{"title":"Accident Causation Models: The Good the Bad and the Ugly","authors":"Kristian González Barman","doi":"10.1080/19378629.2023.2205024","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/19378629.2023.2205024","url":null,"abstract":"The main aim of this paper is to evaluate the evolution of Accident Causation Models (ACMs) from the perspective of philosophy of science. I use insights from philosophy of science to provide an epistemological analysis of the ways in which engineering scientists judge the value of different types of ACMs and to offer normative reflection on these judgements. I review three widespread ACMs and clarify their epistemic value: sequential models, epidemiological models, and systemic models. I first consider how they produce and ensure safety (‘usefulness’) relative to each other. This is evaluated in terms of the ability of models to afford a larger set of relevant counterfactual inferences. I take relevant inferences to be ones that provide safety (re)design information or suggest countermeasures (safety-design-interventions). I argue that systemic models are superior at providing said safety information. They achieve this, in part, by representing non-linear causal relationships. The second issue is whether we should retire linear and epidemiological models. I argue negatively. If the goal is to assign blame, linear models are better candidates. The reason is that they can provide semantic simplicity. Similarly, epidemiological models are better suited for the goal of audience communication because they can provide cognitive salience.","PeriodicalId":49207,"journal":{"name":"Engineering Studies","volume":"15 1","pages":"75 - 100"},"PeriodicalIF":1.7,"publicationDate":"2023-04-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45048932","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"工程技术","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Andreas Ottemo, Maria Berge, Heather Mendick, E. Silfver
{"title":"Gender, Passion, and ‘Sticky’ Technology in a Voluntaristically-Organized Technology Makerspace","authors":"Andreas Ottemo, Maria Berge, Heather Mendick, E. Silfver","doi":"10.1080/19378629.2023.2203396","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/19378629.2023.2203396","url":null,"abstract":"As ‘open’ and supposedly inclusive informal learning settings that participants visit out of interest and passion, there has been hope that makerspaces will democratize technology and challenge traditional gender patterns in engineering education. Passion for technology has, however, also been shown to be deeply intertwined with the masculinization of engineering. This article explores how this tension manifests among engineering students and other makers at an ‘open’ voluntaristically-organized technology makerspace located at the campus of a Swedish university of technology. It draws on a post-structural understanding of gender and Sara Ahmed’s queer-phenomenological conceptualization of emotions as ‘orienting devices’. Based on ethnographic fieldwork and interviews with makers, we show how passion for technology is articulated as a particularly absorbing emotion that underpins a playful approach to technology and a framing of makers as single-minded and asocial. We demonstrate how passion for technology thereby becomes a homosocial ‘glue’ that makes technology ‘sticky’ for only a select group of techno-passionate men. We conclude that this undermines the potential for ‘making’ to democratize technology and puts into question the degree to which interest-driven, voluntaristic and ‘authentic’ settings for engaging with technology can contribute to pluralizing engineering.","PeriodicalId":49207,"journal":{"name":"Engineering Studies","volume":"15 1","pages":"101 - 121"},"PeriodicalIF":1.7,"publicationDate":"2023-04-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48252158","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"工程技术","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Teaching students to collaborate with communities: expanding engineering education to create a sustainable future","authors":"Jennifer L Hirsch, R. Yow, Yi-Chin Wu","doi":"10.1080/19378629.2023.2176767","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/19378629.2023.2176767","url":null,"abstract":"Engineers are crucial to solving the world’s most pressing challenges, but they cannot do it alone. Creating new and more just systems that support people and planet requires that engineers learn to engage with diverse stakeholders as equal partners. This article shares how the Serve-Learn-Sustain (SLS) initiative at the Georgia Institute of Technology has been introducing new approaches to problem-solving into engineering and technology-focused education to better prepare students to address the sustainability challenges of our moment, in collaboration with community partners, especially those from historically marginalized communities of color. To do this, SLS focuses on de-centering academic expertise and positioning community partners as experts, innovators, and co-educators. The activities and impacts described here, including course-based collaborations with community partners and co-curricular social innovation programs, have implications for other higher education institutions that recognize the importance of partnering with communities to prepare students to use their education to effect change.","PeriodicalId":49207,"journal":{"name":"Engineering Studies","volume":"15 1","pages":"30 - 49"},"PeriodicalIF":1.7,"publicationDate":"2023-01-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44758755","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"工程技术","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Framing Intelligent Transport Systems in the Arctic: Reindeer, Fish and the Engineered Road","authors":"B. T. Haugland, M. Ryghaug, R. Søraa","doi":"10.1080/19378629.2023.2169612","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/19378629.2023.2169612","url":null,"abstract":"The article explores the relationship between humans and other animals, technology, and engineering practices in a project testing Intelligent Transport Systems (ITS) in the arctic. Generally, roads are engineered to promote efficiency and predictability for transport. However, in the arctic northern region of Norway, animals sometimes challenge these virtues. Using Goffman’s notion of frames and Callon’s concept of overflow as