Resumo em Inglês:

Abstract Participation rates of women in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) is comparatively low and their attrition rates high. An obvious solution is to attract more women to study such subjects. In 2016 the authors undertook research to find out why so few women enrolled in STEM subjects and investigate ways of increasing their recruitment and retention in this area. The informants in our study were enrolled in a tertiary preparation course as well as nursing and education programs. A critique of the literature was used to develop a survey that informed focus group and interview schedules which were used in collecting data. Our study found that many of the factors that hindered women from applying for STEM courses twenty years ago still apply today and recommends actions that can help increase recruitment of women into STEM and assist their retention and graduation in those areas of tertiary education.

Resumo em Inglês:

Abstract The use of games and simulation has now spread as a teaching support tool of engineering. This article aims to discuss this reality and this need, presenting as proposed a didactic game in a signature’s factory. From this, it was suggested that the participants involved modify the simulated factory environment through the knowledge acquired during the factory design discipline and layout. Various topics related to Production Engineering were addressed, such as layout, Takt time (TT), standardization of processes, elimination of waste and activities that add / do not add value. As a result, it was possible to see, among many things, the significant improvement in the understanding and assimilation of theoretical concepts by the participants. With the practice of simulation one can demonstrate and experience possible cases and difficulties they face on a daily basis within the factory environment.

Resumo em Inglês:

Abstract This study presents the use of a serious game developed to teach Lean philosophy. The structure of this game was built from theoretical elements and predefined learning events. Learning outcomes and student motivation were considered in the evaluation of the efficacy of the game. This serious game was applied to four groups of students with different profiles. The evaluation results were compared among these groups of students. It can be concluded that the serious game developed showed positive results in learning and motivation demonstrated by the students, regardless of the group analyzed. The main contributions to the literature presented in this article were the serious game (named 3L) that was developed and the efficacy evaluation method, considering the learning and motivation demonstrated in different profiles of students.

Resumo em Inglês:

Abstract The development of projects in industrial context constitutes an exceptional opportunity for engineering students to develop competences expected by the labour market. Therefore, the adoption of this type of interaction within engineering curricula is highly recommended, not only at the end of the degree, but also in the previous years. The main purpose of this paper is to present and analyse a Project-Based Learning (PBL) semester in which six teams of Industrial Engineering and Management (IEM) students integrate different areas of knowledge, while solving real problems of five companies, emphasizing the technical solutions developed by the students and the feedback provided by the companies. Students’ feedback will be also addressed. The main outcomes of this study reveal that most of the technical solutions lie in areas of Lean applications and ergonomic improvement of workplaces. Companies were very pleased with the results of this type of University-Business Cooperation (UBC).

Resumo em Inglês:

Abstract Nowadays, more and more scientific research activities are carried out in different laboratories and universities, which not only play an important role in the development of science and technology, but also show a significant inference on education. The improvement of the research capability of an academic faculty can directly impact the quality of education, bring innovations to Industrial Engineering curriculum proposals, and guarantee the subjects are up to date. The investigation of the existing issues in the current research activities is usually considered as the primary and challenging step. As the output of research activities, academic articles are often considered as a kind of evidence-based resources for the investigation. Despite some methodological efforts have been made by existing article review methods, less attention has been paid to discover the implicit academic relationships among the academic staffs and to investigate their research expertise. The objective of this study is to address this existing drawback through the proposition of an Academic Information Classification and Summarization method. A case study is carried out in the Industrial and System Engineering Graduate Program (PPGEPS), PUCPR, Brazil. The result not only highlights the advantages that can be obtained from this proposition from the education perspective related to Industrial Engineering, but also can be used as evidence to balance and compare an academic staff’s research expertise and his/her teaching disciplines.

Resumo em Inglês:

Abstract In this paper we discuss the introduction of collaborative writing (CW) tools in a course designed with learning activities based on problem-based learning (PBL), authentic case methodology, and teamwork. We argue that CW is a vital, but poorly understood, part of teamwork, and a black-box activity. Our ambition is to open the black box of CW and discuss how CW concepts can enrich teamwork activities. We build on our students’ reflections on challenges linked to CW in a teamwork setting. In total the data consisted of 77 individual reflection papers, which were analyzed using constructs from prior literature on CW. Our results show that our students actively used CW tools and strategies and that CW had a large impact—and, in fact, enhanced teamwork management. The CW tools also helped in creating sustainable teamwork in the sense that they enhanced the three criterions of team performance: productivity, cohesion, and learning.

