning difficult and itis easy to blame students when theirdifficulties may, quite possibly, have beendue to the teacher. A classroom has manysimilarities with a learning organization.Given that this is the case it behoves us toconsider the factors that impede learning inthe classroom.

Impediments to learning in theclassroom

Given that all organizations are learningorganizations it follows that the factorsthat enhance or impede learning will besimilar to those that enhance and impedelearning in classrooms of which there aremany. In the paragraphs that follow thefocus will be on the role of experience inlearning and group learning.

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(1) Set mechanization (induction).

Many students when they learn aparticular way of solving a problem willuse the same technique again and againeven when the technique is notparticularly appropriate for the particularproblem to be solved. This idea is due toLuchins who asked pupils to obtainspecific quantities of water from three jarsfilled to different levels (capacity)(Luchins, 1942). First of all he showedthem how to do two problems thatinvolved all three jars. Then in anothernine problems he found that studentscontinued to use the three jar approacheven when a two jar solution waspossible. This ‘set’ interfered with theirproblem solving. Then Luchins dividedanother group into two sub-groups. Thefirst sub-group worked through theproblem in the usual way, using the threejar solution. The second group were toldto think carefully about how to solve theproblems, and given that instruction thesecond sub-group moved to the moresimple solution of using two jars. We tooeasily rely on a ‘set’ with which we arefamiliar, and the ‘set’ becomes acontrolling influence. Experience is a verypowerful influence on thinking whether itbe in classroom, organizational or otherlife settings. It prevents us thinkingoutside of the box.

(2) Innovation and experience

It is important to distinguish betweenexperience and experiential learning suchas that undertaken, in say, projects or role-playing exercises. The latter arespecifically intended to help us reorganizeprevious experience so that something newis learnt and as the learning curves of thisorganization show it can to continuallyreorganize its knowledge. “A crucialproblem for human development is that wehave to be aware of the discrepancy

between our perception and the incominginformation from our environment, and ofthe impact of our own subjectiveexperiences upon our perceptual world.”So writes Peter Hesseling (1966) who goeson to write “Applied to our subject thismeans that special experience in the sameorganization provides an individual withsuch frames of reference. The veryexistence of these frames of reference orschemata determines the meaning of ourperceptions. It shortens the time beforereaching a percept and reduces theambiguity of the situation. Specialismfosters autistic tendencies because onetends to define each situation as fitting ourown schemata.” It tends to condition theassumptions we make and the models weuse.

In 1966 when Hesseling wrote these wordsautism was a term that was seldom used.The Oxford Dictionary of 1964 defined isas “morbid self-admiration or absorptionin phantasy”. A little more explanationwould have been better but it is easy to seethat innovation often challenges what webelieve and cognitive dissonance ariseswhen we defend our values against anyreasoned argument [19]. That we tend torely on experience rather than work fromfirst principles, in the first instance seemsto be self-evident and in the firm in thecase study presented above we found thatengineers when faced with a problem inthe transfer of learning, in this case theability to design a gear box severalmagnitudes greater than they hadpreviously experienced, instead of startingfrom first principles searched in their pastexperience in vain for something that waslike what they had to do. They had to gothrough a new learning exercise for whichthey were not adequately prepared. This isnot to argue that they should not havelooked at past practice but they should not

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have become bogged down by it. Theproblem was, of course, solved.

In our investigation instruments weincluded items that would give us aninsight into Hesseling’s theory and, tosome extent, it was validated. We foundthat as the engineers grew older the morethey were likely to rely on past-experienceand reject the notion that training wasbeneficial. Younger engineers tended tovalue training. We felt there was sufficientevidence to justify the view that excessivereliance on experience may, in the end, bedestructive of innovation. In a work forcethat is relatively static the effects of agestructure on performance cannot beignored. Anecdotal evidence suggests thatlarge firms in the IT industry take the viewthat it is young people who maintain anorganization’s creativity. As firms grow,there seems to be an in-built mechanismwhich leads from the organic and creativeresponse to the environment to the closedresponse of schemata limited byexperience. A change from a relativelyopen system to a relatively closed system.Firms in this situation sometimes may seethe way forward to be by merger withanother company. Either way this hasimplications for the workforce, theindividual members of which need to behighly adaptable and that means being ableto reorganize their knowledge which inturn means they will have to learn rapidly.

The reflective learner will add to question5 above the questions:

To what extent do I rely on experience tosolve a problem?

How do the ways in which the boxinteracts on me and my response influencemy capacity for problem solving?

Are their times when experience hasprevented me from standing outside thebox?

What can I do to try and stand outside ofthe box?

To what extent do I think into the future?

And this brings us to the issue of creativityand the extent to which we believe we arecreative.

Creativity in the organization

It is not unreasonable to suggest that theindividuals in this organization who wereresponsible for the developments describedabove were very creative but in very manysmall ways. In his book Management andMachievelli Anthony Jay wrote that, “in asmall way creative ideas are beingproduced all the time” (Jay, 1967). Theneed to adapt in simple situations forces usto be creative. The same kind of thinkingis evident in the firm. In the final sectionof his article Gledhill writes of the futurethat “improvements to existing generationsof equipment will continue to be made inthe short term by the introduction of newmaterials and techniques. Among the mostpromising of these are electron beamwelding, and the pure glass conductorinsulation systems developed at theEnglish Electric Nelson researchLaboratories. Experimental machines builtwith this material have indicated that whenthe problems of construction are finallysolved the weight saving may be as high as15%.”

“Slightly further ahead are changes in thedesign concept of machines, but retainingthe generator, as a discrete unit. Moredirect forms of oil cooling, spraying,canning, drowning and phase-changesystems are logical developments and arebeing evaluated in proto-type machines.”

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“Probably the ultimate development stillusing so-called conventional arrangementswill be the integration of the generatorwithin the engine or auxiliary power unit.Various proposals have been put forwardfor arrangements of this sort but none todate has met all the requirements of highspeed and extreme environment.”

“Although these and other developmentswill continue to push higher operatinglimits of conventional machines, the timeis fast approaching when this concept willno longer meet the requirements involved.Artificially contrived easier environmentswill then become necessary with the largeweight penalties that these involve.”

Such thinking goes on in any firm of thiskind commonly referred to in those days asa design and development organization forsmall batch manufacture of highlyspecialised artefacts and systems which arethe subject of continuing modification.This firm was a highly innovativeenterprise with a number of European‘firsts’ and one world ‘first’ and dependedfor its future success on the extent towhich its technology remained at thefrontiers of knowledge. It worked at thefrontiers of manufacturing technology notat the frontiers of pure knowledge whereacademia works. Our understanding oflearning tells us that if the problems arewrongly formulated or there is a failure increativity, or there is over reliance onexperience or the market, the firm, anyfirm for that matter can fail. It also tells usthat since organizational learning is aninteractive activity among individuals inthe organization that the way in which it isstructured is important since the structurecan either impede or enhance learning(Barnes,1960) demonstrated this pointwhen he analysed two units doing almostidentical jobs in the electronics industry.He found the one that was the most close

to an “open-system” was more productivethan the one that most closely resembled a“closed-system.” The company of the casestudy stood somewhere in between.

People and organizations as socio-psychological systems

It was clear that the effectiveness of theorganization was dependent on theinterdependence of its workforce. Becauseroles were not defined with precision wefound that even at the lower levelsindividuals needed to widen the scope oftheir initial brief through skills ofcommunication and liaison in order to takesome action. It appeared thatcommunication was a complex skill, thenature of which varied with the activitiesundertaken. It seemed that persons wereappointed to roles which they had tochange in order to communicate. Theorganization was more a system ofpersons-in-relation than a strictly hierarchystructure. It is in such structures thatfeelings of responsibility are acquired.

We often allow ourselves to confuse statusand responsibility: I am as guilty of that asanyone else. To put it in another way weoften have to seek status in order to beresponsible and that may be the reasonwhy many persons seek to take onmanagerial roles. The feeling ofresponsibility accompanies or generates afeeling that the person is doing somethingworthwhile. In this organization almosteveryone was directing and controlling, toa greater or lesser degree, and for some itwas mainly a function of themselves. Jobsatisfaction is to some extent a measure ofthe degree to which an individual’s needsfor direction and control are satisfied. Inour study we showed that this was as mucha function of personality as it was ofhistory, ability and interest. What is an

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acceptable goal to one person will not beto another: some wanted to be stretchedothers wanted a strict routine. No twopersons in a section will be exactly alike. Itmay contain both aggressive people andtimid people who can work together in away that enhances or inhibits learning.Some who are taken outside their sphere ofcontrolling may have to be supported.

A person is a psycho-social system. Withinthe boundaries of that system mostindividuals wish to be ‘organic,’ to modifya term used by Burns and Stalker (1961).They wish to be able to take actions anddecisions as well as mature. Theboundaries of these psycho-social systemsarise as a function of the needs of the joband the needs of the person. When theseare matched for each person in theorganization a hierarchic system becomesstructured by individuals who are organicwithin their own system, and grow in it insuch a way that the organizations goals areachieved when it also becomes organic.Both systems have to be self-adjusting andwhen they are doing that the organizationis learning.

The key question for reflection is:

Do I interact with others in ways thatenhance or impede our learning?

We have, therefore to learn aboutourselves. Reflective thinking (self-assessment) should yield observations thatwill help us cope with other people andgroups.

Discussion

The purpose of this text has been to showthat learning is at the heart of all humanactivity, and that one way of promoting theunderstanding learning is by means of casestudies that pose questions about our ownbehaviour. A spin off should be anunderstanding of the observations we

should begin to make when we start workin an organization. Organizations do notrun smoothly and often this can be putdown to impediments to learning such ascognitive dissonance between variousmembers. Thus learning about the factorsthat make teams functional ordysfunctional should be an important partof the curriculum. But learning aboutlearning is much more than that. It is aboutour own maturation.

References

Argyris, C and D, Schön (1974). Theory in Practice.Increasing Professional Effectiveness. San Fransisco,Jossey Bass.

Barnes, L. B (1960). Organizational Systems andEngineering Groups. A Comparative Study of TwoTechnical Groups in Industry. Boston, HarvardUniversity, Graduate School of Business Administration.

Burns, T and G. Stalker (1961). The Management ofInnovation. London, Tavistock.

Carter, G., Heywood, J., and D. T. Kelly (1986). A CaseStudy in Curriculum Assessment. GCE EngineeringScience (Advanced). Manchester, RoundthornPublishing.

Eck, R. W and W. J. Wilhelm (1979) Guided design: anapproach to education for practice in engineering.Engineering Education, November, 191-198.

Festinger, L (1957). A Theory of Cognitive Dissonance.Stanford, CA. Stanford University Press.

Gledhill, J (1966). Recent developments in electricpower generating equipment for aircraft. The EnglishElectric Journal, 21,(6), 35.

Heywood, J (1974) Assessment in History (Twelve toFifteen) Report No 1 of the Public ExaminationsEvaluation Project. Dublin, School of Education, theUniversity of Dublin.

Hesseling, P (1966). A Strategy for Evaluation Research.Assen, Netherlands. Van Gorcum.

Heywood, J (1976). Engineers at work. An“illuminative” evaluation. The Vocational Aspect ofEducation 28, 25 – 38.

Heywood, J (1989). Learning, Adaptability and Change.The Challenge for Education and Industry. London, PaulChapman/Sage.

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Heywood, J (1996) ). Teaching decision making inschools using an engineering heuristic. ProceedingsFrontiers in Education Conference (IEEE) 67 – 74.

Heywood, J (2009). Managing and Leading Schools asLearning Organizations. Dublin, Original Writing fornational Association of Principals and Deputies.

Jay, A (1967). Management and Machiavelli: An enquiryinto the politics of corporate life. Harmondsworth,Penguin.

Langrish, J., Gibbons, M., Evans, W. G and F. R. Jevons(1972). Wealth from Knowledge. London, MacMillan.

Luchins, A. S (1942). Mechanisation in problem solving.The Effects of Einstellung. Psychological Monographs248 cited in McDonald (1968)

McDonald, F. J (1968). Educational Psychology.Wadsworth, Belmont, CA.

Polya, G (1957). How to Solve It. 2nd edition. GardenCity, Anchor Doubleday.

Saupe, J Chapter in Dressel, P (ed) (19610). Evaluationin Higher Education. Boston, Houghton Mifflin.

Senge, P (1990) The Fifth Discipline. The Art andPractice of learning Organizations. New York,Doubleday.

Wales, C, E., Nardi, A and R. A. Stager (1976).Professional Decision Making. Morganstown WV.Center for Guided Design, University of West Virginia.

Youngman, M. B., Oxtoby, R., Monk, J.D and J.Heywood (1978). Analysing Jobs. Aldershot, GowerPress.

Response by John Krupczak

In this article Heywood suggests that the studyof learning in organizations may intereststudents in their own learning. The idea isadvanced that the case studies of howorganizations have been able to continuallylearn may provide a motivation for students totake an interest in their own need tocontinually learn.

I agree with Heywood’s view and see manypotential benefits in this approach. Learning inorganizations can serve a catalytic role inprompting students to take both an interest intheir own learning processes and responsibilityfor continued learning over the course of theircareers. First it has proven difficult to interest

the majority of the US undergraduateengineering school students to make aconnection between the ability to engage inlife-long learning and the type of activitiesrelated to learning with which they engage asundergraduate students. This is despite theexistence of the ABET accreditation criterion(i) “a recognition of the need for, and anability to engage in life-long learning.”Meeting this condition has been a part ofABET accreditation for nearly 15 years andmost programs struggle to genuinelyaccomplish this goal. Typically the criterionmay be met by having students teachthemselves some small topic within the largercontent of an engineering science course. Thissituation is in reality the faculty membercarefully selecting and preparing the self-teaching experience so that the students have areasonable probability of being successful.Further the students are typically required toengage in this self-teaching activity as part of acourse requirement. This circumstance is notclose to optimal in terms of actually instillingrecognition of the need for, and an ability toengage in life-long learning. Howeverexposing students to the need for continuallearning in organizations may help to providea convincing context for engaging students intheir own learning.

Studies of the need for organizations tocontinually learn may also help engineeringfaculty to themselves allocate sufficientimportance to the issue of students’ ability toengage in life-long learning. Faculty prioritiestend to focus on the specific engineeringscience topics viewed as comprising theessential core of the engineering curriculum ina particular sub-field. Some progress has beenmade in broadening faculty perspectives, andnow professional skills such as communicationability, and teamwork are recognized by mostfaculty as critical elements in the competenciesof students. The ability to learn-to-learn haslanguished on the periphery of the professionalskill set of engineers. Drawing attention to theimperative that organization be learningorganizations may help faculty to allocateattention to this professional skill.

