Space perception among civil engineering students

To promote the achievement of high-quality and full employment goals for students in higher education, this paper analyzes the integration path of practical education and teaching in civil engineering and transportation majors, guided by surveying employment. This paper proposes three integration paths for practical teaching and education in civil engineering and transportation majors under the employment orientation. The first path is to create a modularized and informatized curriculum system. The second path is to deepen diverse cooperative practices between schools and enterprises. The third path is to construct a diversified quality evaluation system for academic achievement. To ensure the quality of education and employment, schools should continuously evaluate and reflect on the practical effects of these three paths to further optimize them.

Effective teamwork is essential in civil engineering education, as it mirrors the interdisciplinary collaboration required in professional practice. However, determining the optimal team composition strategy remains challenging due to students' diverse skills and experience levels. This study examines the impact of different role distribution strategies using the Teamwork Reflection and Evaluation Overview (TREO) survey among civil engineering students. Two groups were formed: Group A, with balanced roles (±0.5 deviation from the group average), and Group B, with imbalanced roles. A total of 101 students participated, with 46 from Group A and 44 from Group B responding to the survey. No significant differences in academic performance were found (t = -0.81, p = 0.418); however, Group A reported higher satisfaction with leadership roles (87%) and a more structured project management approach. The study revealed a predominance of the Doer role, while the Organizer and Connector roles had lower representation. Key challenges included communication, task distribution, and individual commitment. Although role distribution did not directly impact grades, the findings underscore the need for structured team-building interventions to enhance collaboration, accountability, and role effectiveness in engineering education.

This short research paper presents the early stage of an ongoing project in engineering ethics education. Given the impact of civil and architectural engineering and the profession’s obligation to uphold public welfare and trust, students must understand macroethics, engineering’s responsibilities to the human, natural, and built environment. The Bachelor’s curriculum plays a key role in developing ethical responsibility, as a site of professional socialization and the only institutionalized training most engineers receive. Students are also exposed to ethics, values, and the societal impacts of engineering via informal learning before and during their university experience. The present project is designed to explore how civil and architectural engineering students make meaning of their societal responsibilities by examining their conceptualisation of the impact of engineering and the factors that influenced it. This study employs a constructivist grounded theory (CGT) approach and draws on interviews with Bachelor’s civil and architectural engineering students in Belgium and the United Kingdom. Data collection and analysis are ongoing simultaneously with the aim of generating a novel theoretical model of macroethical development. This short paper introduces the theoretical and methodological approach of the study, anticipated outcomes, and next steps.

A new strategic vision of the extensively debated European higher education is proposed with focus on civil engineering. Civil engineering education for the future is considered with relevance to potential world-wide trends and anticipated societal requirements and, therefore, required employee qualifications of the construction-related providers to society. These employee qualifications include proper knowledge, skills and attitudes of the civil engineer to be developed with the proper civil engineering educational system. The influence on this system of intrinsic characteristics of knowledge, extrinsic requirements, constraints and drivers, and the ‘Bologna process’, is highlighted. It is emphasized that future civil engineering education in Europe should be developed in a systematic way. The strategic approach presented addresses the societal requirements influenced by world-wide trends, the requirements of the customers of civil engineering education, and several pertinent constraints and drivers. It is believed that the proposed strategic framework could have an impact towards the direction of making changes in a systematic way, with the implication of congruence and better communication among all stakeholders of European civil engineering education.

The role of, and need for, universities to create and promote a holistic approach to engineering is a key part of developing sustainability literacy among future engineers. This paper reports on three different, but linked, exercises that teach undergraduates the complexity of sustainability in civil engineering. In the first exercise, students prepared a written commentary on an exploration of their campus locale to identify typical civil engineering issues such as construction trends over time and set these against economic and social demands and impacts at a city scale. The second exercise asked students to rank the importance of components of sustainable communities as a civil engineer, and then rank them separately as a citizen. In the third exercise, ten groups of approximately ten students were led through a discussion around a holistic approach to engineering and the impact of civil engineering infrastructure development. These exercises provide students with an understanding of hard-to-measure boundary conditions, more informally ‘context’, which can surround the technical excellence at the heart of civil engineering systems. The paper reports student feedback and discusses implications for teaching sustainability. The exercises and experiences presented in this paper can be utilised by other civil engineering degree providers.

