Perceptions towards prior learning experiences: lessons learned from early and mid-career professional engineers in a Chinese context

ABSTRACT

Internationally, challenges were raised towards engineering education concerning the industry's widespread questioning of the lack of practical skills of engineering graduates. Scholars in engineering educational research have tried to better understand professional engineers’ practices so as to inform engineering education. Concerning the lack of empirical research in China, particularly from practicing engineers’ perspectives, this work explored the perceptions of 22 early and mid-career working engineers from multiple industries in a Chinese context via qualitative interviews on the ways in which the knowledge, skills, and attributes that were essential to their project completion were learnt or developed. Our analyses suggested that such development existed mostly in the process of work completion. In particular, the experiences of participating in multiple projects and reflective thinking and discussions on the projects made the engineer progress fast. Based on the findings, suggestions are proposed for engineering educational practices and future research.

KEYWORDS:

• Early-career engineers
• engineering practice
• reflective thinking

Disclosure statement

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

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Shanghai Philosophy and Social Science Fund: [Grant Number A2021001].

Notes on contributors

Jiabin Zhu

Jiabin Zhu is an Associate Professor and Assistant Director of the Center for Student Achievement and Human Development in the School of Education, Shanghai Jiao Tong University. Her primary research interests relate to engineering students’ epistemological development, professional skills development, and the assessment of teaching and learning. She has chaired multiple engineering education research projects supported by the Chinese Ministry of Education and the Shanghai Municipal Education Commission. She has a PhD in Engineering Education and an MS in Biomedical Engineering from Purdue University, an MS in Optics from the Chinese Academy of Sciences, and a BS in Physics from East China Normal University.

Yu Hu

Yu Hu is a medical education administrator in the Tongji Hospital Affiliated to Tongji University. She obtained a master’s degree in higher education in Shanghai Jiao Tong University. Her current work and research mainly focus on standardised residency training, competence of medical students, medical education assessment.

Yike Li

Yike Li is a graduate student at the Shanghai Jiao Tong University. She obtained a bachelor’s degree in human resource management in Nanjing Agricultural University. Her current interest focuses on workplace learning of early-career engineers.

Zhinan Zhang

Zhinan Zhang is an Associate Professor and Assistant Dean of the School of Mechanical Engineering Shanghai Jiao Tong University. His primary research interests related to design engineering and innovation, engineering design education, tribo-informatics. Zhang has chaired multiple national and municipal grants in mechanical engineering and interdisplinary fields. He received the ICED'13 Reviewers’ Favorite Prize (2013), the ICED'11 Top 5% paper awards (2011), and the Friction Journal Best Paper Award (2019).

Wanqi Li

Wanqi Li is a research assistant with the School of Education, Shanghai Jiao Tong University. Her research interests include higher education, language teaching, and intercultural communication. She received a BA in Teaching Chinese as a Second Language from Shanghai International Studies University, China (2017), and an MA in Linguistics from the University of Virginia, US (2019).