Greek engineering students’ views of the nature of engineering

Abstract

Nowadays demands on scientific literacy consider nature of engineering as crucial, introducing the scientific and ontological foundations of engineering. As a result, this study was conducted to examine the students’ views on nature of engineering at the Materials Science and Engineering department at University of Ioannina, through the views of first- and fifth-year students. 145 students participated in this research, 75 first-year and 70 graduate students. Participants were asked to complete a questionnaire with open-ended questions that required scientific knowledge, regarding Engineering and Science. After the collection of the questionnaires, statistical processing was carried out regarding the first and the last year student's views, as well as the prospective change of their views during the years of their study. The results of the study revealed that first-year students had already a formed view of engineering; however, their answers tended to be numerous, short and generally formulated, while a complete lack of knowledge on technical engineering issues was observed. At the same time, in elaborated questions that sought to explore their beliefs about nature of engineering, the students’ views were simple, vague, scientifically naive and in some cases non-existent. On the contrary, the fifth-year students seemed to have sufficient and satisfactory knowledge of the cognitive subject, with much more accurate and scientifically correct opinions, mainly regarding technical issues. However, their responses regarding nature of engineering simulated the first-year students, where it was found that the level of assimilation concerning nature of engineering is equally low.