The IRMA Community
Newsletters
Research IRM
Click a keyword to search titles using our InfoSci-OnDemand powered search:
|
Enculturation into Engineering Professional Practice: Using Legitimate Peripheral Participation to Develop Communication Skills in Engineering Students
Abstract
The importance of communication skills for engineering professionals is widely acknowledged. Research in the authors’ group indicates that along with other cognitive and behavioral skills, employers of new engineering graduates place high value on communication skills. Here, the authors argue that becoming a professional engineer means entering in to a particular community of practice, one that communicates in a way that is specific to that community of practice. Engineers employ, consciously or sub-consciously, a variety of Vygotskyian psychological tools, and becoming an engineer necessitates new graduates understanding the nature and use of such tools within that community. Recent research in the authors’ group suggests students that engage in experiential learning as part of a work-integrated learning program in engineering are rapidly enculturated into the community of practice that forms the engineering community. This, it appears, occurs by means of legitimate peripheral participation in the community as these ‘newcomers’ work alongside practicing engineers in a form of cognitive apprenticeship. In doing so they gradually adopt mores of communication, eventually becoming legitimate, fully-participating members of the engineering community, and they developed a sense of belonging that is not easily achieved in conventional programs of study in higher education.
Related Content
|
John Robinson, Daniel Beneroso.
© 2022.
19 pages.
|
|
Klaas Stek.
© 2022.
30 pages.
|
|
Mira Kekkonen, Ville Isoherranen.
© 2022.
19 pages.
|
|
Helder Gomes Costa, Frederico Henrichs Sheremetieff, Elaine Aparecida Araújo.
© 2022.
20 pages.
|
|
Erik Teixeira Lopes, André Luiz Aquere.
© 2022.
30 pages.
|
|
Ariana Araujo, Heidi Manninen.
© 2022.
27 pages.
|
|
João Eduardo Teixeira Marinho, Inês Rafaela Martins Freitas, Isabelle Batista dos Santos Leão, Leonor Oliveira Carvalho Sousa Pacheco, Margarida Pires Gonçalves, Maria João Carvalho Castro, Pedro Duarte Marinho Silva, Rafael José Sousa Moreira.
© 2022.
19 pages.
|
|
|