theoretical starting points, the article explores how transport engineers develop intelligent transport infrastructure and envision ways of including animals and other non-humans in the engineers’ framing of the road. The engineers first and foremost implement new technological artefacts, which allow them to survey the road in a manner which makes nature’s overflows onto the road more manageable. However, these artefacts do not merely contain nature in the engineers’ frame—the engineers also envision humans, in this case, motorists, to change their practices. As such, the engineers’ attempts to contain animals in a particular frame entail using technology to assemble a new relationship between nature and culture. Taking nature into account when planning and developing infrastructure means reassembling a particular nature-culture relationship. Thus, the article points out that in order to engineer nature, it is also necessary to engineer culture.","PeriodicalId":49207,"journal":{"name":"Engineering Studies","volume":"15 1","pages":"50 - 70"},"PeriodicalIF":1.7,"publicationDate":"2023-01-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41949878","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"工程技术","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Coleen Carrigan, Saejin Kwak Tanguay, Joyce W. Yen, J. Ivy, Cara Margherio, M. C. Horner-Devine, E. Riskin, Christine S. Grant
{"title":"Negotiating boundaries: an intersectional collaboration to advance women academics in engineering","authors":"Coleen Carrigan, Saejin Kwak Tanguay, Joyce W. Yen, J. Ivy, Cara Margherio, M. C. Horner-Devine, E. Riskin, Christine S. Grant","doi":"10.1080/19378629.2023.2169613","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/19378629.2023.2169613","url":null,"abstract":"This paper draws on data from the National Science Foundation (NSF) ADVANCE-funded LATTICE program (Launching Academics on the Tenure-Track: an Intentional Community in Engineering) to examine how a diverse group of women worked across social and professional identities to support early-career women in academic engineering. We used ethnography to elucidate the social dynamics and power relations involved in forming a coherent group identity for the LATTICE leadership team, and the boundaries we negotiated in running the LATTICE program. We identify the processes and behaviors through which we made boundaries between members salient yet porous to build a coherent community across various dimensions of difference. We offer three actionable strategies that impact change agents’ engagement and the group’s coherence across multiple dimensions of difference: (1) intentionally creating a socio-emotional culture in our group, one that spans across group members’ personal and professional identities; (2) validating other group members’ perspectives, and (3) striving to build consensus using storytelling. These strategies of the LATTICE leadership team provide guidelines for others who work across intersecting dimensions of difference.","PeriodicalId":49207,"journal":{"name":"Engineering Studies","volume":"15 1","pages":"9 - 29"},"PeriodicalIF":1.7,"publicationDate":"2023-01-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45652701","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"工程技术","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Introduction to the New Editor-in-Chief","authors":"Jessica M. Smith","doi":"10.1080/19378629.2023.2178524","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/19378629.2023.2178524","url":null,"abstract":"As our outgoing editor-in-chief Cyrus Mody wrote in his editorial for Volume 13, Issue 3 of Engineering Studies, we stand on each other’s shoulders.1 As I move into the editor-inchief position, I find this observation to be both apt and encouraging. I join the rest of our intellectual community in thanking Cyrus for his leadership of the journal, especially in carrying on its day-to-dayworkwhilemany of uswere sick and caring for our others during the most trying periods of the pandemic. I am personally grateful for his generosity in helping with the transition, including the burst of editorial work he completed over the holidays so I could start on solid ground. I also thank Gary Downey, not just for his original vision in laying down the foundations for both the journal and the International Network for EngineeringStudies (https://inesweb.org/), but for his continuedenergy in imaginingbothwhat engineering – and engineering studies – can be. Learning the ropes has made clear how crucial Kacey Beddoes, our managing editor, has been for the journal’s success. I am also deeply appreciative of the care that our other associate and advisory editors, our reviewers, the board, and our authors put into their contributions to the journal. I am also grateful that Brent Jesiek stepped into the INES chair role I vacated to accept the editorial position, paving the way for Caitlin Wylie, our current vice chair, to rotate into that position in 2024.","PeriodicalId":49207,"journal":{"name":"Engineering Studies","volume":"15 1","pages":"1 - 8"},"PeriodicalIF":1.7,"publicationDate":"2023-01-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49129770","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"工程技术","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Discursive Enactments of Knowledge Production in Engineering Education","authors":"A. Buch, L. Ramsay, H. Løje","doi":"10.1080/19378629.2022.2141639","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/19378629.2022.2141639","url":null,"abstract":"Engineering education is under the sway of wide-ranging dynamics and drifts that have bearing on how education is enacted in relation to the research and innovation obligations of universities. Academic, applied, and third mission drifts seem to configure higher education in new ways. The article sets out to critically explore how knowledge production is discursively enacted in the teaching-research-practice-nexus in engineering universities of applied science (UAS) in Denmark. This paradigmatic case study maps discursive positionings and discusses how these positionings aspire to transform engineering education in the light of the wide-ranging drifts in higher education. Based on 17 qualitative in-depth interviews with researchers, teachers, and managers, the article maps the discursive positions taken and not-taken in relation to the enactment of the