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The study of learning organizations asadvocated by Heywood may help studentsbecome more adept at self-directed learning bymaking use of a natural teaching and learningtechnique currently under-utilized in highereducation: that is the teaching power of stories.Stories have been a traditional method ofeducation that appear to be highly effective inthe ability to impact the attention, memory,and future behavior of learners. However,stories are little-used in higher education,especially in the technical disciplines. Storiesor synonymously case studies of learningorganizations have the potential to creatememorable impressions on students.

Heywood’s advocacy of case studies oflearning organizations shares some featureswith ethics education. Ethics is an area ofengineering education that achieved generalrecognition as critical to the professionaldevelopment of engineers and the case studyapproach found to be effective in ethicsinstruction can be transferred to the issue oflearning how to learn. The issue of learninghow to learn shares features in common withlearning to behave ethically as an engineer. Inparticular ethical judgment cannot be taught orlearned in rote fashion. Ethical decisions are inlarge part issues of judgment. While it may bepossible for students to memorize a list ofethical principles, the appropriate applicationof these principles to an unpredictable series ofethical challenges over the course of a career isnot an ability that exists as a staticcompetency. Similarly, an individual ability toengage in self-directed learning is an attributethat requires critical analysis and judgment ofcircumstances. It seems then that, like ethics,use of case studies which require applicationof critical evaluation, as advocated byHeywood, are likely to provide the kind oflearning environment compatible with studentsdeveloping competence in self-directedlearning.

Heywood also suggests that the study oflearning in organizations might include anappraisal of the type assessments or judgmentsthat should be made by an individual that is anew member of an organization. Theseappraisals or analyses would be directed

toward the learning style and learningeffectiveness of the organization. Thissuggestion could have significant impact onthe learning effectiveness of organizations. Inparticular, organizations seek to attract newemployees with the skills, abilities and otherattributes deemed desirable by theorganization. If these candidates foremployment were equipped with the ability tocritically inquire about the process by whichthe organization learns and how effective theorganization is at learning, to the point ofperhaps asking for specific examples andepisodes, then the organizations themselvesare likely to place a higher priority on beinglearning organizations and possibly attempt tobe better and more effective learningorganizations.

In a similar vein if new entrants to the laborforce are trained and skilled in the topic ofhow organizations learn and prioritize thisaspect of employment, then the baselinecompetence of organizations in this area willimprove. The case study approach advocatedby Heywood is an effective means to introducecritical thinking into this area of inquiry.

Response by Mani Mina

The idea that organizations are learningsystems has received much attention sincePeter Senge published “The Fifth Discipline”in 1990 although the concept can be tracedback to at least work by Argyris in thenineteen-fifties .The view presented in this textis that organizations are aggregates of learners,more over the extent to which organizationsare effective and efficient is a function of theway in which learning is impeded or enhancedby the way individuals interact with each otherin the organization. As has been pointed outthe factors that impede and enhance learningin the classroom are no different to those thatimpede learning in a classroom.

Linear models of critical thinking and inparticular decision making and problemsolving tend in whatever way presented to usesimilar skills. Problems have to be defined,knowledge has to be gathered an sorted,

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alternative solutions have to be evaluated, asolution has to be chosen, whatever is requiredto be done is implemented, and the solutionevaluated, and information is fed back to theoriginator. Similar models of the designprocess are found and are sometimes used tosupport the idea that design is a genericactivity. Linear models of this kind are easilyfaulted for much human behaviour (learning)is not linear even when formalised in aclassroom. Nevertheless they highlightimportant skills about which there is commonconsensus.

The purpose of this paper is to demonstratethat these models are useful in understandinghow organizations function as learningsystems by means of a historical case of a firmengaged in the design and production ofaircraft systems. It is also argued thatreflection on the case study should enablestudents to better understand how they learn.

Response by John Blake

In this paper, Heywood examinestechnological and engineering literacy (TEL)by looking at an engineering organization as agroup of people who collect, organize, and useknowledge to create and improve products.This approach can be used to identify theneeds of different individuals within theorganization (engineers, managers, sales andmarketing personnel, etc.) and others whointeract with the organization (customers andclients, other affected parties). This can helppeople in the TEL community in educationbetter understand and meet needs, and it canalso be used to help engineering organizationsbuild better teams. The paper examines theprocess of collection, organization, and use, aswell as the critical elements of adding newknowledge and reorganizing knowledge tomeet new needs and to incorporate newtechnology. As a result, this study can be usedto develop ways to help individual engineersmake their optimum contribution to anorganization at every stage of their career.The paper notes that an engineer’s ability, both

real and perceived, to contribute changes asthey progress through their career. The young,new engineer lacks experience. The olderengineer has experience and knows a greatdeal but may also allow themselves to beconstrained by how their work has been donein the past. Examining how organizationscollect, organize, and reorganize knowledgehas the potential to help engineers improvetheir ability to contribute at the different stagesof their careers. This will help them to be -and to be recognized as - valuable contributorsin every stage of their careers.

Heywood presents a case study of anengineering organization that creates and thenimproves a type of product over a period oftime. This example covers a period where anestablished company moved into a new area ofproducts. With a need for improvement overexisting products, the company had anopportunity to move into an area that was newfor them but was related to their existingproducts. To do this, the company had toobtain new knowledge, some of it by buyingthe rights to use technology developed byanother company, and had to build onknowledge from within their organization.This knowledge had to be selected andorganized to develop the new product line.Their new product line was a success. Overtime, the product was being used under moredemanding circumstances, and newtechnologies became available that could beused to improve these products. To meet thenew demands and incorporate the newtechnologies, the organization had to organize,add, and reorganize knowledge. The peoplebrought together in the organization had to dothis to create new products and to improveproducts, otherwise, this venture would fail.

The paper relates this example to Wales andStagger’s heuristic for guided design. It couldalso be related to Koen’s discussion ofheuristics for engineering (Koen, 1985; 2003))and heuristics for problem solving used inFogler, LeBlanc, and Rizzo (2014). Ananalysis of case studies such as the onepresented in this paper help to validate anddemonstrate the usefulness of these heuristics.

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The example in this paper leads to a series ofquestions. Consideration of these questionscan help someone reflect on the organizationallearning process, on how they can bestcontribute to an organization, and on how toimprove their ability to contribute. Thesequestions are remarkably useful. The papernotes that these questions can be useful forself-assessment and reflection by individualsat all stages of their careers with bothengineering and non-engineering backgrounds.They can be used by people who are managingproject teams, people in other mentoring orcoaching roles in the workplace, and byeducators who are preparing people for workin areas related to engineering and technology.

For people ranging from students to senior,experienced members of project teams and forengineers and non-engineers alike, thesequestions can help people be strongcontributors to the organization. The papernotes that a person’s potential to contributechanges as they progress through their careers.While the needs of people entering theworkforce will be of great interest to the TELcommunity, preparing these people toanticipate and cope with the needs of peoplelater in their careers is also of great interest.

All too often, it seems that organizations donot value employees in general and engineersin particular who are beyond a certain age.Engineers are urged to take early retirementpackages or are let go before they are ready toleave the workforce. Younger engineers arethen hired to take their place. While theyounger engineer with little or no experiencemay be less expensive, organizations losevaluable experience. Unless the moreexperienced engineer can find anotheremployer willing to hire them, the careers andlifetime earnings of older engineers are cutshort. A valuable resource in society,engineering knowledge and ability, is wasted.

There is a perception, at least in the UnitedStates, that there is a shortage of engineers.Engineering schools are pushed to do more torecruit and retain students. Some employershave pushed for changes in immigration policythat will allow them to hire more engineers

from overseas. It would be far better for allinvolved to find ways to help engineerscontinue to be valuable contributors as theyage instead of pushing them to leave theengineering work force.

The paper addresses some of the concerns witholder, more experienced engineers. Whiletheir experience is valuable, people in thisgroup may be constrained by their experiencein ways that cause them to miss opportunitiesto be creative. Worse yet, they may restrictothers from being creative. This may beintentional behavior (as in we’ve always doneit this way) or an unintentional response,perhaps resulting from bad experiences in thepast. Understanding the problems is animportant step towards finding ways to helppeople avoid these problems while keepingthese people as productive assets to theorganization. It can also help show ways thatthe younger and older engineers can help eachother be more creative and productive. It canalso help educators working with peoplepreparing to enter the workforce help theirstudents look beyond the start of their careersto see what they should be doing, as well aswhat they should avoid doing, as they progressthrough what one hopes will be a long andcontinually productive career.

This paper is based on one case study. Othercases can yield insight into other aspects ofengineering and technology and can yieldother useful questions. Similar studies ofcases that go into different aspects and exploredifferent groups, such as an example thatwould give more insight into customers or thepublic, would be useful and could beapproached in a similar manner.

To function well, an organization mustmanage knowledge that is new to theorganization as well as knowledge availablewithin the organization to create and improveproducts. The organization’s members andstructure must enhance, and must not impede,learning and innovation. For the people in theorganization, especially the managers, agreater degree of technological andengineering literacy can help them set upstructures and direct efforts for self-

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improvement and the improvement of othersthat will serve this goal. Case studies such asthe one presented in this paper contribute toour understanding and our ability to helpothers develop this literacy.

References

Fogler, H. Scott and Steven E. LeBlanc with BenjaminRizzo (2014), Strategies for Creative Problem Solving,3rd Edition, Upper Saddle River, NJ. Prentice-Hall.

Koen, Billy Ray (1985). Definition of the EngineeringMethod. Washington, DC. American Society forEngineering Education.

Koen, Billy Ray (2003). Discussion of the Method:Conducting the Engineer’s Approach to ProblemSolving. New York. Oxford University Press.

Response by Alan Cheville

Heywood makes several interesting pointsin this article which uses a case study of anaerospace engineering firm in GreatBritain. He introduces well known stepsof design that were found to serve asheuristics for decision making inengineering firms and that also are usedtoday to teach design. As Heywood pointsout these steps are not to provide a formulathat once learned enables an engineer toundertake successful design, rather theyserve as a framework to ask questionsabout one’s own work. In other words tolearn about one’s self as one learns.

From this perspective the goal, whetherone is at school or work or engaging withfriends and family is to be a reflectivelearner. As Tennyson put it poeticallyfrom the mouth of Ulysses beforeHeywood, “…yet all experience is an archwhere through gleams that untraveledworld whose margin fades for ever and forever when I move.” It is through ourexperience that we remake the world forourselves by developing schemas,schemata,that allow us to interpret newexperiences and make difficult tasks

routine by organizing knowledge. LikeUlysses we are not only shaped by ourexperiences but they form the strong archthat shows us a gleaming new world.Heywood focuses on communication,mental agility, and learning about oneselfas vital to graduates success post-college.

While seemingly a case study ofengineering work half a century ago, onethat has relevance for questions we stillpose in engineering education today, thisarticle poses some troubling questions.For me the one of the most challengingaspects of this work is the characterizationof the relative values of knowledge gainedthrough experience and the insight onebrings to a problem when addressing itfrom first principles. Every time I havehad to solve a principle from firstprinciples it has been a gruellingundertaking but one that is richly rewardedby an ultimate sense of accomplishment.However changes to the world have madeit much easier not only to draw on one’sown experience but that of others to muchmore quickly tackle problems outsideone’s own experience. Is the value ofyounger engineers that they are lessburdened by experience giving them abetter ability to address problems fromfirst principles, or is it that they draw onelectronically encoded experiences viaresources such as YouTube in a way olderengineers have not mastered? Regardless,the questions implied by the article raisesignificant questions for engineeringeducation as commonly practiced. Thearticle raises even more significantconcerns for the value of humans in aworld when the routine, those aspects ofwork supported by experience, areincreasingly prone to automation.

The second question this article raised forme has to do with Heywood’s assertion of

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the importance of metacognition to adaptto one’s environment and to continue tolearn. In this conceptualization ofeducation students must ask themselvesdifficult questions about their abilities anduse the answers to navigate their futures.Here Heywood seems to invoke a designmethodology, but the design is not of anengineering artefact, but rather the designof ourselves. The article raised questionsin my mind of what type of environmentwould enable students or employees tohonestly confront the questions he posesabout their ability to change, learn, andgrow. There is a level of honesty that isrequired that seems difficult to muster,particularly if a society is in difficulteconomic times, or the media or anorganization expresses values for what oneis not. In a university the ability to asksuch questions of oneself seems to be a

factor of the supportiveness of the learningenvironment. If students feel that they arepotentially not welcome to continue withtheir education, if their answers to thesequestions are misaligned with the beliefsexpressed by faculty, then there would be atendency to develop one-dimensionalengineers, perhaps with authoritariancharacteristics.

In conclusion Heywood raises someinteresting points for how engineers mightneed to be educated if they are tosuccessfully navigate 21st century careers.While the case study draws from old data,it highlights that despite our desire toattach the label “New!”, ultimately oursuccess and happiness depends onrelations, and in many respects theserelationships are enduring.

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Non Nova, Sed Nove Part II: John Macmurray and EngineeringEducation

Alan ChevilleAbstractAs engineering evolves with society to address neweconomic practices and more global issues there aresignificant challenges as to how students are prepared toenter the profession. This paper undertakes a critique ofcurrent educational practices by exploring the relevanceof Scottish philosopher John Macmurray’s GiffordLectures to engineering education. The exploration ofMacmurrays work is intended to start a conversation onreexamining the ends towards which engineering worksand to inform potential new directions for engineeringeducation. This paper, the second in a series, developsMacmurray’s ideas on agency, personal relations, and theimpact of personal philosophies on society with a focuson how they can inform engineering education. Thepaper explores his philosophy of the personal whichfocuses on human agency and how an agent developsnotions of other persons. Macmurray’s three modes ofreflection on action—pragmatic, contemplative, andpersonal—are analyzed to develop an understanding ofthe personal mode of reflection in the framework ofeducating engineers. An argument is made that byfocusing too much on pragmatic modes of reflectionengineering educators are currently creating students whomay be incapable of working towards moral good insociety. A claim is made that if engineering programscould focus more explicitly on community anddeveloping personal and contemplative rather than purelypragmatic modes of reflection engineers will be betterprepared to work ethically in a highly interconnectedworld.