This paper investigates how the students perceive their preparedness when they start writing their bachelor thesis. Students at the University of Agder (UiA) will, in their first semester, receive lectures in ethics, academic writing and referencing to equip them for future writing, mostly academic reports. In the Civil Engineering Department, an IMRAD report template is used during their bachelor thesis. The Civil Engineering Department also requires lecturers to use variations of the same template for every report to prepare the students for their bachelor thesis. National Guidelines for engineering studies require students to have general competencies in environmental, social, health-related, and financial consequences around their work in Civil Engineering and put this into an ethical and life cycle perspective. Hence, this paper investigates if the students meet these requirements. In January and February, the students will attend a workshop and follow a course called ‘TFL200 – system course for engineers’. The workshop will give the students a recap in academic writing, referencing, the writing process, project management, and how the template is structured, explaining the template's different parts. TFL200 covers ethics, systems theory, innovation and LCA, sustainability, and academic writing. In the spring semester, two surveys will be sent out to third-year bachelor students in Civil Engineering writing their bachelor thesis. The first survey will be sent out at the beginning of January before the students start their course and workshop. This survey will investigate to which degree the students feel prepared, motivated, and ready to write their bachelor thesis. The second survey will be conducted in late February to evaluate the effects of TFL200 regarding the bachelor project and the workshop, measuring the student's current preparedness, motivation, and to which degree the students feel competent.

Purpose: The aim of the work is to identify the influence of the urban environment on psychological behavior of large groups of people with the subsequent evaluation of formation criteria and principles of the adaptive urban environment.Methodology: The analysis and systematization of Russian and foreign experience in the formation of the adaptive urban environment in architecture, urban planning, psychology, and sociology. Various types of human perception of the urban environment are studied. Based on sociological data, the percentage of people with different perception of space is determined.Research findings: In cognitive urban studies, cognitive-behavioral urban studies are determined. Various models of human perception of the urban environment are studied. Criteria for assessing the urban environment are developed, which identify adaptive and maladaptive elements of urban space. The selected criteria make it possible to predict a positive or negative impact on the development of urban spaces at the initial design stage. A thorough analysis of the territory development allows choosing the most effective of them to provide the formation of the adaptive urban environment affecting the human psyche.Practical implications: Research results can be used in theory and practice of architecture and urban planning and complement training programs for specialists. Formation criteria and principles of the adaptive urban environment can be included in the design of urban spaces at various levels. Research contributes to further actualization of the human-oriented approach in urban studies and can be integrated in the Human Ecology discipline.Originality/value: The paper proposes monitoring of adaptability of urban spaces according to the given criteria. The principles are developed to carry out a new design, reconstruction or renovation of urban areas. The environment created in this way can have a positive impact on the psychological state of a person.

Innovation is very imperative for the educational development of any nation. This article assessed the nexus between Technology Innovation in Civil Engineering and Educational Sustainability. This study examined the Education of Nigerian civil Engineers in Nigeria as well as investigated factors challenging technological innovation in Civil Engineering Education. Literature was reviewed and conceptualized. It was discovered that the level of innovation and technology integration in Civil Engineering Education in Nigeria is low. Factors posing challenges to innovation in Nigeria include institutional framework; human capital; research/innovation infrastructure; and sophisticated business community. This article recommended that the Government should evolve policies that would address the challenges of technological innovations Innovation. Government should provide adequate modern research facilities that would drive research in civil engineering at universities and in other tertiary institutions in Nigeria. Modern research facilities should be established and human capital developed. The study concluded that if science and technology are well taught and adequate facilities are provided for the study of civil Engineering and other Engineering related studies healthy and prosperous Nigeria is inevitable.

Innovation is the essential attribute of engineering education. The training of innovation ability is an important goal in civil engineering education. Training the applications and innovative ability of engineer is the goal of the reform in civil engineering education. "Excellent Engineer Education and Training Plan" and the Registered Engineer System requires the undergraduates and the civil engineers have the innovation capacity. This research based on the questionnaire survey and theoretical analysis, find the needs of the innovative ability of the civil engineers with the new conditions and new situation, and find the problem exists in the training of innovation ability in civil engineering education system, search for a good mothed of the training of innovation ability in civil engineering education system. This research is a new exploration in civil engineering education and training system. The research results can be applied not only in higher education, but also to continuing education.

The outcomes-based learning (OBL) approach focuses on academic outputs rather than educational input for quality assurance (QA) and quality enhancement (QE). The practicality and feasibility of adopting OBL in engineering education are questionable. Little is known about how students in different academic levels perceive OBL in engineering education. This paper aims to fill this gap through a study designed to obtain and evaluate perceptions of students of the effectiveness of adopting OBL in civil engineering education. Data was collected from 79 students enrolled in four different undergraduate and graduate civil engineering courses. Students' perceptions were collected through a questionnaire distributed on students at the end of the offering semester. Findings demonstrated the feasibility and effectiveness of adopting OBL in civil engineering courses to support student learning and improve their understanding of course topics. Students of the senior- and graduate-level courses held more positive attitude towards the value-added learning offered by OBL-based courses rather than students of the junior-level courses.

