Comparing measures of student sustainable design skills using a project-level rubric and surveys

Mary Katherine Watson, Elise Barrella, Thomas Wall, Caroline Noyes, Michael Rodgers

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

3 Scopus citations

Abstract

Civil engineers are poised to impact sustainable development. Consequently, there is a need for curricular materials to scaffold students in developing sustainable design skills. Previously, a sustainability module, based on Kolb's learning cycle, was integrated into a civil engineering capstone course in the United States. The purpose of this study was to analyze the extent to which students engaging in the module (intervention cohort) were able to improve their sustainable design skills, as compared to a group of capstone students not participating in the module (control cohort). A Sustainable Design Rubric was used to assess students' sustainable design performance, as captured in capstone reports. In addition, students reflected on their confidence related to several sustainable design competencies via a survey. Based on an evaluation of capstone design reports, improvement in the intervention teams' consideration of sustainable design criteria was somewhat limited, as they more extensively addressed only 2 of the 16 sustainable design criteria compared to control teams. Intervention students reported improved confidence in more sustainable design competencies than control students (10 of 12 for intervention students; 1 of 12 for control students). For future implementations, clearer and more extensive sustainable design expectations need to be set by instructors and project sponsors to increase the execution of sustainable design and close the gap between students' perceptions of improved skills and teams' actual application of sustainable design criteria.

Original languageEnglish
Article number7308
JournalSustainability (Switzerland)
Volume12
Issue number18
DOIs
StatePublished - Sep 2020
Externally publishedYes

Funding

Funding: This research was funded by the National Science Foundation, Graduate Research Fellowship DGE/0946809. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.

Keywords

  • Capstone design
  • Civil engineering
  • Engineering education
  • Kolb's learning cycle
  • Sustainable design
  • Sustainable design rubric

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