IntroductionWe face a quiet crisis in engineeringeducation. This crisis is not one of too fewengineers, student unprepared for theprofession, or our inability to change theeducation system, but rather one ofmeaning, of purpose. For over a centuryengineering has been the willing partner ofbusiness and government, the practicalproduction side of real worldindustrialization, defense, and capitalism[1(Cheville, 2014)]. This relationship hasbrought great benefits to many asevidenced

by the unprecedented rise of standards ofliving in industrialized countries over thelast century. It has also provided purpose

to engineering which seeks to advancetechnology, increase production, reducecost, and utilize natural forces for humangood. In the United States high levelpolicy reports recognize the impact ofengineering on the economy. But thesocietal benefit of engineering seemsincreasingly disconnected from itspersonal meaning to many students. Aspeople become increasingly aware that theside effects of engineering are creatingnew challenges that must be addressedholistically it may be time to reexaminethe ends towards which engineeringeducation was proposed as a means at thestart of the 20th century. One step is torethink the relationship betweenengineering, with our tradition of science-based pragmatism and ethical canon ofpreventing harm, and that of businesswhich is increasingly growth- and profit-focused and seeks to maximize the poorlydefined notion of utility ((Sedlacek,2011).Exploring the ends toward which weprepare engineers for a profession is both aphilosophical and engineering journey.This paper, the second in a series,continues an exploration of the relevanceof Scottish philosopher John Macmurraytor engineering education as possible firststeps on this larger journey.

Macmurray’s development as aphilosopher was driven in part by hisexperiences in the First World War and hisdisillusionment with the societalinstitutions that let such a conflict occur.Macmurray’s work explores what it meansto be human, focusing on the importanceof both personal agency and fellowship.As will be described in this paper his workclaims that the pragmatic values of

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engineering—i.e. increasing production,efficiency, or serving as the means to evermore sophisticated ends—lead invariablyto loss of individual agency. InMacmurray’s time fascism andcommunism were the dehumanizingsystems, today we see the same concernsbeing expressed about crony capitalism(Reich, 2016). To counter such trendsMacmurray sought in his Gifford lecturesto develop a “philosophy of the personal”that foregrounds the individual. Thus onegoal of this paper is to critically viewengineering education through the lens ofMacmurray’s system, particularly focusingon the role reflection plays in learning andhow under-developed modes of reflectioncan lead to engineers unable to work formoral good. Since technologyincreasingly impacts, and is impacted by,human relations a philosophy of personalrelationships has implications forengineering education. It can also beargued that engineering has more need ofunderstanding personal relations than otherSTEM disciplines since in mathematicsand the physical sciences the existence ofhumans is often secondary to discoverieswhile in engineering work supports humanends. Since the individual focus ofMacmurray’s philosophy may add insightsto the predominately pragmatic values ofengineering, a second goal of this paper isto highlight key elements of Macmurray’s“philosophy of the personal” that arerelevant for engineering education. Thepath this paper navigates throughMacmurray’s philosophy ends with somereflections on how this work can informnew directions in engineering education.

Macmurray’s Gifford LecturesIn the first of his two part Gifford lecturesJohn Macmurray defined a philosophybased on action that circumvented adualism between acting and thinking in

Western philosophy. He viewed the causeof this dualism as Descartes’ focus on anisolated, rational mind which has led to aWestern philosophy and underlyingsocietal narratives that are overlyegotistical and theoretical. In The Self asAgent [(Macmurray, 1957). Macmurray’soverall conclusion was that being human isdefined iteratively through action that isreflectively informed by knowledge gainedthrough prior action. It is through ouractions that we both come to know theworld and through which the world ischanged in some way. The philosophy ofaction was explored in part I. In thesecond half of the Gifford Lectures,published as Persons in RelationMacmurray (1961) seeks to understandboth the reasons we act and how to act inways that create moral good by exploringmodes of reflection—how we generateknowledge from action—that can help anagent act in a way that supports asatisfactory end. The claim madethroughout Persons in Relation is that theartistic and scientific ways of developingunderstanding that were explored in theSelf as Agent cannot by themselves lead toa better society. Engineering aligns closelywith Macmurray’s definition of thescientific, or pragmatic, mode and thuscannot by itself benefit society. Rathersatisfactory ends can only be achievedthrough a more personal form of reflectioninformed by a comprehensive philosophyof the personal.

Compared to the logical flow of The Selfas Agent, Persons in Relation is muchmore disjoint; there is considerableiterative repetition of a core set of ideas asMacmurray seeks to expand thedevelopment of the personal mode ofreflection from mother-child relationshipsto society as a whole. For this reason thepaper does not follow the flow of Persons

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in Relation linearly, but rather exploresmajor themes that are relevant toengineering education. The overallargument that Macmurray lays out buildsfrom several assumptions: Due to the strong influence of other

agents on our actions, theindividual unit of humanity is notan isolated, rational mind buthumans in relation.

Descartes’ view of an isolatedrationality does not qualify as fullya human existence.

Human relationships are not ameans to an end or a skill, althoughthey have elements of skill, ratherrelations with others exist as an endin themselves.

Humans are defined by actions, andactions always occur in relation toothers.

Persons in Relation builds upon The Selfas Agent by framing ways to understandrelationships through the cycle ofwithdrawal and return introduced in thefirst set of Gifford lectures and addresseshow relationships affect our actions bothas individuals and as societies. Howeverbecause of the range he sought to coverMacmurray’s philosophical system is leftsubstantially incomplete.

The Development and Forms ofRelationshipsPersons in Relation begins where The Selfas Agent leaves off, that human existencederives from action. While previously theagent was considered isolated, acting aloneagainst the Other, being human means weall exist within a field of other agents whoaffect our actions. For Macmurray the factthat we act within a network of otheragents, persons, is the central fact ofhuman existence. We are born into amother-child relationship that defines whatit means to be human; both the Aristoteliannotion of a child as an unformed adult as

well as organic and evolutionary views ofhuman development fail to capturerelational aspects of childhood. Themother-child relationship serves as an endin itself as well as, for the child, a means tothe end of survival. Human beings survivenot on instinct but by being helpless, andthis helplessness builds the need forrelationship into our core being. If aninfant were to develop without humancontact then his or her actions could beattributed to a core rational being in theCartesian sense. However numerous casestudies show that unfortunate children, andeven monkeys, who develop without suchrelations have great difficulties throughoutadult life (Davis, 1940: Suomi et al 1976).Our first relation is with a caregiver who isanother agent; without this relationship achild does not survive. Our relations thenexpand to a web of personal relationships(family) and we learn to perceive that ouractions against a non-animate Other shouldbe different than those against otheragents. Thus we as humans are born into apersonal relationship and over time learnthree different modes of action: treatingthe Other as personal (another agent),treating the Other as inanimate stuff (notagent), and a middle, indeterminatecategory that can applies to other forms oflife; for example we may eat beef but havea relationship with a pet.

As we grow we develop different types ofrelations with other agents. Directrelationships are when we interact with theagent and indirect are those in which wedo not know them but our actions affectthem. Interactions between agents cansimilarly be classified into personal andimpersonal relationships. An impersonalrelationship is one in which we do not seethe other person as a human being likeourselves, but rather view them through aninstrumental or rational lens, for example

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Figure 1: The cycle of withdrawal and return as outlined in (a) The Self as Agent for an isolatedindividual and (b) as modified in Persons in Relation for personal relations.

as a means to an end. Impersonalrelationships do not form a separate class

but are a subset of the general case ofpersonal relationships since impersonal

relationships can be done for humanreasons (e.g. doctor-patient). Indirectrelations are always impersonal.

Relationships are broadly based on eitherlove for, or fear of, others. ForMacmurray love refers to action taken forbenefit of another agent and is alwaysfocused outward, or is heterocentric. Fearon the other hand is egocentric and cantake the form of fear for oneself or the fearof another. The emotion whichpredominates in the relationship—love(positive) or fear (negative)—depends bothon our prior relationships and how wereflect on those relationships. In otherwords relationships are iterative anddevelopmental. Personal relations, likeactions, can thus can be framed in thecycle of withdrawal and return that wasfirst introduced in The Self as Agent,Figure 1(a), with the modifications shownin Figure 1(b). The upper portion of thecycle corresponds to action which in therealm of the personal is a relation buildingphase in which the agent seeks personalconnection followed by a phase ofwithdrawal (the bottom, reflective part ofthe cycle) to reflect on the interaction.

In the action part of the cycle the agent’sintention is modified by their motive.Intention is what we wish to accomplishwhile motive is the underlying emotion towhich can be either fear or love. Whileour intention to act is conscious, we aregenerally not aware of our motive since wefocus our attention outwardly on our goalrather than inwardly on our emotions.Discernment of motive is complicated bythe fact that love and fear often occursimultaneously with the subordinateemotion acting as an inhibitor. We don’tlove fully since there is always some fearnor do we fully withdraw from another infear. Note that motives are meaninglessfor an isolated, rational individual sincethey can only be satisfied or blocked byanother’s response. In relationships werely on others’ actions for our own well-being; i.e. others help to determine ouremotional state. The combination of twointeracting agents leads to four possibleconnections between action and reflection(knowledge) which depend on whether themotive is for love or fear and whether theaction towards another succeeds or fails.The four combinations of action andmotive serve to steer our attention todifferent aspects of the relationship weintended to establish as shown in Table 1.

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Motive of Love (towards another) Motive of Fear (of another, for oneself)Action

Succeeds1) Develops stronger relationships. 2) Develops animism where I-It replaces I-

You therefore isolating the agent [8].ActionFails

3) Develops intellectual or moraljudgment depending on the form ofrepresentation.

4) Develops relationships based ondomination or obedience which can lead tomutual hatred.

Table 1: Macmurray’s outcomes of action and motive

These four possibilities affect our personaldevelopment as follows. 1) When theagent’s action succeeds and they act fromlove the relationship strengthens and thereis mutual growth in fellowship. 2) If therelationship succeeds but is based on amotive of fear, the agent learns they areable to manipulate others which develops atendency for impersonal relationships. 3)If the agent is centered on another out oflove but perceives their action fails ittriggers withdrawal and reflection becausethe intended relationship is frustrated. Ifthe reason their action failed was that theychose the correct action but either used thewrong means to achieve their intent orwere unskilled, they develop intellectualjudgment. If on the other hand the agentrealizes that they misread the intent of theother person, and thus acted the wrongway towards the other agent they developmoral judgment. In either case they arebetter equipped to pursue relationships inthe future. 4) In the case that the motive isfear for ourselves or fear of another andthe relationship fails, reflection strengthensthat fear. If our fear is of the other agentwe may withdraw and become moreobedient to the others will which drives theagent into an internal life of fantasy. Onthe other hand if we seek to oppose theother agent because we are afraid forourselves, we seek to defend ourselves byaccumulating power which drives us todominate. If this framework is applied toteamwork in engineering education ithighlights that teaching the methods ofteamwork only addresses part of casethree. Developing teamwork may require

other interventions such as teachingstudents to better recognize motives andskills in personal, rather than merelyprofessional, relations.

The Role of Reflection in BecomingHuman and Acting MorallyAs with an agent’s action against aninanimate Other that was outlined in TheSelf as Agent, the critical moment indeveloping personal relations occurs whenwe reflect following an action directedtowards another agent. Where we focusour attention and the mode of reflection weadopt helps us develop variousrepresentations of human relationships, i.e.different forms of knowledge, whichinform future actions. According toMacmurray the fact that we are constantlywithdrawing from and reestablishingrelationships is vital to our development ashuman beings since it is by withdrawal weare able to adapt our response to anotherand reforge the relationship in a new way.In other words, we are continually learningthrough our relationships how to be humanand even antagonistic relationshipsdevelop agency and will. All the tensionsthat define human existence emergethrough relationships in which we faceeither opposition or support from others.These representations become habitual ifpracticed long enough such that the action-reflection cycle happens without muchconscious thought. In brief, the way weact towards others is determined by whatwe pay attention to following an action,and how we reflect eventually becomesunconscious, developing into a habit.

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Macmurray terms our view of otherswhich arises from reflection “mode ofapperception” following Descartes andKant. The mode of apperception we adoptat a given time determines what we payattention to and thus which results of ouraction get integrated into our existingknowledge and schemas. Thedevelopment of an agent’s apperception isdetermined by the entire cycle of Figure 1:what they intend to accomplish when theyinteract with others, their subconsciousmotive, the results of the action, whichactions they pay attention to, how theydevelop representations of the interaction,and how this affects their store ofknowledge or skill to base futureinteraction on. The agent’s apperceptionof others can be thought of as habits ofattention that are developed over time andonce established can be difficult to breakout of. The four possible pathways for anagent’s interactions, Table 1, and what theagent chooses to pay attention to followingthe interaction, can lead to differentapperceptions. The apperceptiondeveloped depends on three inter-connected factors: the intention andmotive of the agent, the knowledge theagent possesses, and the skill that wasbrought to bear in the action. An actioncan be unsuccessful either due to a lack ofskill or because the agent misunderstoodthe nature of other agents and acted(perhaps with great skill) in a way thatcould not achieve the desired end. Skill isultimately technological and arises fromviewing the world pragmatically.Understanding others’ nature comes fromcontemplating how satisfactory one’sactions are. Skill arises fromgeneralization or scientific reflection whilechoosing the right action depends uponparticularization or one’s aestheticjudgment, Figure 1(a), as discussed in TheSelf as Agent. It is the agent’s intention

and motive, however, that determine theability to act morally; neither skill noraesthetic judgment is inherently moral.

Since the world in which we act is the sumof the actions of all agents (Macmurray’sprinciple of the world as one action) whenan agent acts these actions affect otherswhether the agent wills it or not.Reframed in engineering terms we are allpart of a highly interconnected system, andour actions drive feedback loops thatdetermine the state of the system, not onlyfor ourselves but for others. Thus unlessthe education of engineers explicitlydevelops intention and motive it may wellbe engineers cannot act for systemic good.Since being human is based on relations aswell as rationality, then my ability to act,my freedom, depends in part on how youbehave. Macmurray defines a moralaction as one that intends greatercommunity for agents. If my intention isto support greater freedom and agency forothers then my actions are moral. If Iintend benefits for myself without regardfor others my actions are immoral. To actmorally one must be part of a communityand intend to support or increasecommunity among agents. ForMacmurray moral behavior is a personaland social good as well as an end in itself.From this perspective the purpose, or ends,of an engineering education are to supporthuman systems that build community.

