A place for arguing in engineering education: a study on students' assessments

This paper focuses on the issue of how engineering programmes demand and/or promote argumentative reasoning, which is a subsequent aspect of curricular development. This was the main objective of the project on which this paper reports. This is to say that the focus is on assessment as a way to esta...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:European journal of engineering education 2011-12, Vol.36 (6), p.607-616
Main Authors: Leite, Carlinda, Mouraz, Ana, Trindade, Rui, Martins Ferreira, José M., Faustino, Ana, Villate, Jaime E.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
argumentative skills
College students
curricular development in higher education
Curriculum Development
Engineering
Engineering Education
Evaluation
Foreign Countries
Higher Education
Learning
Learning Processes
Outcomes of Education
Persuasive Discourse
Portugal
Rhetoric
Structural Elements (Construction)
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:This paper focuses on the issue of how engineering programmes demand and/or promote argumentative reasoning, which is a subsequent aspect of curricular development. This was the main objective of the project on which this paper reports. This is to say that the focus is on assessment as a way to establish to what extent argumentative reasoning is demanded and mobilised in teaching and learning processes. This aim was achieved using a sample of assignments developed in courses in different Bologna undergraduate programmes at the Engineering School at the University of Porto, during the first semester of the academic year 2009/2010. Whereas problem solving in engineering constitutes a structural element in the curricular organisation of the engineering programmes and is strongly related to argumentative skills, it was possible to conclude that students demonstrate and explain extensively, but do not argue, possibly because their teachers do not invite them to do so in assessment situations.
ISSN:0304-3797
1469-5898
DOI:10.1080/03043797.2011.640661