Human Factors in improving engineering education with CDIO framework

Abstract: The CDIO initiative is the largest worldwide engineering education organization with over 200 universities and institutes. The main idea of CDIO is to improve engineering education by providing tools and community to develop degree programs. The CDIO framework provides an idea of what engineering students should learn and how. It offers a methodology for engineering education reform with the CDIO Syllabus and the CDIO Standards. CDIO standards describe a set of principles (best practices) on how to implement modern engineering education. There are altogether 12 core standards and 4 optional standards. Two of these standards focus on human factors and the importance of personnel in making the change and development. Standard 9 is about actions that enhance faculty competence in personal and interpersonal skills, product, process, system, and service building skills, as well as disciplinary fundamentals. Standard 10 is about actions that enhance faculty competence in providing integrated learning experiences, in using active and experiential learning methods, and in assessing student learning. The competencies on which these two standards focus, are essential to promote goals of the other CDIO standards. However, there are very few documented cases on working with these standards suggesting that it is easier to focus the development activities to other parts of the CDIO guidelines than faculty competences. There is also lack of evidence on successful implementation on these standards not to mention the impact of the implementations on overall program success. It is important that the understanding of human factors and faculty development activities are further studied, explored and their impact is documented.

Keywords: Human factors, CDIO, Faculty development, Engineering education

DOI: 10.54941/ahfe1005396

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