One cannot act morally simply by havinggood intentions, however. Morality has itsroot in intention, but intention developsfrom the agent’s apperception.Apperception derives from attention andattention in turn leads to intention since wepay attention to what we intend. This isthe circular and iterative feedback cycleshown in Figure 1(b) which eventuallydevelops into habits. We must actively

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work to develop our ability to act morallyat all parts of the cycle of withdrawal andreturn by aligning action and intention.Thus teaching engineers to act ethicallyshould be approached as developing habitswhich cannot be done through one or twocourses on codes, but rather must beintegrated throughout a student’seducation. If we were isolated Cartesianminds our actions would only be affectedby our own apperceptions. We develop,however, within a community or societyand the dynamics of personal relations thatsurround us both influence our indirectrelationships and are mirrored onto societyat large. The habitual apperceptions asociety develops thus determine theaccepted morality for its members.Macmurray claims communities oftenshare modes of apperception—i.e. thereare different forms of apperceptions insocieties—and thus the community helpsdetermine the accepted morality and thusthe intention of agents. As William James(1912) also points out, what we believematters and the way we view a society orcommunity affects what that society is,which Macmurray defines as the principleof the world as one action.

Modes of ApperceptionIf agents are to act morally then ways todevelop modes of apperception at theindividual and societal level that supportcommunity are needed [1]. Macmurrayframes three ways of perceiving the Other,one of which directly supports moralaction (positive) and two others which donot (negative). The positive mode ofapperception is a communal/personalmode that arises when one acts for thegreater community and seeks to buildbonds between agents. The negativemodes are the scientific/pragmatic andartistic/contemplative modes introduced inThe Self as Agent. The term “negative” in

Macmurray does not mean “bad” butrather “not personal”. All three modes ofapperception need to be developed if anagent is to act effectively. In the case ofengineering, a culture that values effectiveaction, focusing education too strongly onthe generalizable knowledge of thescientific mode may limit engineers’effectiveness unless they learn to developother modes independently.

As discussed previously the two negativemodes arise from misalignment betweenthe agent’s motive/intention and the resultsof action as discussed previously (seeTable 1). When there is repeatedmisalignment between intention and actionand the agent acts from a motive of fearrather than love they take a defensiveposture and withdraw from others. Suchdistance makes us more egocentric andprone to conflict, thus supporting theperspective that the agent is separate fromothers, or the Cartesian duality Macmurraysought to critique. The contemplativemode of apperception arises when theagent seeks to defuse the intention-actionconflict by distancing themselves andretreating into a more ideal mental orspiritual representation of the world. Thepragmatic mode arises when the agentseeks to control their own response or theresponse of another; in this mode powermatters and we tend to treat others asmeans [2]. If the agent’s motive is love,however, these negative modes lead togrowth in intellectual or emotionaljudgement, as discussed previously.

In Macmurray’s philosophy modes ofapperception and the knowledge theygenerate support action. Which mode isappropriate in a given situation dependsupon the agent’s intention in acting. If theagent’s intentions is to seek truth—choosing the right means to achieve their

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Figure 2: Representations of the (a) scientific, (b) artistic, and (c, d) personal modes of thought. Solidlines represent direct relations that have a personal engagement while dashed lines represent indirect orimpersonal relations.

intention—then the pragmatic mode isappropriate and knowledge gained byacting serves as a means to future action.This mode addresses means only, andultimately finds general rules that supportaction. Whether or not the end chosen issatisfactory or not to the agent requires thecontemplative form of reflection. Thismode seeks to expose form and refinesensibility in understanding the Other sothat better ends can be chosen and in thissense is idealistic. In the pragmatic formof reflection rules serve as a means whilein the contemplative mode form is an endto be enjoyed and thus both modes need tobe employed if correct means are to bechosen to reach a satisfactory end.Macmurray also identifies these modes asscientific and artistic from the archetypesof scientist and artist. Engineering alignspredominately with thescientific/pragmatic mode of apperception,but draws on elements of theartistic/contemplative mode as it appliesgeneralized processes to specific,contextualized needs. To maintain aneeded objective distance the idealizedscientist has indirect, or impersonal,relationships both with the Other they areinvestigating as well as the people whowill use the generalized knowledge theycreate to further their own actions. Thearchetypical artist, on the other hand,

engages in a direct, personal relationshipwith the Other to capture its ideal form.The artist then represents this form to animpersonal audience or public who alsoview the artist’s work to develop anindirect relationship with the artist’ssubject. The scientific and artistic modesof reflection can be represented as shownin (a) and (b) of Figure 2. Here dashedlines represent impersonal or indirectrelations and solid lines represent direct orpersonal relations.

For Macmurray both thescientific/pragmatic andartistic/contemplative modes are reflectiveand abstract. Furthermore these modes areimpersonal since they support an isolatedagent and their future actions. Reality,however, is more complicated andMacmurray’s conceptions areoversimplified. The scientist does not livein a vacuum and when they present resultsthey are to an audience of peers, many ofwhom the scientist has personalrelationships with (Kuhn, 1966). Theeffectiveness of the scientist’s work inchanging the views held by a communityof scientists depends greatly upon theserelationships. The same logic applies toengineering since if engineers are to haveinfluence in societal decisions aboutinfrastructures and systems then skills in

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relationship building are required.Similarly the public image of the artisticgenius toiling alone to capture beauty in anew way is similarly a myth, designed inpart to sell art (Wolff, 1993).

Our actions always have consequencesregardless of whether the end issatisfactory or not, or whether effective orineffective means are used. This leads to aquadrant of action as shown in Table 2. Ifone works towards the wrong end, theresult of actions are unsatisfactoryemotionally and reflection on what theagent values is necessary. The role ofeducation is then to develop thecontemplative mode of apperception. If onthe other hand one chooses the wrongaction to achieve the desired end, theresults are not what was intended andeducation needs to develop the pragmaticmode. It is only when we are working inthe right way for the right end is ourintention satisfied. However the basic unitof humanity is not “I “but “Us”, and allactions are performed on a field of otheragents. It is the personal model ofapperception that one uses to act morallyand align ends and means.

The positive or personal mode ofapperception developed by Macmurraysupports community, or better relationsbetween persons. Where the pragmaticmode of reflection generalizes rules forfuture action and the contemplative modecaptures the satisfactoriness of an action,the personal mode is concerned with howour actions affect others. The personalmode is just as necessary to action as the

negative modes since our actions takeplace not solely against an impersonalOther but on a field of other agents. Anaction cannot be judged as satisfactory andeffective without also being moral(compatible with community) since ittakes all of us to fully determine the future.Thus while each of the three modes ofapperception—pragmatic, contemplative,and personal—contribute to rationalreflection Macmurray considers thepersonal mode as primary since it is thefirst mode we learn as humans and thusunderlies all other forms of learnedreflection. The personal mode ofapperception seeks to integrate means toend and the scientific to the artistic modesin the service of right (moral) actions andhence is only defined through action. Thisis a key point, we cannot develop thismode of reflection without engaging inrelationships. With respect to educatingengineers it follows that without the abilityto reflect on one’s own relation to acommunity and being able to act tostrengthen those relations then it would bedifficult to act for moral good within thatcommunity. Given engineering’s identityas a profession dedicated to public goodand the need for self-regulation as anelement of professional identity (Cheville& Heywood, 2015) it follows that withoutdeveloping the personal mode ofapperception it is difficult to be anengineer. In summary the personal modeof reflection seeks to develop a satisfactoryrepresentation of action as it relates to thecommunity of other agents who live in thesame world; Figure 2 (c).

Means, pragmatic End,contemplative

Effective Ineffective

Satisfactory Right end, right means Right end, wrong meansUnsatisfactory Wrong end, right means Wrong end, wrong means

Table 2: Pragmatic and contemplative modes of apperception and relation to means and end.

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The personal mode of apperception isdeveloped, as are the other modes, throughthe cycle of withdrawal and return, Figure1(b). Emphasizing the personal requiresthat we seek to develop a motive of loveand an intention to act for others’ benefit.It is this struggle, to see all others aspersons, that for Macmurray defines whatit is to be human. Developing personalrelations is difficult, and can be defeatedby modes of apperception which are basedon fear. Additionally we tend todepersonalize others as we extend ourrelationships, but we should strive, asmuch as we are able, to retain the notion ofpersons. Our willingness to tryto personalize all relationships is how wedevelop this mode of apperception.Elements of this mode include caring forothers rather than oneself, the importanceof individuality and agency, a recognitionthat each of us is realized through others,and treating relations with others as an endin themselves rather than as a means to anend. One critique of Persons in Relation isthat as Macmurray lays out hisphilosophical system, clear definitions ofthe personal mode of apperception remainvague and scattered.

Since the development of fellowship hasgenerally been considered a function ofreligion Macmurray also refers to thepersonal mode of reflection as a religiousmode. Recall that both The Self as Agentand Persons in Relation were given asGifford lectures, established to “promoteand diffuse the study of Natural Theologyin the widest sense of the term—in otherwords, the knowledge of God” (JTF,2016). Macmurray frames religion asnecessary for rational growth whilerejecting its more supernatural aspects.Macmurray rejects both Freud’s view ofreligion as regression as well as Marx’sview of religion as an opiate of the masses

(Marx, 1971) [3]. From this rationalperspective religion enables communityand a Supreme Being serves as a universalOther, or the overarching member of thecommunity that all other members relate toand draw their relations from. In thepersonal mode of apperception one’srelation with their Deity serves as an idealmental archetype from which they baseother relationships. Since personalreflection seeks to universalize theproblem of how I act towards others whoare also agents, belief in a universal Otherwhom we all stand in relation to serves asan aid personal/religious reflection andenables us to better align our intentionswith actions towards others. ForMacmurray religion is not escapism or away to abrogate responsibility but rather itserves as a means to emphasize intentiontowards community with religiousceremony and celebration serving tostrengthen the community’s will towardsfellowship. From a philosophicalperspective there are other reasons to lookto religious thought in developing apersonal mode of reflection. Since ourknowledge of others come through ourrelationships, all personal knowledgecomes at least partially through revelationsince we cannot morally compel otheragents to reveal information aboutthemselves. Nor can others compel me.To build fellowship I must lay bare myown intentions and motive (the origin of“revelation” is from reveal). Whilerevelation is not generally accepted as asource of claims in rational philosophicalsystems, it can be in religious ones(Baggini & Fosl, 2010). Thus it is throughwillingness to learn about myself byrevealing myself to others that I develop aphilosophy of the personal.

The personal mode of apperceptionaddresses a tension Macmurray saw

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between knowing and acting: thatknowledge requires certainty but actionrequires freedom. In other words forknowledge to be complete the future mustbe determinate, but freedom—the ability toact to change the future with intention—requires an indeterminate future. The roleof the personal mode of apperception insociety is to identify a “middle path” thataccepts uncertainty and integratesreflection with action, or one’s inner lifewith an external life in society.Knowledge and action are always indynamic relationship with the outcomedetermined both by reflection andintention. Navigating this dualism isextremely difficult and it is never an easytask to act in the right way towards others.This mode cannot be developed withoutengaging in relationships or without risk tooneself. In the words of Macmurray:

“Action is the determination of thefuture. Freedom is the capacity toact, and so the capacity todetermine the future. This freedomhas two dimensions; the capacity tomove, and the capacity to know;both of which have reference of theOther. To move is to modify theOther: to know is to apprehend theOther. To act, then, as theessential unity of these twofreedoms is to modify the Other byintentions. To this we add thatsince the agent is part of the Other,he cannot modify the Other withoutmodifying himself, or know theOther without knowing himself.”

The freedom to act always implies thatactions affect both the agent and thecommunity of which the agent is a part.Macmurray equates the ability to reflectwith rationality since it is only throughreflection we are able to obtain theknowledge needed to act in a way alignedwith our intention.

To summarize, the pragmatic,contemplative, and personal modes ofapperception determine our intentions byfocusing our attention. An individual isnot locked into one of these modes, ratherthey are reflected in various degrees in allof us. However through intention andattention the cycle of withdrawal andreturn shown in Figure 1 becomeshabitual, and over time some of the modestend to predominate and thus determineour capacity for moral action.

Apperceptions and SocietyThe mode of apperception developed byindividuals in a society affect, and areaffected by, society at large. This isbecause individuals develop in relationwith others so personal apperceptions aredeveloped through personal relationshipswhich are in turn affected by society.Macmurray argues that an important roleof society is to maintain personal relations,particularly indirect relations. The ideaspreviously developed for individuals applyto societies as well because a society’sperception of its own functioning isderived from its theories aboutrelationships, which are themselves humanactivities and thus influenced by personalrelationships (Giddens, 1987). In otherwords, Macmurray applies the logic ofFigure 1 to societies through the principleof the world as one action. This is incontrast to dualistic, Cartesian modelwhere an observer can stand apart fromsociety and learn the truth without havingto live by the truth.

Macmurray claims that Western culturesgenerally adopt a pragmatic mode ofapperception and view society as a Statesince our political systems arose fromRoman societies that used the law as a toolto unite heterogeneous populations.

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Hobbes’ Leviathan ( 1651/1982) is thearchetype of the pragmatic mode thatclaims it is rational to form a state sincethe State can enforce cooperation betweenagents. The pragmatic mode ofapperception that underlies this view of aState assumes that some general set ofrules, in this case law, are required to bindtogether a society and through this processthe community becomes more efficient. Insuch a society law serves both to regulatemorality and to maintain equilibrium inrelationships. Moral behavior arisesthrough self-control as espoused by theStoics and Kant (Sedlacek, 2011). Asociety based on this mode istechnological and guided by efficiency.Macmurray’s criticism of this mode istwofold. First, if driven by a motive offear such societies can focus ondomination through law. Second, theunderlying assumption that law is requiredsince people seek advantage does notadequately represent the better nature ofpeople. Here Macmurray parallels morerecent critiques of the rational actormodels modern economic theories arebased on (Sedlacek, 2011: Kahneman,2011). Societies that evolve from thepragmatic mode undervalue personalmodes of existence and are predominately“engineered” to be functional. Althoughnot discussed by Macmurray, it would beexpected that such societies valueengineering. However if the motive forvaluing engineering is fear of others orfear for one’s own safety in society thenthe society will evolve to deemphasizepersonal modes of existence and may endin some form of authoritarianism ortyranny.

