An exploratory survey on the use of computation in undergraduate engineering education

Advances in computing contribute to science and engineering discovery, innovation, and education by facilitating representations, processing, storage, analysis, simulation, and visualization of unprecedented amounts of experimental and observational data to address problems that affect health, energy, environment, security, and quality of life. In spite of the emerging importance of the role of computing in engineering, a well-recognized shortage of scientists and engineers who are adequately prepared to take advantage of, or contribute to, such highly interdisciplinary, highly computational scientific challenges is evident. This exploratory study identifies how computation is integrated in the engineering disciplines at the undergraduate level. The research question is: How engineering professors integrate computation as part of their disciplinary undergraduate courses? This study reports anonymous survey responses of thirty-nine engineering and engineering technology faculty members who identified themselves as integrating computation as part of their undergraduate courses. Results indicate that most of the faculty members used computation for the solution of complex calculations, for conducting simulations, and for design purposes. Further research is required in order to identify and validate appropriated pedagogical practices to integrate computation as part of disciplinary courses.