Engineering students’ expectations and perceptions of studio-based learning

ABSTRACT

Studio-based learning is gaining currency in university engineering education programmes. It is widely argued that this practice-oriented, collaborative approach to developing professional, teamwork and interpersonal skills is needed to prepare the future workforce. In this paper, students’ expectations and perceptions of a first-year studio were explored. Data collection included baseline and follow-up interviews. Both included the rich picture method and photo-elicitation. Using critical hermeneutics interpretation, we identified three key themes: teamwork, leadership and reflection. Although studio-based learning was perceived as effortful, slow and at times even frustrating, the move away from didactic lecturing by experts to collaborative learning and building products was welcomed and endorsed by all our participants. The insight gained from this study suggests that more innovative learning and teaching approaches in engineering education may help prepare students for lifelong learning in an uncertain future world of work.

KEYWORDS:

• Studio-based learning
• student perspectives
• responsible learning
• arts-based approach
• future professional
• engineering education

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Franziska Trede

Assoc. Prof. Franziska Trede is a researcher, writer and educator in Higher Education and Professional Practice. She has conducted numerous funded research projects in the areas of professional identity development, agency, educating deliberate professionals, technology-mediated learning and workplace learning. She has published 7 books and over 80 papers. She is the President of the Australian Collaborative Education Network (ACEN).

Robin Braun

Robin Braun is Professor of Telecommunications Engineering at UTS. He is Director of the BE(Hons) Data Engineering program. He is an active researcher and supervisor of 11 doctoral candidates. His recent work is in Software Defined Networks. His special interest is Complexity and applications of biological metaphors to networks. He is active in the IEEE having been Program Chair of the ITHET series of conferences since 2008. He has authored over 150 published papers.

Wayne Brookes

Dr. Wayne Brookes joined UTS after moving from Queensland where he completed his undergraduate and PhD studies. Since joining UTS, he has taken on a variety of roles including Program Director positions for undergraduate and postgraduate IT courses, liaison for prospective international students, and Associate Dean (Teaching & Learning). He spent time as Chair of the UTS Teaching and Learning Committee, and several years as a member of the UTS Courses Accreditation Committee. His technical interests are in the area of distributed and web-based computing. However more recently his interests lie in exploring design thinking methods to facilitate creativity and innovation in interdisciplinary teams.