The contemplative mode of apperceptionat a societal level is represented byRousseau’s The Social Contract(1762/1968) that assumed man in his

natural state is inherently good. The goalof society is then to find the mostsatisfactory role for it members. In such aworld we are able to give ourselves to theprocess of society and thus advancethrough society towards an ideal. In suchsocieties most agents are spectators, andthe actors are discouraged from deviatingfrom their roles since this causes discordfrom the perceived ideal. As thecontemplative mode of apperceptionfocuses inwardly on the ideal, Rousseau’sview of society mistakes what should befor what actually is. Macmurray points outthat since such societies support an internallife of the mind they can be prone totyranny from those who set ideals. Asociety in which the contemplative mode isdominant is based on forms and roles, e.g.Plato’s Republic [20]. Compared with themore mechanistic pragmatic societies, thecontemplative mode of apperception leadsto a society that is more organic wheremembers serve roles that support thesocietal functions.

The personal mode of apperceptionapplied to society determines whether theactions of the society are moral, i.e.enhance the freedom of all members. Sucha society seeks “realness” or authenticityin relationships. While the pragmaticmode seeks the right means to operateefficiently and the contemplative modeseeks satisfactory ends through ideals, thepersonal mode seeks to integrate correctmeans with satisfactory ends to maximizefreedom for all agents. Recall thatfreedom is the ability of an agent to act todetermine the future with intention, butsuch actions always affect the communityso acting morally requires reflection onone’s relations with other agents. Whilethe State is central to the negative modesof apperception, religion historically hasplayed the central in role defining

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standards of personal relationships. Therole of religion in the personal mode is tohelp members of society arrive at truthabout relations, in essence expressing theconscience of a community. Religionsucceeds in this role when it supportsrelationships based on love and fails if it isegocentric, self-serving, or grounded infear. If the community’s mode ofapperception is pragmatic then religionserves as a “spiritual technology” tocontrol external forces that affect our livessuch as suffering and loss. In contrast thecontemplative mode of apperception usesreligion to express utopian visions andthus allow the agent to look internally andwithdraw from the world as it is.

Macmurray next turns his focus to howfriendship and community, the outcomesof morality in action, can be maintained inlarge societies. While in a smallcommunity it is relatively easy to maintainpersonal relations, it becomes moredifficult to support such relations as thecommunity grows, Figure 2(d). In largersocieties agents become increasinglyconnected indirectly through the work thatthey do and economic relations. Thehuman systems which adjust indirectrelationships are politics and economics,which in turn were derived to maintainjustice or fair relationships (Reich, 2016).In Macmurray’s philosophy justice servesas a virtue that safeguards and upholdsother virtues. Since morality is definedhere as the intention to uphold bothfreedom and community, justice serves asthe impersonal aspect of morality sinceone cannot be moral (upholdingcommunity) without being just (fair andreciprocal in relations). Society sets upcontracts and laws for the case people donot act morally in indirect relations andgovernments then act as the agencies thatmaintain social cooperation through law.

Thus law serves as a means to an end andnecessarily adopts a pragmatic valuesystem. Law itself is supported by theState as a pragmatic and practical moralityfor indirect relationships since we cannotfairly judge ourselves. AlthoughMacmurray makes this point for law it iscertainly appropriate to includeengineering as a means to maintain societydue to the role engineering increasinglyhas in upholding and maintaining socialinfrastructure.

Macmurray lived the destruction of theFirst World War and witnessed the rise ofboth communism and fascism, events heattributed to the state being idealized as anend in itself rather than as a means tocommunity. In the philosophy of thepersonal all systems within the moralityjustice law state hierarchy shouldserve to ensure that indirect relationsmaintain community and supportfriendship. If one posits a spectrum withmorality, that is satisfactory relationsbetween persons, on one side and the stateon the other, the state pole represents puremeans while morality represents ends.From this perspective law, politics, and thestate serve increasingly as a means to anend and their value is determined by howwell they substitute for morality in indirectrelationships. Dysfunctional political andeconomic systems arise, in part, whenpragmatic or contemplative modes ofapperception dominate. Thecontemplative mode leads to romanticismwhen people assign religious functions to,or personalize, organizations. This error ofpersonalizing an organization leads totyranny from those who determine whatthe correct form of relations should be andthen force others into idealized roles [4]Under the pragmatic mode of apperceptionorganizations, which are intended to be ameans to community, become ends in

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themselves and efficiency is valued for itsown sake. What is right becomes what ispossible and the valuation of efficiencycreates a positive feedback cycle whereactions are done not for the sake ofmorality, but for the sake of more power.Law and commerce then become thedefinition of justice, not a means to justice,and moral actions are those which alignwith the interests of organizations. Bothof these visions of the State are illusory, orin Macmurray’s words:

If we track the State to its lair, whatshall we find? Merely a collection ofoverworked and worried gentlemen,not at all unlike ourselves, doing theirbest to keep the machinery ofgovernment working as well as may be,and hard put to it to keep upappearances. They are, like ourselves,subject to the illusion of power. If weexpect them to work miracles, weflatter them, and tempt them to thinkthey are supermen. If we insist that itis their business to make peace onearth and hand us the millennium on aplatter what will happen? Those ofthem who are wise enough to knowtheir limitations, and to be immune tothe gross adulation of their fellows,will resign; and government will becarried on only megalomaniacs, whoare capable of believing themselvespossessed of superhuman attributesand whose lust for power is themeasure of their weakness.

In a society based on personalapperceptions the purpose of justice andlaw, which sit between morality and state,are to moderate tendencies towardauthoritarianism. Justice is thereplacement for morality in indirectrelations of persons and in this role servesto self-limit power since justice implies an

obligation to treat others fairly. Lawreflects a society’s will for justice. If allrelations were just there would be no needfor law, since law presupposes theexistence of injustice (or the perception ofinjustice which is a de facto injustice).Law both reflects a society’s beliefs aboutjustice (and thus morality) but also servesto effectively adapt to changes in societyto prevent or minimize the development ofnew injustices, e.g. those created bytechnology. To Macmurray, justice in asociety is necessary but not sufficient formorality. Although without justice therecannot be voluntary cooperation andrelationships become fear-based, justicedoes not presuppose friendship since it issimply fairness in indirect relations.Similarly in industrialized societiestechnology should serve to supportindividual agency, and engineering shouldreflect society’s will towards community.Technology should support rather thanreplace friendship.

In concluding Persons in RelationMacmurray seeks to fulfill the obligationhe assumed when he agreed to give theGifford lectures, which, according to thebequest of Lord Gifford was to”…promote and diffuse the study ofNatural Theology in the widest sense of theterm—in other words, the knowledge ofGod.” Macmurray sought to address thevalidity of religion through a rationalrather than a romantic (emotional) orrevelatory lens. His claim is that thedualism of Western philosophy hasintentionally dissociated thought andaction, emphasizing the former, and onlyby reuniting them can we act morally. Bygiving primacy to action and claiming thatonly by acting are we certain we exist, hesought to unite the practical and theoreticalworld view since action must be informedby knowledge if it is to be effective.

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Knowledge must address both means andends since only when we are working inthe right way for the right end is ourintention satisfied. However the agentdoes not work alone, but rather with andthrough other agents. This is the personalor religious mode of apperception which ismore than simply taking others intoaccount when we act. From thisperspective our reflections acknowledgethat our actions are only worthwhile whendone in concert with and for others. At thecore of Macmurray’s philosophy is thatmutual dependence is the central fact ofpersonal existence. We co-constructrealities with others, and without themthese realities collapse; “we need eachother to be ourselves.” Morality isdetermined by our intention and can onlybe realized when our motive is love, notfear. The moral end towards which weshould strive is freedom, defined not as theability to act independently of others butrather as the capacity to jointly determinethe future through our actions. To act in away that has meaning, for a satisfactoryend, I must develop knowledge not just ofan inanimate universe, but of other agentswith whom I am engaged in action tocreate a better world.

Personal Relations and EngineeringEducationHow has this brief foray into Macmurray’sphilosophy of the personal addressed thequestions defined at the start of the paperof: 1) starting a conversation onreexamining the ends towards whichengineering works, and 2) informingpotential new directions for engineeringeducation by taking a critical view oftoday’s practices? Macmurray’s emphasison the personal mode of apperception atfirst glance seems secondary to thedominant narrative of why societyeducates engineers. The root definition of

engineering [5] indicates that studentsneed “…the acquisition of that species ofknowledge…being the art of directing thegreat sources of power in Nature for theuse and convenience of man…” (ICE,1870). Such an education aligns closelywith pragmatic modes of apperceptionwhich are supported in curricula by anemphasis on math and science in earlyyears. From this perspective engineeringdevises technologies that let societyoperate more efficiently and the success ofengineering programs is determined byhow efficiently engineering graduates candevelop new technologies that addresssociety’s needs. As society becomes moredependent upon technology to support anincreasing population and growingeconomy the actions of engineersincreasingly affect many others indirectly.This is the tone increasingly heard inreports on STEM education, at least in theUnited States; i.e. it is necessary toimprove the education of engineers inorder for society to continue advancing.

Macmurray’s philosophy critiques thisdominate STEM narrative by implying thatif engineering education focuses on gettingstudents to adopt a solely pragmatic viewof the world, focusing on means, theireducation will be incomplete. By limitingits attentions to questions of truth, orcreating generalizable knowledge,ultimately engineers will contribute to asociety so focused on efficiency that hasno place for human beings. In otherwords, if engineering educators trainengineers to only reflect on their actionsfrom a pragmatic apperception they arecontributing to creating organizations andsocieties that undervalue being human.During Macmurray’s life he saw the rise ofmodes of thinking that undervalued humanfreedom and led to the rise of communismand fascism (Costello, 2002). Although

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one might claim such concerns areoutdated today the issues Macmurrayraises against tyranny are increasinglybeing made about the consequences ofunfettered capitalism [3]. Through thelens of “the world as one action” ifengineers are trained to see the worldpragmatically, then our actions matter littleand we necessarily exclude ourselves fromthe world we inhabit. The invisibility ofengineering in society is well documented(NAE, 2008).

A question that was framed at the start ofthis paper is to what end should anengineering education serve, and whoshould determine this end? Macmurray’sprinciple of the world as one actionimplies that by acting in a field of otheragents our students will act to change thefuture. The actions of engineersincreasingly determine the state of theworld we inhabit even if they don’t changethe scientific truths we use to engineer newtechnologies. In this case our actions asengineering educators, no matter howsmall, matter both to ourselves, ourstudents, and others in society; what weintend matters. What do we intend? Ifengineers are to serve as the element ofsociety that best exemplifies the pragmaticmode of apperception—refining means tomeet ends defined by others—then weshould continue on our present path.Macmurray is clear, however, that such apath does not support the moral good offreedom since purely pragmatic modes ofreflection support authoritarianism. Sincetheir actions affect others engineers trainedwith only one mode of apperception are atbest amoral. This is not to say thatengineers don’t develop contemplative andpersonal modes of apperception, just thatthey are generally not intentionallydeveloped in engineering education.

Heywood (2014) has made an analogy to astool with three legs that are needed tosupport engineering practice. Followingthis analogy the key outcomes of anengineering education are to equallydevelop the scientific/pragmatic,artistic/contemplative andpersonal/religious modes of apperception.If one thinks about the goals of educationfrom a student perspective these mightaddress questions such as “What parts ofthe world in which I live might I want toimprove if I could do so” (contemplative),“How can I gain the knowledge and skillsto be effective in making these changes?”(pragmatic), and “How will these changessupport both freedom and friendship forothers?” (personal). In such a programdeveloping the contemplative mode ofreflection would let students judge if theireducation is helping them to articulate andachieve personally satisfactory goals. Thisdefinition of “satisfactoriness” is differentthan that used in engineering which isoften characterized as meetingspecifications and operating withinexternally imposed constraints. Buildingcapability for this mode of reflectionwould require engineering students tovisualize satisfactory ends by developing acapability to reflect on whether theiractions satisfy their intentions. Here“intention” is not something mundane likegetting a good grade or seeing that anexperiment matches theory, although thatis a part, but rather that the process ofbecoming an engineer is providingcapabilities that support students intentionto change the future. This perspectivesheds new insights on the rationale foradding arts to convert programs fromSTEM to STEAM (Robelen, 2011). Thereason given for such efforts is generallypragmatic, for students to gain creativity,but in this case the value is to develop theability to reflect on the larger purpose of

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one’s actions and whether they areemotionally satisfying when related backto one’s intention.

The third leg of the stool is to develop thepersonal mode of apperception, orunderstanding how our actions affectfreedom for others. This mode is vital ifengineers are to work for worthwhile endssince engineering codes of ethicsemphasize public welfare (Cheville &Heywood, 2015) which can be interpretedas supporting freedom for others. Ifengineering programs are to supportstudents in developing this mode thenMacmurray’s philosophy may lay outsome guideposts for engineeringeducation. Unfortunately Macmurray ismostly silent on how the personal mode ofapperception is actually to be developed,and doesn’t address engineering directly inhis Gifford Lectures. However theframework Macmurray created aligns withsome current trends in engineeringeducation. One of these is human- oruser-centered design that frames designaround human needs. Another is theincreasing focus on both teamwork andservice learning within engineeringeducation. It should be noted, however,that a strong pragmatic theme oftenemerges in the rationale for implementingthese methods as highlighted by theproposed revision of ABET’s outcome forteamwork: “An ability to functioneffectively on teams that establish goals,plan tasks, meet deadlines, and analyzerisk and uncertainty” (ABET, 2015). Thegoal of such techniques and pedagogiesshould be to support fellowship rather thanbe a process for training more effectiveengineers. Another author who hasproposed a specific technological directionfrom a philosophy of the personal is IvanIllich (2001) who frames the effectivenessof technology as being directly related to

the level of control and agency theyprovide users.

Despite these positive changes withinengineering education there is still aconsiderable distance to travel if futureengineers are to be educated in a way thatexplicitly develops a responsibility toknow others and communicate that theends of engineering work are alwaysultimately personal. Too often the statedconstraints of engineering—global,economic, environmental, or societal(ABET, 2015)—are inadequate proxies forsupporting the freedom and welfare ofother agents. One might imagine a degreeprogram in which building a capacity fordirect and personal relationships would beat the forefront rather relegated to the co-curriculum. Rather than spending a yearimmersed in math and science under theassumption students first need tounderstand natural forces in order to“engineer” them, such a program mightforeground community, spending the firstyear to understand how to relate to others,what is means to be human. From acurriculum perspective designing such aprogram is a challenge, but might includehumanities, psychology, art, and religion;in other words the classical liberal artsdegree. In such a program engineeringwould not be seen as the disciplinedevoted to harnessing the forces of naturefor the use of man since man has a historyof misusing those forces (Vesilind, 2010),but rather as the discipline that masters allthree modes of apperception, creatingthose who can imagine a more humanfuture.