Resumo em Inglês:

Abstract Rethink the interventions, human practices and their effects on the natural environment, for the preservation of life and biodiversity, threatened by the capitalist model of production, consumption and disposal, becomes each day more indispensable. The role of universities as knowledge building space is fundamental for the insertion of the environmental approach (greening) in its various fronts (education, research, extension, and management). Following the line of several types of researches about the subject, this paper aims to identify if and how the issue of sustainability (e.g. through Project-Based Learning use) is taught in the various engineering programs of a Portuguese Public University. This study was carried out by a documental research based on the programs´ curricula published in the official website of the university. The engineering programs selected included integrated master, master (second cycle) and doctorate (third cycle). In this study, it was identified programs that are more focused on sustainability concepts than others, so the programs were classified in three categories: strongest, medium and weakest focus.

Resumo em Inglês:

Abstract The Industrial Engineering Program at the School of Engineering of Lorena at the University of São Paulo has been using the Project-Based Learning (PBL) methodology in the first term of the academic year since 2013. This article describes the experience of the first four years of the use, the lessons learned, and the remaining challenges. The use of PBL has been widely recognized by the students as one of the Industrial Engineering program’s differentiating features. Lessons have been learned continuously and have been subsequently incorporated to the application of the project. Much has been refined during this time frame but there is much more to be done. Some challenges persist, such as: (i) improving interaction with the course of Calculus I; (ii) enhancing peer evaluation; (iii) expanding the project coordination team, and (iv) refining tools for data collection and analysis

Resumo em Inglês:

Abstract Regional development is fundamental to equally develop countries. This paper focus on the micro-regional aspect of engineering education and its spillovers to understand the current impact in macro regional Human Development Indexes of Education (HDI_E) and Revenue (HDI_R). A complete analysis of official government data in all micro-regions, the number of Engineering institutions, total graduates and total enabled engineers is cross-referenced with bibliographical review. This paper reaches the conclusion that not only the scenario is challenging but changes are needed to reverse the unequal situation found in the country as the presence of Engineering Universities is directly related to better results in Revenue (HDI_R) and General Education (HDI_E).

Resumo em Inglês:

Abstract Real-life applications during the teaching process are a desirable practice in simulation education. However, access to real cases imposes some difficulty in implement such practice, especially when the classes are large. This paper presents a teaching case for a computer simulation course in a production engineering undergraduate program. The motivation for the teaching case was to provide students with a realistic manufacturing case to stimulate the learning of simulation concepts and methods in the context of industrial engineering. The case considers a virtual factory of skateboards, which operations include parts manufacturing, final assembly and storage of raw materials, work-in-process and finished products. Students should model and simulate the factory, under push and pull production strategies, using any simulation software available in the laboratory. The teaching case, applied in the last two years, contributed to motivate and consolidate the students’ learning of discrete-event simulation. It proved to be a feasible alternative to the previous practice of letting students freely choose a case for their final project, while keeping the essence of project-based learning approach.

Resumo em Inglês:

Abstract Adequate preparation, learning, and training is required for Sales and Operations Planning (S&OP) to aid organizations in achieving the full expected benefits from its implementation. This paper presents a case method for S&OP and the learning experience of its application at the University of Münster (Germany). The “constructive alignment principle” was applied with a “team teaching” approach, involving an executive from the case company. Students improved their knowledge on S&OP and their analytical skills by understanding the conceptual S&OP building blocks and by learning how to deal with them to provide a solution for a case based on a real-life situation. The learning results were evaluated positively during the discipline’s student evaluation of teaching (SET). The applied case method enhanced the student’s motivation and engagement (e.g., higher preparation effort and class attendance), which were considered higher than in other disciplines with the traditional lecture-based education.

Resumo em Inglês:

Abstract Mentoring research is recent and multidisciplinary and is found in mostly English speaking cultural contexts. The purpose of this study is to describe a fifty-year old mentoring practice involving faculty-mentors and engineering student-mentees, at the school of engineering of a Spanish university, a non-English speaking context. Mentoring is part of the process of developing the career of the engineering students. For this description, we first developed a more complete conceptual framework of mentoring from literature, identifying the key elements or components. The description of each element in the mentoring practice at the study setting was obtained from archival documents, records, observations and interviews of faculty-mentors and student-mentees. The usefulness of the framework is thereby tested and areas for improvement of the mentoring practice are identified. In addition, this study extends mentoring research into the Spanish speaking European culture and highlights a mentoring experience that could be replicated in other universities. We provide a definition of mentoring that is based on the mentoring experience and practice at the institution given the lack of a generally accepted definition of mentoring.