teaching-research-practice-nexus. The exploration is guided by a theory-method-package inspired by situational analysis and interviewing methods developed in practice-based approaches as interview-to-the-double. The analysis identifies four discursive positions in the teaching-research-practice-nexus that enact knowledge production in engineering UAS differently. Furthermore, three unavailable discursive positions are identified. Interpretive flexibility makes different discursive enactments of knowledge production possible. The study concludes that (1) that the primary mission of UAS in Denmark is teaching; research and engagement with practice are subordinate missions; (2) that the applied and third mission drift has been effective in instituting alternative discursive enactments; (3) some positions are seemingly discursively illegitimate. The undisputability of the educational mission – and the applied and third mission drifts – seems to effectively outweigh academic drift in the Danish UAS.","PeriodicalId":49207,"journal":{"name":"Engineering Studies","volume":"14 1","pages":"195 - 215"},"PeriodicalIF":1.7,"publicationDate":"2022-09-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45646545","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"工程技术","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Alexandra Coso Strong, T. Stockman, T. Heale, S. Meyer, Elena Meyerson
{"title":"Persuasive Communication Practices of Engineers in Cross-Boundary Decision-Making","authors":"Alexandra Coso Strong, T. Stockman, T. Heale, S. Meyer, Elena Meyerson","doi":"10.1080/19378629.2022.2144738","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/19378629.2022.2144738","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT Engineers rely on communication skills to collaborate and make decisions across boundaries. This research seeks to examine an under-explored communication practice of engineers in work environments – persuasive communication. Research on persuasive communication (i.e. practices seeking to influence) includes extensive explorations within laboratory settings and certain contexts (e.g. healthcare, politics), yet should be further expanded within the engineering context. Using a multiple case study approach, we explored engineers’ communication practices across three organizations as they sought to negotiate, build consensus, persuade, and make decisions across boundaries. Engineers within this study commonly used persuasive communication to gain access to resources, align goals, and influence design decisions. These practices are presented through three narratives constructed based on the analysis of interviews and meeting observations as well as a rich understanding of the context. The narratives illustrate six emergent features of persuasive communication: (1) emotional engagement, (2) credibility of those involved, (3) audience consideration and power dynamics, (4) timing, (5) adaptability, and (6) shared situation awareness. These results highlight the pervasiveness of persuasive communication within engineering practice, providing a foundation for future work. The findings also have implications for supporting the development of engineering students and early career engineers.","PeriodicalId":49207,"journal":{"name":"Engineering Studies","volume":"14 1","pages":"216 - 238"},"PeriodicalIF":1.7,"publicationDate":"2022-09-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49496299","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"工程技术","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Editorial: It’s the End, but the Moment Has Been Prepared for","authors":"","doi":"10.1080/19378629.2022.2158994","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/19378629.2022.2158994","url":null,"abstract":"This issue of Engineering Studies is my last as editor-in-chief (EIC), and so this editorial is my opportunity to thank a number of people and to reflect on five wonderful years working with our authors, editors, reviewers, and readers. The journal’s new editor-in-chief, Jessica Smith, will introduce herself when she takes over with volume 15. I’m incredibly hopeful for Jessica’s tenure as editor. She brings a wealth of knowledge and experience and contacts but also, andmore importantly, a sensitivity towho does and could contribute to (and benefit from) engineering studies and what those people might want this journal to be. Our readers and staff (includingmyself in both categories) are very fortunate that Jessica is taking on this role.","PeriodicalId":49207,"journal":{"name":"Engineering Studies","volume":"14 1","pages":"183 - 194"},"PeriodicalIF":1.7,"publicationDate":"2022-09-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49250907","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"工程技术","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Engineering Intangibles: Technical Employment in the US Service Economy","authors":"J. Alic","doi":"10.1080/19378629.2022.2141638","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/19378629.2022.2141638","url":null,"abstract":"Engineering occupations coevolved with industries producing material outputs: mining, construction, manufacturing. Yet wealthy economies have long been moving toward intangible services, the products of industries including finance, wholesale and retail trade, entertainment, travel and transportation, health care, and the public sector (including, e.g. much of education). For the United States the shift is evident in statistical data going back well over a century and services now account for nearly 90 percent of all employment. The job share is lower for engineers, but even so the majority work for service-producing entities. Entanglement and interdependence of services and goods hinders understanding of the dynamics, as does rapid growth in jobs classed in official employment statistics as computer-related even though much of the work resembles engineering. Because of this, field studies that explore actual job content will be needed to develop clearer pictures of the everyday tasks employers assign technical workers in postindustrial economies.","PeriodicalId":49207,"journal":{"name":"Engineering Studies","volume":"14 1","pages":"239 - 259"},"PeriodicalIF":1.7,"publicationDate":"2022-09-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48952689","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"工程技术","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}