Logo image
Back
Project management in engineering education: Key issues in supervising PhD students in project based learning
Conference paper   Peer reviewed

Project management in engineering education: Key issues in supervising PhD students in project based learning

Michael Christie and Terry Lucke
International Symposium on Project Approaches in Engineering Education, Vol.6, pp.123-131
8th International Symposium on Project Approaches in Engineering Education (PAEE) and the 14th Active Learning in Engineering Education (ALE) Workshop: Sustainability in Engineering Education, 2016 (Guimaraes, Portugal, 06-Jul-2016–08-Jul-2016)
Department of Production and Systems - PAEE Association
2016
url
http://paee.dps.uminho.pt/proceedingsSCOPUS/PAEE2016+ALE%20proceedings.pdfView
Webpage

Abstract

Specialist Studies in Education ethical dilemmas in engineering education project management critical incident technique
Harmer (2014) surveyed 59 articles related to Project Based Learning (PjBL) and concluded that PjBL has been trialled worldwide in the last decade and adopted across a diversity of educational institutions. PjBL has been defined as problem based learning that usually involves a prolonged activity resulting in a product, presentation, or performance (Donnelly and Fitzmaurice, 2005). Although engineering educators use PjBL mainly at the undergraduate or masters by coursework level we argue that the engineering PhD can also be categorised as a form of PjBL. We contend that the PhD process would be much improved if in fact the definition, philosophy, pedagogical practices and project management principles of PjBL were applied to aspects of PhD project management, teamwork, supervisor and student roles, as well as evaluation and assessment. The PhD as a form of PjBL aims to produce engineering improvements and to do this effectively good project management is essential. It is increasingly common that a PhD is assessed on the basis of published or submitted journal articles authored by the student, alone or with others. Often supervisors and fellow students can be included as co-authors because engineering PhDs tend to work on improving a project or process as part of a collaborative team. Our research makes use of Flanagan's Critical Incident Technique (1954) to gather and analyse data about the issues that can affect the quality of project management and other related issues in the PhD process. Although there are different levels of project management our focus is at the PhD supervisory level. Our paper presents a case study that was carried out at a prominent European university of technology. Flanagan's technique is explained briefly and the case study data is analysed to reveal key issues that can make a difference in terms of good project management.

Details

Metrics

1 File views/ downloads
399 Record Views
Logo image