Resumo em Inglês:

Abstract The requirement to adapt the university education to demands of society and professional market is improving the teaching methodologies that try to develop skills and prepare the students to deal with day-to-day situations of a business environment. Therefore, this research presents the assessment method utilized in an Industrial Engineering course carried out by a Brazilian public university in partnership with a multinational company. The course had 37 participants, consisting of: 28 students divided into four groups; 1 teacher; 4 university tutors; and 4 company tutors. The main objective is to assess the consistency of grades assigned to students and their work groups using agreement, variance and correlation analyses. As conclusion, the analyses indicated a possible deficiency in the assessment method application since the values of agreement and correlation coefficients were lower than expected but also provided a positive contribution to the improvement of assessment and the course as a whole.

Resumo em Inglês:

Abstract This paper reports a case study about the experience of two semesters of the discipline Industrial Chemical Processes in School of Engineering of Lorena with the Project-Based Learning approach. Both semesters were based on a set of rules which established the division of the class into groups to submit projects related to the syllabus of the discipline. Two by two, groups competed for an investment which was determined by the rest of the class, who were the investors. Students approved the method and they were excited about the mood of competition. From the first to the second experiences, some modifications in the rules were done, such as the introduction of stakeholder groups, which increased access to the global content of the discipline. The simulation of a business world put forward herein may be readily adapted to other situations and, with minor changes in the ground rules, it is believed that the method can be applied to a wide variety of disciplines of any course.

Resumo em Inglês:

Abstract This work is the result of research that proposes the incorporation of Distance Learning into a Business Game as a strategy to enhance tutor training, considering entrepreneurship difficulties faced by public school teachers. Part of the problem could be attributed to subject type, because, in general, it is not common to find entrepreneurship on school curricula. The Distance Learning (DL) activities were developed using the Moodle platform and structured by topic to increase educational flexibility and achieve a better balance between individual reflection and online discussion. It was developed in four steps: course content development; course evaluation by computer technicians; restructuring the course based on course evaluation done by computer technicians and course evaluation by teachers from the public school system. A preliminary test was performed with informatics technicians to technically evaluate the learning environment. Based on this, the course was restructured, applying corrections and adjustments to improve environment usability. After corrections, a final test was conducted with public school system teachers to analyze user perception, which gave a positive result. Virtual learning environment evaluation is complex and multidisciplinary, requiring the technical knowledge of internet programming and a conceptual knowledge of education, especially in the field of learning. When the evaluation done by teachers was examined, it was found that deficiencies pointed out by computer technicians had been resolved, giving a positive rating. This current research concludes that DL can improve the use of games, because it is possible to structure the content related to the learning gaps of specific groups of students. In this respect the use of games results can guide the development of content.

Resumo em Inglês:

Abstract Product development is considered as an interdisciplinary undergraduate course with a central role in engineering education. In this sense, this paper demonstrates an experience of a product development undergraduate course based on a project-based learning (PBL) perspective. PBL has been discussed in the literature as one of the most effective teaching frameworks for engineering courses, but there is still scarce research on PBL implementation in engineering education in developing countries. The course scope was reviewed to include engineering management content and to face some barriers for PBL implementation highlighted in the literature. The student activities were organized in four development phases following a structured stage-gate development process. The results achieved include a higher level of learning perception and increased complexity of products generated by students. Besides demonstrating the improvements in the course, this paper contributes to PBL empirical body of knowledge by exploring a successful initiative and its outcomes.

Resumo em Inglês:

Abstract The engineering professional profiles have been discussed by several branches of the engineering field. On the one hand, this discussion helps to understand the professional practice and contributes to the specification of the competences that are suitable for each function and company culture. On the other hand, it is an essential starting point for the definition of curricula in engineering schools. Thus, this study aims to characterize, in an innovative way based on job advertisements, the demand for competences and areas of practice for Industrial Engineering and Management contributing for the definition of a professional profile. This characterization is based on the analysis of 1391 job advertisements, collected during seven years from a Portuguese newspaper. The data analysis takes into account the job description in which two categories were considered: areas of professional practice (e.g. project management) and transversal competences (e.g. teamwork). Considering the total number of job advertisements, it was possible to identify 1,962 cumulative references for 11 professional practice areas and 5,261 cumulative references for transversal competences. The contribution of this study lies on the identification of the main areas of practice and the main transversal competences demanded by employers.

Resumo em Inglês:

Abstract The interest in improving the quality of engineering education is widely deemed. Due to an increasingly worldwide competition, Lean Manufacturing (LM) has been a relevant subject among industrial engineering graduate programs. Despite the advances in teaching LM principles and techniques, the practical character inherent to LM undermines learning and development of students. In this sense, this study aims at demonstrating a proposal to enhance LM learning in an industrial engineering program. It is a blended proposal that combines traditional teaching methods to problem-based learning (PBL) approach based on real problems of companies undergoing a lean implementation. A first phase of the proposal introduction is illustrated with an example of introducing it in a Brazilian federal university. The findings indicate that PBL may be an effective complementary method for LM learning, especially if graduate students are exposed to real problems in companies that are undergoing a lean implementation and related it to the current body of literature.

