Throwing the baby out with the bathwater? The role of fundamentals in 21st century engineering education

Abstract

As the labor market increasingly demands equipped, problem-solving practitioners, engineering curriculum review is seeing a shift away from theory and towards practice. And yet, employers continue to highlight engineering graduate Inability to `apply theory' or effectively solve real world problems. The research on which this paper is based seeks to better understand the relationship between engineering theory and practice. Drawing on research in the fields of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and the Sociology of Education, the research project entailed the graphic analysis of the disciplinary basis and socio-technical contexts of 18 mechatronics engineering technician case studies. The problem-solving `maps' reveal that key to successfully navigating the epistemic terrain of a real-world problem requires the recognition and realization of the different disciplinary rules, and an ability to code-shift between the different engineering disciplines. This paper presents two contrasting case studies which demonstrate the significance of disciplinary thinking and highlight the importance of explicitly integrating disciplinary `code-shifting' opportunities into engineering curricula and teaching