Engineering in Children's Literature

Recent reports from the National Academies have argued that exposing children to engineering ideas early in their educational career can be beneficial. One of the ways children are exposed to engineering content is through books. However, very little research exists exploring the fidelity of the messages in these children's books. To investigate this question, a thematic analysis was performed on several books about engineering written for children below five years of age. As a result of this analysis and with the integration of validated messages emerging from research and national reports, I [Brianna Dorie] created the storyboard for a new story book introducing children to engineering.

Mining for Gold amongst the Great Divide:
Identifying communication characteristics and computer mediated communication preferences to facilitate knowledge transfer across generations of engineers.

Ageing engineers of the Baby Boom generation are beginning to retire from their career posts. Their retirement will clear a pathway for many novice engineers to enter the workplace. While the financial impact on firms related to these demographic changes is unclear (Le & Bronn, 2007), it is reasonable to believe that the knowledge drain could create significant performance risk during the workforce transformation, and loss of strategic corporate know-how during the transition. A field study in 2006 involving 239 executives primarily from North America, cited corporate knowledge transfer associated with workforce demographic shifts as one of the most pressing issues facing their firms (Lesser, 2006a).

While significant research exists related to how the current generation of engineering students learn, utilize technology for learning, and engage in social learning amongst their peers (Coomes & DeBard, 2004; Hendry & King, 1994; Milliron, 2008; Oblinger, 2003; Stewart, 2009), there is a clear gap in research utilizing generations as a framework for understanding how to support knowledge transfer between engineers in practice. In particular, significant opportunity exists to investigate generational communication factors affecting how inexperienced engineers can communicate with retiring engineering corps to assimilate embedded knowledge.

This quantitative research will investigate themes of engineering culture, communication, and generational norms such as influences of computer-moderated communication between engineering generations. This study hopes to benefit the industrial sector by generating insights for increasing knowledge transfer within their transitioning engineering workforce. Additionally, may provide engineering educators a unique opportunity to consider focused teaching pedagogies aimed at enhancing the efficacy of novice engineers graduating from their programs.