Notes

[1] Macmurray does not directly address education in hisGifford lectures, but the development and support ofthese modes which is ultimately the goal of both formaland informal education.

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[2] It is an interesting mental exercise to imagine thisiterative process being played out over many homeworkand examination cycles in an engineering degreeprogram and what impact it might have on studentdevelopment.

[3] Note that in the original (translated) form of Marx’soft-paraphrased statement is “Religion is the generaltheory of this world, its encyclopaedic compendium, itslogic in popular form, its spiritual point d’honneur, itsenthusiasm, its moral sanction, its solemn complement,and its universal basis of consolation and justification. Itis the fantastic realization of the human essence since thehuman essence has not acquired any true reality. Thestruggle against religion Is, therefore, indirectly thestruggle against the world whose spiritual aroma isreligion. Religious suffering is, at one and the same time,the expression of real suffering and a protest against realsuffering. Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature,the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soullessconditions. It is the opium of the people.”

[4] It is important to note that unlike today whereissues of justice are beginning to emerge aroundcorporate capitalism Macmurray uses the term“State” since fascism and communism were theissues of his time. Note that US law has grantedpersonhood to corporations under the 14th

amendment to the Constitution.

[5] This definition, dating from 1828, hasdetermined today’s discussions of engineering andis, in modified form, in use by ABET and manyintroductory engineering texts.

References

ABET (2005).Proposed Revisions to criteria forAccrediting Engineering Programs. Definitions, Generalcriterion 3 Student outcomes and General criterion 5Curriculum. Accreditation Board for Engineering andTechnology.

Baggini, J and P. S. Fosl (2010). The PhilosophersToolkit. A Compendium of Philosophical Concepts andMethods. 2nd Ed. Chichester, UK. Wiley.

Buber, M (2010). I and Thou. Eastford, CT: Martino.

Cheville, R.A (2014) Defining Engineering Education,in Proceedings Annual Conference American Society forEngineering Education. Indianapolis, IN.

Cheville, R. A and J. Heywood (2015). Draftiong ancode of ethics for engineering education.ASEEE/IEEEProceedings Frontiers in Education Conference . ElPaso, TX

Costello, J. E (2002). John Macmurray. A Biography/Edinburgh. Floris Press.

Davis, K (1940). Extreme Social Isolation of a Child.American Journal of Sociology, 45: p. 554-565.

Giddens, A (1987). Social Theory and ModernSociology. Cambridge. Polity Press.

Heywood, J (2014). Engineering at the Crossroads.Implications for Educational Policy in A. Johriand B. M. Olds (eds). Cambridge Handbook ofEducational Research. New York. CambridgeUniversity Press.

Hobbes, T (1651/1982 ed). Leviathan. London, PenguinClassics.

Illich, I (2001). Tools for Conviviality. London. MarionBoyer.

James, W (1912). The Will to Believe and other Essays inPopular Philosophy. New York. Longmans Green.

JTF (2016). The John Templeton Foundation. TheGifford lectures 2016 [cited 2016 May]. Availablefrom http://www.giordlectures.org/.

Kahneman, D (2011). Thinking Fast and Slow. NewYork: Farrar, Strauss and Giroux.

Kuhn, T. S. (1996). The Structure of ScientifiicRevolutions. 3rd edition. Chicago. Chicago UniversityPress

MacMurray, J (1957). The Self as Agent. London: Faber& Faber.

MacMurray, J (1961). Persons in Relation. London:Faber & Faber.

Marx, K (1971) Critique of Hegel’s ‘Philosopy of Right’.Cambridge Studies in the History and Theory of Politics.Cambridge. Cambridge University Press.

NAE (2008). Committee on Public Understanding ofEngineering Messages. Changing the Conversation.Messages for Improving the Understanding ofEngineering. Washington, DC. National AcademiesPress.

Plato (2000). The Republic. Ed P. Negir. New York.Dover.

Reich, R. B (2016). Saving Capitalism for the Many, Notthe Few. New York, Alfred A. Knopf.

Robelen, E. W (2011). Building STEAM. Blending theArts with STEM Subjects in Education Week.

Rousseau, J-J (1762/1968 ed). The Social Contract.London. Penguin Classics.

Sedlacek, T (2011) Economics of Good and Evil. TheQuest for Economic Meaning from Gilgameshto Wall Street. New York. Oxford University Press.

Suomi, S. J. et al (1976). Effects of maternal and peerseparations on young monkeys. Child Psychology andPsychiatyr & Allied Disciplines. 17(1), 101-112.

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Vesilind, P. A (2010). Engineering Peace and Justice.The Responsibility of Engineers to Society. London,Springer.

Wolff, J (1993). The Social Production of Art. NewYork. NYU Press.

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John Dewey’s Philosophical Perspectives and Engineering EducationMani Mina

Abstract

Recently several criticisms have been made about theengineering curriculum. Among them are that thedemands being made on an already packed curriculumare crowding out the teaching of fundamentals. Anothercomplaint that seems to relate to the ‘packed’ and‘inflexible’ curriculum is that students do not retainknowledge that engineering educators regard asimportant. It is also said, that they do not demonstratepowers of critical thinking because they are so used toproviding answers to questions that require singlesolution answers they find it difficult to tackle “wicked”problems that require for their solution the integration ofknowledge from a variety of sources. These complaintsare often made within the context of an instructor-centredcurriculum. It is suggested here that students are morelikely to retain knowledge and develop skill in criticalthinking if they are given more responsibility for theirown learning which implies a shift away from atransmission to a transformational approach toinstruction.

Studies of change suggest that teachers resist changebecause of the dissonance created for their own beliefsystems Whether or not they are conscious of it, they allhave an epistemological view about how students learn,and change will only be brought about if they are willingto change their views. Since beliefs about the merits ofthe transmission model have persisted over hundreds ofyears and are part of the culture of education they aredifficult to change. The first stage for those consideringor participating in change is for the change agents to askthe participants to examine their own philosophies in thelight of alternatives and justify their final choice. To beable to do this requires some understanding of alternativephilosophies. The purpose of this paper is to present astudent-centred view of learning that derives from thephilosophy of John Dewey.

Dewey’s philosophy of pragmatism is less important tothis discussion than his epistemology of problem solvingthrough a form of inquiry and his promotion of socialdemocracy in education. The modern embodiment ofDewey’s educational philosophy is problem basedlearning. Movement toward such a curriculum requireschanges in the identity of the teacher from a controller,gate-keeper and transmitter of knowledge to one that is afacilitator of learning, and for many this is a large steptoo far. Change that works is always is accomplished insmall steps. This paper discusses how within theframework of a traditionally oriented curriculumDewey’s epistemology of inquiry based learning mightbe introduced.

Introduction

For decades there have been debates,discussions, and altering approachesregarding how to create effectiveengineering curricula. “Long before thepost-war rise of ‘engineering science’ itwas understood that engineers needed agrounding in these ‘fundamentals’ to havecommand of basic principles that could beapplied to a variety of technical problems.It was also understood that many if not allengineers would eventually migrate intomanagerial roles, where human andorganizational work would dominate. Thetypical professional track began in scienceand ended in bureaucracy.” (Williams,2002). Williams in her history of MITexplains how after the end of World War IIengineering science became the dominantmodel. “Engineering education was basedon a thorough grounding in scientificprinciples and engineering research wasbased on models of scientific research” (p42). This focus on engineering sciencemade it difficult for engineering design asthe link between theory and practice toeffectively become established incurricula. Williams argues that whileengineering education never ceased to bean adjunct of industry, it became muchmore an adjunct of science. Moreover,until recently little notice has been made ofattempts to establish what it is thatengineers do when they work in industryin order to better understand therelationship between the curriculum andindustry. Recent studies of this kindsuggest serious weaknesses in thecurriculum (Trevelyan, 2014). At the sametime new technologies continue to bedeveloped and make new demands on the

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curriculum often splitting off into new‘disciplines.’ Finally, as workplace andbusiness practices change, they may createnew demands and challenges foreducational programs.

These developments have led tocomplaints about the engineeringcurriculum and its ability to prepareengineers adequately for subsequentprofessional performance. Among thesecomplaints are that the demands beingmade on an already packed curriculum byadvances in technology and thedevelopment of new technologies arecrowding out the teaching offundamentals. Some educators engaged inthe provision of liberal studies forengineers see such criticisms as requiring areduction in the time devoted to liberalstudies. Others see the argument assupporting the demand for a lengthening ofthe curriculum (as from 4 to 5 years).

Another complaint that seems to relate tothe ‘packed’ and ‘inflexible’ curriculum isthat students do not retain knowledge thatengineering educators regard as important.They argue that if students are to thinkcritically they need to be given time forreflective learning outside of thecurriculum. They also noted the negativeimpact that assessment can have on boththe curriculum and instruction.

In recognition of this problem someengineers in the United States began in the1970’s to experiment with differentmethodologies such as co-operativelearning groups (Johnson, Johnson, Smith,1991), and assessment and teachingpractices that would foster creativity. Inthe United Kingdom projects wereintroduced in the 1950’s, and with theadvent of ABET’s EC2000 criteria seniorcapstone projects became the norm in theUS. These innovations moved the focus oflearning away from the instructor to the

student who had to take much moreresponsibility for his/her own learning.

Since then there has been a continuingflow in small steps of developments thathave as their purpose the revitalization ofengineering education as Sheppard and hercolleagues report (Sheppard et. al. 2008).Many schools and programs engage inproblem-based and activity-based learningas alternative models to instructor-centeredapproaches.

However, traditional engineering lecturesare engaged in disciplinary perspectiveswhere knowledge defines the boundariesof the discipline. But at times it feels thatthere is an element of the “just-in-case” thestudents might need ‘this and that’ chunkof knowledge syndrome. Students will behelped if they commit this disciplinaryknowledge to memory and testing willverify that students are able to recall thatknowledge. Consequently, assessmentsremain of the traditional kind and studentsreceive little training in solving ‘wicked’problems (Buchanan, 1992: Schmidt2006). Students have to respond to an everincreasing span (breadth) of knowledgeand the efficiency of their education is ameasure of their knowledge of that base.

Toward change

Logic dictates that if there is to be asolution to the problem of the overloadedcurricula that many educators will have tomake substantial changes in their viewsabout learning. It is well understood thatchange is difficult and that for change totake place individuals may have to changetheir innermost beliefs. Change, therefore,invites the educator to examine theoperational philosophies that guide theirteaching. Consider for example, thequestion of whether their end goal is‘efficiency’ or ‘effectiveness.’ A multiplechoice test set at the end of course may

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well test the efficiency with which thematerial delivered in the lectures isremembered but does it testunderstanding? To assess (measure) thelatter is a measure of effectiveness (Jinks,1996).

It is well understood that if changes are tobe made much prior work has to be doneby those requesting the change to preparethose who are being asked to change withinformation in advance. That preparationnecessarily involves educators in theexamination of their teaching philosophiesfor it is those philosophies that drive themethod of teaching they adopt. Everyone,Sherren and Long (1972) wrote, teaches toone’s own philosophy. In general there isno escape from examining the assumptionsthat teachers make about how studentslearn. A transmission model is founded onthe view that the mind is tabula rasa onwhich the teacher’s commentary is written.It is assumed that this is the best way tohelp students remember and learn. It alsoassumes that the student’s perception ofwhat the teacher says is the same as thatwhich the teacher believes has beendelivered.

Regardless of whether we are conscious ofit or not, our activities, whether teaching orresearch, are driven by epistemologicalbeliefs which we seldom examine. Thispaper argues that John Dewey’spragmatism reflects engineering practiceand provides an alternative to traditionalinstructor-centered approaches that mightbetter motivate the students to retainknowledge and think critically.

John Dewey and Pragmatism

John Dewey (1859-1952) (see exhibit 1)was one of the pioneers of what is knownas American Pragmatism. As initiated andestablished by Peirce (1839-1914),Pragmatists believe that reality is

constantly changing and that we learn bestthrough applying our experiences andthoughts to problems as they arise. Theuniverse is dynamic and evolving, andpragmatism thus has a "becoming" view ofthe world. There is no absolute andunchanging truth, but rather, truth is whatworks based on our experience. Peircebelieved that thought must produce action,rather than linger in the mind and lead toindecisiveness. From the perspective ofthis discussion it is not evidence basedresearch that dictates if a teacher shouldchange. What determines whether tochange or not is whether the particularteaching method works for the teacher, theevidence being the teacher’s evaluation ofhis/her experience (Heywood, 2008). Thecorresponding moral imperative is that ateacher who is asked to try out a differentmethod should do their best when trying itout.

John Dewey applied pragmatic philosophyin his progressive approaches to educationthat he called ‘instrumentalism.’ By this hemeant that knowing is a conceptualactivity that anticipates and guides ourfuture interactions with our environment(Delaney, 1995). Dewey stated:

“But in the proper interpretation of"pragmatic," namely the function ofconsequences as necessary tests of thevalidity of propositions, provided theseconsequences are operationally institutedand are such as to resolve the specificproblem evoking the operations.” (Dewey,1938, p.iv)

“The purpose of knowing is to effect somealteration in the experiential situation”(Delaney, 1995, p 198). Formal learningtakes place when students (people) interactwith environments created specifically forlearning that have the purpose of helpinglearners modify their cognitive structures.This also true of informal learning which

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happens all the time. Thus the teacher’srole is to create experiences that will helpthe learners create knowledge forthemselves. “Knowledge is thus rarelyspoken of in terms of ‘to know’ but oftenin terms of ‘to experience.’ ” (Schiro,2013, p 119). Dewey believed we all learnby doing. Students are ‘active’ creators oflearning.

In summary Dewey believed that learnersmust adapt to each other and to theirenvironment. Schools should emphasizethe subject matter of social experience. Alllearning is dependent on the context ofplace, time, and circumstance. Througheducation different cultural and ethnicgroups can learn to work cooperatively andcontribute to a democratic society. Theultimate purpose of education is thecreation of a new social order. Characterdevelopment is based on making groupdecisions in light of consequences. ForDewey all learning and progress starts inproblem solving, and inquiry. From a feltdifficulty, to posing a question, andseeking solutions, Dewey (1933) arguesthat thinking, learning, knowledge, and all

human advances are the result of inquiry-based problems solving that defines thehuman development process. Inconsequence learner-centered educatorshave as their primary aim the fostering ofgrowth (or development) and as such valuethe work of Piaget (1952). In engineering,learner-centered educators value the workof such persons as William Perry, andPatricia King and Karen Kitchener.