Resumo em Inglês:

Abstract The goal of the SimProgramming approach is to help students overcome their learning difficulties in the transition from entry-level to advanced computer programming, developing an appropriate set of learning strategies. We implemented it at the University of Trás-os-Montes e Alto Douro (Portugal), in two courses (PM3 and PM4) of the bachelor programmes in Informatics Engineering and ICT. We conducted semi-structured interviews with students (n=38) at the end of the courses, to identify the students’ strategies for self-regulation of learning in the assignment. We found that students changed some of their strategies from one course edition to the following one and that changes are related to the SimProgramming approach. We believe that changes to the educational approach were appropriate to support the assignment goals. We recommend applying the SimProgramming approach in other educational contexts, to improve educational practices by including techniques to help students in their learning.

Resumo em Inglês:

Abstract Engineering education has been the subject of studies in search of approaches that provide better results in terms of learning. The Project Based Learning approach (PBL) is the subject of this study from the point of view of its application in Engineering. The objective is to present a classification and bibliometric analysis of PBL in Engineering. Publications on the subject were identified through queries at the journal databases at ISI Web of Science and Scopus SCImago between 2000 and 2016. The results highlight the benefits from the use of the PBL approach to learning in Engineering showing increased absorption of technical content by students and the development of soft and multi-disciplinary skills. The bibliometric analysis revealed the most relevant journals in the subject, authors and the most cited papers and keywords. New horizons to advance the use of PBL in engineering education are discussed.

Resumo em Inglês:

Abstract In recent years, Flipped Classroom started to be used as an effective way of teaching Engineering among various strategies in higher education. However, enabling and using the flipped learning is a complicated task, not a straightforward goal that can be simply achieved through a combination of face-to-face and online activities. It requires a more sophisticated understanding of effective teaching methods to manage the shift from the traditional to the flipped learning and the optimum adaptation of technology as part of this change. Given this challenge, this research work provides a personalized model of the flipped classroom and investigates through a case study in an Engineering School how our approach can be used to improve teaching of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) Engineering. It assesses by using empirically data related to the interaction of the various actors at different levels of abstraction, particularly from a gender perspective, the relevance and the impact of the flipped classroom on student learning and achievement in ICT Engineering Education.

Resumo em Inglês:

Abstract The project-based learning (PBL) approach has been a part of the University of Brasilia's programme from the inception of its Industrial Engineering syllabus. Production Systems Project 4 course is one among eight courses that drive the utilization of PBL approach at the curriculum, the subject of this study, in which we present a set of analyses of the projects developed between 2013 and 2016. The projects involved real-world problems, related to public and private sector enterprises in Brazil’s Federal District. The conducted analyses aimed to identify the organizations’ profiles and the PPC (Production Planning and Control) techniques which were used to achieve project objectives. Therefore, statistical analyses were performed, such as Correlation Analysis, Cluster Analysis, as well as qualitative documental analysis. The results of this study indicate the profile of external partners that have the highest probability of achieving satisfactory results, as well as the main planning elements which impact the final grades of the projects.

Resumo em Inglês:

Abstract The Industrial Engineering undergraduate program offered at the University of Brasília was structured on Project Based Learning (PBL) methodology. This innovative educational proposal allows the students to deploy their technical competencies through real problem solving situations. The methodology also stimulates the development of the students’ soft skills, by exposing them to a challenging environment. At the end of each project, the results are presented to an external agent, and are subsequently implemented. The objective of this paper is to present the evolution of the PSP courses, which adopt as guidelines both the PMBOK project management framework, as well as content from specific technical courses related to the project’s subject. One other relevant aspect of the PSP courses is their involvement of both undergraduate and graduate students from different Engineering areas, such as Industrial, Mechanical and Civil Engineering, which serves to foster a more holistic and integrated problem-solving skillset.

Resumo em Inglês:

Abstract Higher education systems evolved in recent decades. Universities must not only provide society with capable professionals but also act in the market for technologies, knowledge, and ideas to promote technological development. This paper discusses the motivational performance evaluation system for technology transfer process, specifically the patterns’ evaluation of academic units considering micro-cultures and idiosyncrasies’ analysis, in the academic context of autonomy. Based on action research, the existing performance evaluation system was assessed, and multivariate cluster analysis was proposed and tested as a method to enable micro cultures’ identification and evaluation. The analysis proposed enabled a tool for reflexive discussion regarding the effectiveness of the institutional innovation system in academic units and Engineering Education, and its implications for social and technological development of industry and society enabled action proposals for improvement in the university’s technology transfer management process.