The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) have redefined the purpose of higher education and turned universities into drivers of sustainability-related innovation and social responsibility. The strategic role of civil engineering education in this paradigm is explained by the fact that the education directly influences the creation of infrastructure, environmental management, and urban resilience. This critical review will examine how SDGs are being integrated into civil engineering curricula, pedagogy, and institutional policies in the world. It denotes such new tendencies as experiential and project-based learning, competency-based assessment, interdisciplinary collaboration, and using digital tools to model sustainability. The remaining challenges like institutional inertia, fragmented curriculum implementation, faculty capacity and lack of alignment of academic standards with professional standards are also determined in the review. This shows how the policy change and transformational pedagogy and quantitative assessment systems are required to enhance sustainability integration. The paper presents a mix of best practises across the world and the results of research studies to show that the key issue is that the systemic cooperation among academia, industry, and policymakers is critical to equip future civil engineers with the skill sets that will help them address complex sustainability challenges. The article asserts that, not only is the incorporation of SDGs in civil engineering education a curricular enhancement but a transformational process is also required to encourage sustainable, equitable, and sustainable civilizations.

Immersive learning has gained increasing attention in construction and civil engineering education as institutions confront the demands of Industry 4.0 and the learning preferences of Generation Z.Although virtual, augmented, mixed, and extended reality (VR/AR/MR/XR) technologies have demonstrated strong potential to enhance experiential, interactive, and scenario-based instruction, their adoption remains fragmented and underdeveloped -particularly in developing countries such as Vietnam.This study conducts a PRISMA-guided systematic review of 33 peer-reviewed publications to examine global applications of immersive learning in construction and civil engineering higher education.The findings reveal six dominant thematic domains: safety and hazard recognition, design and visualization, construction methods and procedures, project management and collaboration, robotics and equipment training, and energy and environmental simulation.Building on these themes, the study proposes the Immersive Learning Integration Framework for Construction and Civil Engineering Education (ILIF-CEE), which organizes immersive learning into five dimensions: learning objectives, technology types, interaction and immersion mechanisms, learning outcomes, and implementation enablers and barriers.The framework provides a structured foundation for integrating immersive tools into Architecture, Engineering, and Construction (AEC) curricula and for supporting institutional digital-transformation strategies.The study contributes consolidated evidence based on the reviewed publications, identifies critical challenges, and outlines practical implications for educators and policymakers seeking to adopt immersive learning.

The global call for sustainable development has prompted educational institutions to rethink teaching methodologies and curriculum design to align with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).Tertiary education plays a pivotal role in shaping future professionals capable of addressing complex sustainability challenges.This paper explores an innovative approach to embedding the 17 SDGs into the educational frameworks of the School of Civil Engineering at the College of Engineering, Universiti Teknologi MARA (UiTM).By mapping civil engineering subjects to the SDGs, sustainability principles are integrated into the teaching and learning process, fostering a comprehensive understanding of global sustainability issues among students.This study employs content analysis to systematically identify the alignment between core civil engineering subjects and specific SDG targets.The analysis highlights how civil engineering contributes to multiple goals, including SDG 4 (Quality Education), SDG 6 (Clean Water and Sanitation), SDG 9 (Industry, Innovation, and Infrastructure), and SDG 11 (Sustainable Cities and Communities).The paper further presents a strategic framework for embedding sustainability in project-based learning, community engagement, and research initiatives within the civil engineering curriculum.By embedding SDG concepts into civil engineering education, this paper demonstrates a transformative approach to sustainability education that not only equips future engineers with the knowledge, skills, and attitudes necessary to address environmental, social, and economic challenges, but also shows measurable enhancements in learning outcomes such as critical thinking, interdisciplinary collaboration, and problem-solving skills.This contribution to the integration of sustainability in higher education provides actionable insights for academic institutions aiming to align their curricula with global sustainability imperatives, thereby fostering more impactful educational outcomes.

The Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology (ABET) has adopted a revised set of criteria for accrediting engineering programs. Nevertheless, as in the past, civil engineering departments will be required to demonstrate proficiency in specific subject areas which are included in the ABET program criteria. This paper investigates how civil engineering students at Lamar University improved their understanding of various subject areas required by ABET and listed in the Program Criteria for Civil and Similarly Named Engineering Programs and the General Criteria (professional component) by being involved with cooperative, part-time, and summer work experiences. In particular, the findings suggest that both undergraduate and graduate students believe that three areas have been greatly enhanced with engineering work. They include structural engineering, project management/scheduling and estimating, and teamwork. In addition, undergraduates perceive that their understanding of health and safety issues and ethical considerations has also increased. In contrast, graduate students believe that their knowledge of hydraulics, hydrology, and water resources, constructability, and economic factors has been enhanced by civil engineering work experiences.

This review paper provides a comprehensive analysis of assessment technologies used to enhance civil engineering education. Drawing from a selection of recent research papers published between 2020 and 2024, the paper synthesizes insights into various assessment methods and their impact on student learning outcomes in civil engineering programs. The review covers diverse topics such as project-based learning, virtual laboratories, online assessments, mobile learning, gamification, and augmented reality. Each paper is analysed for its methodology, key findings, and implications for civil engineering education. Through this review, the paper aims to offer educators and policymakers valuable insights into the effectiveness of assessment technologies in fostering student engagement and improving learning experiences in civil engineering programs. Keywords: Assessment technologies, Civil engineering education, Project-based learning, Online assessments, Mobile learning