The epistemological basis for thisargument is Dewey's view that all thinkingis problem solving, and that there is muchagreement among engineers andengineering educators that engineeringeducation is problem solving. Deweyargues that the best and most natural wayof thinking and problem solving forhumans is by posing good questions andengaging in the process of inquiry thatbegins with a ‘discomforting’ problem. Inhis approach the inquiry process helpsstudents to examine their learning,education, and formation of ideas andknowledge in a learner-centeredenvironment, so how does it contrast withthe instructor-centered approach.

About John Dewey and his life

To recognize Dewey’s significance for engineering it is necessary to have some understanding ofhis life. The following is a quick summary

John Dewey was born in 1859 in Burlington Vermont. His father was a storekeeper with greatinterest in books, especially British literature who shared his interest with his family. He left hisbusiness to become a Union Army soldier in the Civil War. His mother, Lucina Artemisia Rich,was a decisive factor in encouraging him toward education and making him a universal thinker. Hegrew up in a community where duties and responsibilities were cherished. Even as kids they had toparticipate in performing their duties to make sure the welfare and well- being of all was taken careof. So, the sense of helping, participating and giving to the community was instilled in him fromthe early days.

After graduation in 1879 he worked as a high school teacher at a seminary in Oil City,Pennsylvania. He was laid off after two years and returned to Vermont and started teaching in aprivate school. During that time he studies philosophical treatises and discussed them with hisformer teacher, Torrey. As he got more and more interested in Philosophy, he decided to take a

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break from teaching and went to The John Hopkins University where he enrolled in philosophy andpsychology. During his work at The John Hopkins two professors George Sylvester Morris and G.Stanley Hall were among the most influential and transformative teachers for Dewey. G. StanleyHall founded the child study movement, which encourage educators to study children as theyactually are in order for the curriculum and teaching to be designed to meet the child’s needs. To agreater or lesser degree all teachers do this in order for them to accurately assess their progress orlack of progress and understand why it should be. This raises the question for engineering educatorsas to how much they should know about their students? Dewy received his doctorate in 1894.

He then accepted a teaching position as assistant professor at University of Michigan where heworked for 10 years. At Michigan he met and married Harriet Alice Chipman (in 1886) and theyhad 6 children and adopted 1 child during their lives together.

He wrote his first two books Psychology (1887) and Leibniz’s New Essays Concerning the HumanUnderstanding (1888) during his tenure at university of Michigan. Dewey started to look morecritically into sciences and investigated the relationship of philosophy and sciences.

In 1888 Dewey spent a year at professor of Philosophy at the University of Minnesota. In 1889 hereturns back to University of Michigan and stays for 5 years. In 1894 he joined the newly foundedUniversity of Chicago, where he started his empirically based theory of knowledge and at the sameperiod he developed American School of Pragmatism or ‘experimentalism’ as he preferred to callit. The first of the American Pragmatists was C. S. Peirce for whom knowledge is an activity(knowledge is doing). It was a theory of meaning whereas William James thought as a theory oftruth. The Penguin Dictionary of Philosophy defines pragmatism as “the theory that a proposition istrue if holding it to be so is practically successful or advantageous advantageous.”(p485).Engineering problems often require engineers to make decisions on pragmatic grounds.

At Chicago he founded an experimental or ‘Laboratory School’ which was based on learner-centred (or child centered) education. It greatly influenced Dewey’s thinking about education. It isassociated with ‘progressive education’ which many politicians deride because they think it willlower standards. Many teachers in engineering are wedded to a scholar academic ideology in whichthe curriculum, or as some say, the fundamentals are all important and are to be conveyed from arostrum (Schiro, 2013). Equally there are engineering educators who foster inquiry learning andproblem solving which is at the heart of the learning by doing philosophy. The learner-centredideology is associated with constructivist methodologies.

W. H. Schubert (1997) reports that in 1918 William Heard Kilpatrick published an article entitled“The Project Method” in Teachers College Record that was read round the world as a concreteembodiment of Deweyan curricular philosophy.” (p 75). Projects have been used in engineeringcourses for at least seventy years. The two ideologies promote key quotations for the design of theengineering curriculum, how to teach critical thinking, and the ability to deal with wickedproblems. Dewey believed that the function of education was to develop critical thinking and notthe conveyance of information.

In 1904 Dewey joined the Department of Philosophy at Columbia University where he spent therest of his educational/professional career.

His interest in educational theory deepened and was supported by his work in the Teacher Collegeat Colombia. In How We Think (1910; revised in 1933) he applied his theory of knowledge toeducation. Finally in 1916 Democracy and Education was published which is another well receivedand impactful work.

Dewey retired in 1930, but his creative transformational worked continued. He continued topublish and be truly active. In this period, he worked on more than a few books, and took manyimportant public stances. Some of his noteworthy efforts include his participation in the

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Commission of Inquiry into the Charges Against Leon Trotsky at the Moscow Trial (againstStalin’s policies), and his historically importance defence of fellow philosopher Bertrand Russellagainst a reactionary movement that tried to remove Russell from his Chair at the College of theCity of New York (1940).

Dewey was one of the organizers of League for Independent Political Action (founded in 1929)with the goal of creating a new political party. He was also an editor of the NewRepublic magazine. He helped found the American Civil Liberties Union as well as the AmericanAssociation of University Professors. After World War I (1914–18), Dewey travelled the world.He lectured in Japan (at the Imperial Institute) and spent two years teaching at universities inChina. In 1924 he pursued to study schools in Turkey. After two year in Turkey, he visited theUniversity of Mexico.

Over the course of his lifetime, Dewey published more than 1,000 works, including essays, articlesand books. His writing covered a broad range of topics: psychology, philosophy, educationaltheory, culture, religion and politics. Through his articles in The New Republic, he establishedhimself as one of the most highly regarded social commentators of his day. Dewey continued towrite prolifically up until his death at the age of 92 in June 1952.

Dewey was a shy and quiet person. He was not the most excitable teacher. At times he would puthis students to sleep. Those who loved his lectures and would pay full attention do report thatduring the lectures they would witness a professor who is fascinated with ideas and wouldchallenge and create ideas in his classroom.

Dewey’s approach to engineering education faces the educator with a choice between a learner-centred strategy, or an instructor-centred which requires that the instructor has a well versedphilosophy (epistemology) on which to base his teaching for a profession that is necessarilypragmatic. Dewey has first to reconstruct the notion of philosophy Dewey came to believe that theonly method of thinking that had proved fruitful in any subject was the method of science (Dewey,1933).

Exhibit 1.

The inquiry based approach vtraditional engineering problem solving

There are five major steps in Dewey’scycle of inquiry. These are:

A felt difficulty

Its location and definition

Suggestion of possible solutions

Development of solution by reasoning ofthe bearings of the suggestion

Further observation and experimentleading to its acceptance or rejection; thatis, the conclusion of “belief or disbelief.”

Inquiry is an activity (practice) that peopleengage in when they come out of balance

from their environment (then they have afelt discomfort about something.)

According to Dewey, all thinking beginswith a problem. In the traditionalengineering problem solving approach, theproblem is provided to the student(inquirer). In addition, the problem and theunderstanding of the problem will initiateongoing activities for the learner-inquiry.Consequently, the problem and the mentalactivities will have special meaning to thestudent-inquirer derived from the interests,identities, and the values adopted from thesocial world of the student/inquirer.Consequently, a learner whose thinkingand cognitive engagement is triggered by agiven problem, where ever the source is,will initiate the thinking and the felt

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difficulty. That is why many engineeringstudents like puzzles and not trivialquestions to think about. Dewey considersstep (iii), to be “the very heart ofinference”; it involves going from what ispresent to something absent. Hence, it ismore or less speculative, adventurous, andfull of experimentation. Due to theinherent uncertainty this step will involverisk taking and require action by theinquirer to learn/experience new things.Step (iv) engages the learners reasoning.Reasoning is defined by Dewey as "Theprocess of developing the bearings--or, asthey are more technically termed, theimplications--of any idea with respect toany problem” (Dewey, 1933). Deweywrites, “As an idea is inferred from givenfacts, so reasoning sets out from an idea"(Dewey, 1933). On steps (ii) and (v), hewrites (Logic) that in "the more complexorganisms, the activity of search [ii and v]involves modifications of the oldenvironment [the environment in whichthe problem has been encountered], if onlyby a change in the connection of theorganism with it.” (Dewey,1933).Consequently, steps (ii) and (v) require"the transformation of the situation . . . .[which] is existential and hence temporal."In the search the inquirer changes ashe/she interacts with the environment(Mina, Omidvar and Knott, 2003).Theinquirer needs to continually think and askquestions, especially when the solution isdone. In many cases these questions willbe created as difficulties arise and have tobe put aside in pursuit of the solution andaddressed later. Clearly, one can see thelevel of engagement that students need tobe involved in this process. Finally,students need to reflect on their processand questions.

Reflections are considered to be essentialparts of the inquiry cycles by Dewey.Since the purpose of inquiry is to resolve

an unbalance or a felt difficulty, the moreone can think, engage, and examine aproblem from different perspectives anddepths the better solution can be achieved.The role of reflections (as a personalizedas well as social activity) become essentialin the development of the idea and growthof the individual.

This model should be contrasted with whatis typically used in engineering classes andtextbooks. The problem solving modelthat is found in many traditionalengineering texts generally advocate theapproach described in the next section.

Steps for Problem solving often found inengineering texts

State the problem Clearly

Describe and understand what is given(input) and what is needed (output)

Identify some approaches and small partsolutions, try them

Identify a strategy and make a systematicsolution

Put the solution together

Test to solution with different data, iteratefor validity, generalize, communicate.

These steps can have similar intentions toDewey’s inquiry process. By stating theproblem clearly and understanding theintention of the requirements of theproblem the heart of the problem can befound. The purpose of steps 1 and 2 arevery similar to the first two steps of theinquiry based cycle. However, these aremore general steps. During the first twostages, the inquirer may go through manycycles of inquiry. As the problem iscyclically examined many felt difficultiesmay be illuminated.

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Steps 3 is similar to the third stage ofDewey’s inquiry cycle. The learner needsto think about the bearing of the solutionsas he or she thinks about approaches andpossible solutions. This connects with the4th and 5th steps which identify a strategyand making systematic solution. When asolution is found and tested, the inquirermay or may not be aware of the belief anddisbelief that was created. In the Inquirybased method the learner need to reflect onthose. In reality many engineers do haveopen questions, doubts, and continuousthinking about the solutions they created.These could be the stage of understandingbelief and disbelief. Dewey argued that bygoing through the steps of the cycle,repeating them and reflecting on themcycle the learner is enriched. He/she learnshow to pose better questions, and examinethe next problem in the light of previousexperience.

Since the process of inquiry helps thestudent examine his or her belief, thinking,knowledge, and ideas, problems in thecycle become more contextual andmeaningful to the student and the students’socio-technical reality. The contextualaspect of the problem will be lost if theproblem solving steps are treated as amechanical to-do list, and setmechanization where the same approach isused to solve every problem even thoughthere may be a better alternative isavoided. (Heywood, 2008).

Those who create better questions, dodeeper thinking and engage cognitivelywhile going through the problem solvingsteps. If that is the case, those individualsare in a sense creating their own cycles ofinquiry by asking better questions andexamining all aspects of the problem withcritical angle. Such students are those whocontinually create great questions, andkeep generating meaningful challenges.

There are many situations where theengineering problem solving steps can beuseful and can create complete solutions.This is true for problems that are knownwhere there is a need to modify an alreadyexisting solution to create a solution forthe new problem. In such cases theinquiry process can be viewed asinefficient since it makes thelearner/problem solver think in cycles thatwould form new questions that need to bepursued. If the goal is finding a quick andimplementable solution, the process ofinquiry is not the right solution. This isthe case in many engineering classes, sincethe nature of the problem is to emphasizesome of the class teaching, and thestudents’ time is limited.

There are numerous examples of the use ofthe problem solving model in engineeringeducation For example when students areasked to solve wave equations inElectromagnetics, Elasticity, vibrations,and other areas. They will use plane waveand uniform plane wave solutionsfollowing the process outlined above. Theadvance classes require students to discussand evaluate their answers and the designclasses will require students to providemultiple possible solutions. However, aspreviously indicated, this process tooeasily becomes a set of actions (that needto be checked) and not cognitiveengagement and challenge, and losses itseffectiveness. Students often experiencethis approach for solving problems intiered lecture theatres in which they are thepassive recipients of information. In mostcases, they attempt to memorize theprocess for the purpose of passing tests(see above).

In contrast, activity (inquiry) orientedlearning is much more concerned withlearning and the assessment of studentgrowth (development). While there have

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been a few attempts to design curriculumthat will foster student growth using thePerry Model or others with a similarpurpose they have not engaged the mindsand motivations of engineering educators(Pavelich and William, 1996). It is arguedthat such designs help students integrateand expand their knowledge whilesystemizing their experience. Theconstruction of evaluation and assessmentprocedures is critical to the achievement ofthe systems goals and attention needs to begiven to the type of problems that noviceengineers will confront (Trevelyan, 2014).

Implications for the curriculum

The characteristics of a learner centeredcurriculum is derived from Dewey’sprinciple of learning by doing. It is activitybased, interdisciplinary, and theresponsibility for what occurs is sharedbetween the teacher and the student. Thepremise is that the students develop aresponsibility for their own learning,which is also a major goal of highereducation. Schiro writes that those whorun activity schools “believe that studentsshould confront the real world and all thatit is directly and not through intermediariessuch as text books and information givinglessons” (Schiro, 2013, p 106). InDeweyan type schools students are invitedto solve problems using the method ofinquiry outlined above. These cycles ofinquiry necessarily cause students tointeract with a variety of information froma variety of resources in order to solve theproblems with which they are faced. Thestudents are not necessarily encouraged topartition this integrated information intothe traditional disciplines of knowledge.“It is assumed that it is the learner’s job tointegrate knowledge and that configuringwhat goes on inside the learner’s mind isnot the job of the teacher or thecurriculum” (Schiro, 2013, p 113). This is

a challenging view for many engineeringeducators who claim to developindependent thinkers via the transmissionmethod, for it would seem to be self-evident that transmission learning in whichthe students are passive recipients ofinformation could not possibly achievethat goal.

