Returning To Engineering Practice: A Study On The Curriculum Reform Of Higher Engineering Education In China

In the era of globalization and knowledge-based economy, engineering plays a significant role in solving complex problems in human life. Most countries have great expectations of engineers, and pay particular attention to the reform of engineering education. Now the education program of outstanding engineers is implemented in China. It aims at the transformation from a country promoting engineering education to one that excels in this regard. There are still many problems in China's higher engineering education. The future engineers could not be cultivated only with the blackboard, textbooks, formulas and computer emulation or simulation, as curriculum plays a core role in higher education. Against this background, the author pays focuses on a practical problem, how can the curriculum of engineering education be reformed in our country at present!Current research abroad shows that engineering education is a comparatively new research field. The hot issue lies in engineering learning system, i.e. curriculum and teaching, the micro-perspective of engineering education. Though some achievements have been made in engineering education research in China, it still remains inadequate in the research of curriculum and teaching. Only a few Chinese researchers have paid attention to this aspect and there is not any comprehensive study from the perspective of the practice of engineering. Therefore the paper focuses on this issue and explores the corresponding remedy in terms of curriculum. A cross-disciplinary method is employed to analyze and discuss the ways of tackling the problem emerging in the field of curriculum in engineering education. The main focus is on engineering practice.The hypothesis of this research is that returning to engineering practice is the compass of the curriculum reform of engineering education in China. The two central research questions are:Is it a must to reform the present curriculum of engineering? How could the reform be properly undertaken? Given the viewpoints of graduates and the attributes of the curriculum, four specific research questions are detailed in the paper, which include 1) Should China's higher engineering education and curriculum return to engineering practice? 2) What are the obvious characteristics of the engineering practice now and beyond compared with the traditional engineering practice? 3) What are the indispensable skills of engineering practice required for current engineering graduates? and 4) How could the curriculum of higher engineering education be reformed to meet the needs?The approach of Strategic Road-mapping is used to find the answers to the questions. Four aspects of the issue, namely its past, present, future and the solution, are reviewed, analyzed and discussed. Besides, the paper has adopted mixed methodology, combining both quantitative and qualitative research methods to collect data and conduct analyses of literature studies and empirical data about the research. The major findings of the research are as follows:(1) Historically speaking, the international higher engineering education has been experiencing three stages:the early days of embracing engineering practice, the second stage of deviating from it and the present days of returning to it. Compared with other countries, especially US, China falls behind as far as the last two stages are concerned. Internationally, engineering education and its curriculum is now returning to the practice on the concept of Holistic Engineering.(2) The Holistic Engineering view regards engineering as a complex ecological system. Its holism includes the following. Engineering is facing the whole background of politics, economy, culture and society; engineering relies on technical and non-technical elements; the life cycle of engineering products includes design, implementation and operation; the practice of engineering projects consists of three phases, namely pre-project, during the project and post-project. The obvious attributes of engineering practice now and beyond are:systematic, complex, diverse, comprehensive, adaptable, innovative, global and sustainable development.(3) Case studies of the reform of engineering education curriculum abroad demonstrate that while other countries are going back to the engineering practice, and it is necessary for China to take the similar approach. Their present curriculum of engineering education has partly embodied the holistic view of engineering, though it still could be improved. The on-site engineering practice of the industry suggests that engineering graduates acquire both technical skills and ability but also strong non-technical skills and ability. With an emphasis on the return to engineering practice, the engineering curriculum is not meant to undermine the fundamental status of science and technology but to search for the balance between theory and practice.(4) A review of the design and practice of engineering education curriculum in China reveals that the course of engineering is over-emphasized theoretically while its practice is not properly strengthened; the existing engineering education fails to meet the needs of the industry. The main reasons attributing to the above problems may come down to the fact that the objectives of curriculum, the teaching materials, and the teaching practice do not comply with the needs of industry. These may all result from the lack of proper philosophy of engineering education and the well-designed curriculum. In addition, there's a wide gap of depth, breadth, and methodology between the present curriculum of China's engineering education and that of other countries.(5) It is stakeholders that representing the whole society that ask for the reform of the curriculum of engineering education. They consider the returning to engineering practice to be the right way to go and the curriculum should return to the holistic engineering practice. Besides the traditional technical skills and ability, today's engineers and engineering graduates should also develop their non-technical ability in the skills of communication, cooperation, flexibility, information processing, etc. This gap between what the industry asks for and what engineering graduates can do needs to be bridged via curriculum reform.(6) The curriculum of China's engineering education should be reformed in the light of holistic engineering. It should adopt the holistic engineering practice, reconstruct the engineering paradigm of curriculum. Engineering curriculum reform should achieve the balance between knowledge and ability, technology and non-technology, linearity and non-linearity. The curriculum reform could be planned from the following four aspects. 1)Time. Students should participate in engineering practice as soon as possible. The progress should be arranged in accordance with their development of cognition.2) Space. The cooperation between universities and enterprises is critical in providing the real engineering context.3) Depth. Integrated engineering knowledge should be emphasized to show the fundamental and practical attributes of engineering.4) Breadth. Multiple competences are stressed to show the characteristics of the industry and age..(7) The goal of returning to engineering practice can be reached if the curriculum is aimed at the expected professional ability of modern engineers. The major ability framework of engineering undergraduates in China can be categorized as common ability and individual ability. The former can be further divided into technical and non-technical skills and abilities. Individual competence refers to the special abilities acquired from the special major or college education. The content of the curriculum should be based on the professional engineering ability framework, and reflect the new characteristics of modern engineering practice.(8) The optimization of curriculum structure is a most important factor of the curriculum restructuring. Firstly, curriculum structure should readjust the relationship between the theory and practical element. The four types of curriculum structure could be selected, which are the integrated discipline, the integrated problem, the juxtaposition combination and the alternate combination. Secondly, curriculum structure should be reformed with five elements:curriculum types, credits proportion, learning sequence, learning space and the stable and flexible ability of the structure. Thirdly, the research suggests the structure model of engineering curriculum in China should be divided into six modules:general education curriculum, natural science curriculum, engineering discipline curriculum, specific engineering field curriculum, engineering practice curriculum and capstone curriculum.(9) The difficulty of the curriculum reform is in the design of the student-centered learning experience of engineering practice. On one hand, the learning should recognize the types of learning experiences and the differences between learners; and accordingly take inductive-based learning approaches. On the other hand, the design of engineering learning experience has to consider the learning evaluation, and the use of information technology. This paper details six models of specific curriculum as well as the ways of teaching and learning as references for our national reform of engineering curriculum.The conclusion of the research is that it is a good prescription for engineering education curriculum reform to return to engineering practice in China. The curriculum reform should update the concept of engineering and curriculum, reconstruct the curriculum objectives and content, optimize curriculum structure, design the student-centered learning experiences and teaching approach, and all in all, restructure the engineering paradigm curriculum. The research is innovative in that it proposes the concept of "engineering paradigm" curriculum, the professional ability framework of engineering graduates and the curriculum structure model.As to the theoretical significance of the research, it is to theoretically enhance the development of engineering education and college curriculum of China and other countries, and to share case studies from developing countries with those of other countries and may provide an insight in understanding China's engineering education. The significance in practice is that it has provided academic guidance and empirical evidence for college engineering education curriculum reform. The significance in policy making is that it provides policy consultancies for engineering education curriculum reform by college administration and policy references for the education program of outstanding engineers in China.