The project method first advocated by W.H. Kilpatrick (1918) is widely consideredby learner-centred educators to be theembodiment of Dewey’s philosophy ofcurriculum (Schubert, 1997).

The project as envisaged by Kilpatrick isfamiliar to engineering educators andindividual projects have been used inengineering since 1918). They meet theDewey criteria when the student choosesthe topic of the project but in engineeringeducation the topic is often chosen by theinstructor who can choose questions thatwill lead to inquiry (discovery) basedlearning. Different kinds of project havebeen used to achieve different kinds ofgoals, but in general they are associatedwith the development of cognitive andaffective skills that will not be developedby traditional teaching and assessment.While these are important purposes theyare not the purpose which this paperaddresses. This is, that a learner-centeredapproach will resolve the problems ofknowledge retention in preference tocritical thinking perceived by manyinstructors among their students.

However, the challenge is to show thatprojects can be used and better motivatestudents to learn the key concepts andprinciples that are called fundamentals in anon-linear way. The knowledge base isdeveloped by participating in a range ofdifferent projects. A model of such acurriculum in engineering was describedas long ago as 1966 (Heywood et al 1966).Their model included some traditional

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courses. So, the way forward from whichdevelopments in engineering were madecame from medicine, in particular thework of H. S. Barrows at McMasterUniversity. It is now widely used inmedical schools across the world, and inparticular the Netherlands. Donald Woods(1994) and his colleagues in chemicalengineering at McMaster developed aproblem solving program that incorporatedsome problem based learning, although thefirst major development in engineeringwas at Aalborg in Denmark which was oneof several universities in Europe thatintroduced new degree structures in thelate 1960’s.

The language used to describe this kind ofstudent-centered learning is rather mixed:the terms problem-based, problem-basedproject work, project oriented which havethe same meaning in some writings anddifferent meanings in others. Inquiry basedlearning and team based learning are termsthat are also used in this context. Cowancalls the method used in the BasicEducation Year at Aalborg project-oriented which is akin to problem-basedlearning when “students only study whatthey need to in order to cope with theproblem at the heart of their project(Cowan, J (2006, p 19).This kind ofproject learning is based on Just-in-Timeknowledge; it is different to the integratedproject approach modelled by Heywoodand his colleagues in that the matrix ofprojects are designed cover the keyconcepts (fundamentals) of the program(Heywood, 1966/2005). Their model alsoincluded traditional discipline basedcourses. In the basic education program aquarter of the program is devoted to studyunit courses for “highly predictable partsof the course” (e.g. computing, physics).

Heywood (2005) in a later reviewconcluded that the evidence, although from

comparative studies with other methods oflearning although small, gave, “sufficientevidence” to challenge engineeringeducators. The reports lead to thesuggestion that because the skillsdeveloped are required by graduates inengineering practice, project work and/orproblem based learning should accompanymore traditional approaches throughout thetotal curriculum and not just in anotherphase (semester) of the overall program. Inthis way the needs of the cognitive and theaffective development will be taken intoaccount.

It is understandable that a traditionalcurriculum cannot be changed to aproblem based curriculum overnight.Apart from the planning that has to bedone, effective change is highly dependenton the commitment of all those who are tobe involved. Commitment depends on anunderstanding of what is required.Dewey’s approach would be to engageteachers in the use of inquiry basedlearning in traditional classes modified forthat purpose, and so move forward by asmall step.

The author has experience in usingstudent-centered and traditional lectureapproaches in a course on introduction toelectromagnetism. Using a student-centered approach, each lecture is brokenin a lecture/discussion about the conceptsand formulation and their application. Thisis followed by the second part of thelecture that will be working on problems insmall groups, group discussions and, attimes, group debates. Students in the classwere introduced to the inquiry basedprocedure. At this stage they discussed theutilization of the process. By reflecting ontheir experience in the class, they were ledto examine their belief and disbeliefs abouttheir process and solution to the problem.For examples students would use a certain

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equation to solve the problem. Whenasked why they used the equation, theywould say that other equations neverworked for them. This opened up a newdiscussion and examination of their beliefsand disbeliefs about what would work andwould not work. The reason for not likinga particular equation was found in mostcases to be the student’s negativeexperience in previous attempts in solvingproblems with that equation. As indicatedearlier this is known as “set-mechanization” or “set-induction”(Heywood, 2008).

In contrast a traditional lecture class isconducted by delivering the material in theform of lectures and handouts for classdiscussion which is directed and led by thefaculty. The author found that asexpected, the student-centered class couldnot cover as much material as traditionallecture classes can. However, the studentsdo have better understanding of the basics,and show in-depth thinking regarding thesubject compared to the instructor-centeredclass. The average grades (that includeclass activities, HW, quizzes, tests, final,and reflections) for the student-centeredclass were found to be in the range 80-85%. In contrast the average grade for theinstructor-centered class (that include HW,quizzes, tests, final, and final project, andreflections) was found to be in the range70-75% (see also Deslauriers, Schelew andWieman 2011). In addition, students in thestudent-centered class showed more in-depth detail in their work and reflections.They always had better questions, anddeveloped much richer approaches to newproblems as individuals and as a group oflearners. Finally, a great number of thestudents in the student centered class,decided to take more advanced EMcourses after the introduction class. Thisshows the importance of definingeducational outcomes required from a

course. Some of the courses that had had ahard time attracting students, were fullysubscribed by the student-centeredparticipants since it seemed they wanted tolearn more and work together on morechallenging problems.

Commentary

In an earlier study the author and twocolleagues examined engineeringeducation at the leading colleges in thelight of John Dewey’s model of education(Mina, Omidvar and Knott, 2003). Weasked what would John Dewey surmiseafter visiting a typical engineering college?The paper reported that Dewey wouldagree with the intention of the engineeringeducation which is educating students inunderstanding, advancing science andtechnology, and designing for a betterworld. To develop technological criticalthinkers with sociotechnical capabilitiesand a willingness to take responsibility.However, he would show concerns aboutthe lack of flexibility and the over-packedcurricula that engineering programs were(and still are) facing. Dewey wouldpropose more “play time” thinking time,and inquiry in the program. He wouldidentify the condition as “lack of openness,lack of a democratic state of learning”.

There are many interpretations of whatDewey means as a democratic state. Forthe purpose of engineering education hewould advocate openness among faculty,student groups and administration. Thegoal of a democratic state for engineeringeducation is openness in all aspects ofeducation to empower students and theirteachers with a sense of belonging,responsibility, citizenship, and socio-ethnical awareness to make the worldaround them better for all. Dewey arguesthat students will face change that arisesfrom more difficult problems than thoseexperienced by the previous generation,

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some of which are left for them by theprevious generations, which fundamentallychallenges both the purpose and claimedeffectiveness’ of engineering. Since eachgeneration faces more difficult problemsthan the previous generation this mustrepeatedly challenge the present purposeand claimed effectiveness of engineeringeducation as perceived at the time. In anycase potential engineering students willalways need to be tooled with criticalthinking, open mindedness, andsociotechnical awareness, and acurriculum that has predictive validity.

“A society which is mobile, which is full ofchannels for the distribution of a changeoccurring anywhere, must see to it that itsmembers are educated to personalinitiative and adaptability. Otherwise, theywill be overwhelmed by the changes inwhich they are caught and whosesignificance or connections they do notperceive. The result will be a confusion inwhich a few will appropriate to themselvesthe results of the blind and externallydirected activities of others.” (Dewey,1916, section 7)

Some of the teachers with whom wediscussed our findings liked the idea thatDewey would agree with the intention ofengineering education which is educatingstudents in understanding, advancingscience and technology, and designing fora “better world,” without questioningDewey’s meaning of this concept. Theyalso agreed that perhaps we need moreopenness. But in almost contradictoryterms they said they did not know how tocut content from their programs. That ledthem to ask why do we need so manyclasses from outside of the engineering,math, and physics? As engineeringeducators we understand the issues buthesitate to make changes because

traditional teaching covered the curriculaefficiently.

However, true understanding of Deweyanphilosophical approach would reveal thatonce there is lack of openness andflexibility (for thoughts, ideas,examination), and a push for learning factsoutside the context of students’ lives,students perceive emergent knowledge tobe dogmatic and the principles laid downby the authority as incontrovertibly true, astate of affairs that is inimical to thedevelopment of critical thinking.

“Men still want the crutch of dogma, ofbeliefs fixed by authority, to relieve themof the trouble of thinking and theresponsibility of directing their activity bythought. They tend to confine their ownthinking to a consideration of which oneamong the rival systems of dogma they willaccept. Hence the schools are betteradapted, as John Stuart Mill said, to makedisciples than inquirers.” (Dewey, 1916,P.394)

In an open and democratic educationalenvironment, faculty and students areresponsible for the creation of meaningfulchallenges that would advance theirknowledge and capabilities and would helpsociety. It all starts with small groups,faculty, and students, administrations thatengage in open discussions, challenges,and development. Creating and supportingcommunities that work together, growtogether and utilize diversity of thoughts.

If the challenge stops, if the inquiry cycledoes not continue, all of the players andmembers will converge and get tasks donein the most efficient way but notnecessarily the most effective way. Thedanger of a push for efficiency will be atthe expense of effectiveness. Efficiency isthe degree to which students are able toremember and memorize information. For

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example when instructors use multiplechoice tests and report for percentage ofthe students who did successfully, they aremeasuring/reporting of efficiently.Whereas, effectiveness refers to the abilityof the students to apply their knowledgeand solve new and unseen problems. ForDewey the role of education and the roleof the thinkers in society is to facechallenges, pose better questions, andcreate new ideas and visions to improvethe status quo. The role of all of us is to beeffective in the process of inquiry.Consequently, in his model universities arenot to be efficient places but need to beeffective learning institutions.

Finally, Dewey places responsibility oneveryone engaged in education: students,faculty, and administrators. From aneducational perspective Dewey wouldadvocate that faculty also have aresponsibility to grow, find better ways toeducate students and conduct classes.Faculty need to keep updated with researchand finding of educational pioneers,participate in the creative process ofinquiry and seek better ideas andapproaches to be more effective. Theseare the professional, social, and ethicalresponsibilities of the faculty.

A need to create communities oflearners

At present because of the heavy emphasison the syllabus and material coverage, wedo not allow students to make arguments,debates, and build critical perspectives onwhat they read, learn, and design. Studentsare treated like children and inconsequence consider what is taught to bethe truth that will get through examination.Great stress is placed on memory and thisis at the expense of reflective and criticalthought. According to the Deweyanprinciples we need to encourage them todiscuss, debate, and challenge each other’s

ideas. They need to go through activeexaminations of their ideas, solutions, anddesigns. This is much more achievable in acommunity of learners. The community oflearners will bring problem solving,discussion, examination, and cycles ofinquiry in a social structure that is built tohelp students learn, learn together, andachieve active experimentations of ideasand their knowledge base.

Unresolved issues for engineeringeducation to think about

There are a few important issues arisingfrom Dewey’s philosophy that remain tobe addressed in the future.

For John Dewey the goal of education isnot to get a degree but to become a life-long learner. But for many of our studentsthat will be the main point of their focus.This perspective can hinder students’progress in inquiry based discovery andlearning. Student will value theinformation to pass the examinations,more than the process of learning tocontinue their path of becoming life-longlearners (Cheville, 2016).

Dewey would also like to have all studentstake charge of their learning, growth, andeducation. They need to be the leaders oftheir lifelong learning. How do we reachthat? How do we encourage and enhancethese responsibilities? However, for allpractical approaches, creating andmaintaining community of learners forstudents could be the first meaningfulsteps toward achieving better resultsregarding these questions. Experienceshows that learning communities thatcreate effective empathetic relationshipsamongst student members, educators, andexternal industrial sponsors show greatlevel of success in projects and learning inthe process (Pezeshki, 2014, Pezeshki et al2014).

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Finally, according to Dewey’s learner-centered model, the curriculum is definedwith major objectives, but the delivery, thesyllabus, and class activities are created bystudents needs and instructors coaching,enabling, and guidance. He does notquestion if the students know all that theyneed to know. He addresses if students arecapable of breaking problems down, posemeaningful questions, seek answers,examine results, participate in activeexperimentation of their ideas andpossibilities, and providing a solution withreflections on the process and critique ofthe steps. This differs from the focus pointof engineering education where manyusers of the active learning approach stillbelieve in a body of knowledge that needsto be covered and syllabi that need to bedelivered.

Conclusions

The main goals of this paper were toillustrate the importance of the educator’spersonal philosophy of learning to his/herpractice and in so doing to present analternative student-centred view oflearning that derived from the philosophyof John Dewey. As engineering educationis progressing toward new frontiers in the21st century, the challenges of packedcurriculum, finding more effective ways oftraining students, and debates oninstructional techniques continue to engagemany engineering educators. JohnDewey’s philosophical ideas are presentedas an alternative approach to instructionthat encourages students to takeresponsibility for their learning and tothink critically through the cognitiveengagement that a more student-centeredapproach to engineering educationdemands.

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PHILOSOPHICAL AND EDUCATIONAL PERSPECTIVES ON ENGINEERING AND TECHNOLOGICAL LITERACY 3

Prepared for the Technological and Engineering Literacy and Philosophy Division of the American Society for Engineer-ing Education by Alan Cheville, Stephen Frezza, John Heywood and Mani Mina.

The Technological and Engineering Literacy and Philosophy Division of ASEE is a forum for those seeking to impose the broad understanding by all citizens of all aspects of technology and the role of engineering in the creation and manage-ment of technology. Here technology is “the entire system of people and organizations, knowledge processes and devices that go into creating and operating technological artifacts, as well as the artifacts themselves.”* Technology affects nearly every aspects of human life.

The goal of the Technological and Engineering Literacy and Philosophy Division is to promote the development of in-novative curricula and delivery methods for the assessment of technological and engineering literacy education. Since an understanding of engineering is a critical element of technological literacy, the division supports efforts to develop a philosophy of engineering and technology. The Division encourages collaboration between people with engineering backgrounds and people with backgrounds outside of engineering.

*Technically Speaking. National Academic Press, (2002) p 13. Further details of the Technological and Engineering Literacy and Philosophy Division may be obtained from Alan Cheville, Secretary and Treasurer- alan.cheville@bucknell.edu

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