Content provided in partnership with
Undergraduate Student Competitions
Journal of Engineering Education, Jul 2005 by Wankat, Phillip C
ABSTRACT
This study explored student competitions for undergraduate engineering and engineering technology students to determine which institutions consistently win and what factors support their winning, and to obtain some insights into the benefits for students. Forty-four student competitions for engineering and technology students were identified, and the first, second, and third place institutions from 2001 to 2003 were tabulated. Although one institution would often win a particular competition, no institution was a consistent winner for all competitions. Advisers of winning institutions reported that their institutions won consistently because of a dedicated faculty advisor and/or the close alignment of the competition with the institution's curriculum. Also important are a tradition of winning, the quality of the students, and (for hands-on competitions) the availability of resources. Additional research is needed to determine if student competitions increase student learning.
- Most Popular Articles in Reference
- The importance of understanding organizational culture
- Credit card attitudes and behaviors of college students
- What factors attract foreign direct investment?
- Libraries Need Relationship Marketing - mutual interest marketing concept, ...
- How to set performance goals: employee reviews are more than annual critiques
- More »
Keywords: student competitions, design, involvement
I. INTRODUCTION
The number of engineering-oriented student competitions for college students increases every year. It is often assumed that competitions are strong motivators that help students learn about real world design [1, 2], which is consistent with involvement theory of education [3]. Despite a large amount of effort and resources devoted to student competitions, there appears to be no data on the breadth and range of competitions and what factors help institutions win.
This study explored a variety of student competitions for undergraduate engineering and engineering technology students to determine which institutions consistently win, determine what factors support these institutions winning, and obtain some insights of the benefits for students. The key research question was: what is happening [4]? Two main hypotheses were generated based on the author's previous experience.
Hypothesis 1. No institution consistently wins in the universe of all student competitions, but institutions do consistently win individual competitions.
Hypothesis 2. Institutions that win a given competition year after year have a dedicated faculty advisor/teacher.
In addition, some initial answers to what characteristics distinguish institutions that win consistently and the effect of contests on students were obtained.
II. DATA COLLECTION AND ANALYSIS
Information on contests was obtained mainly from an extensive Web search. The 44 contests identified are listed in Table 1 and classified as individual versus team contests and paper designs versus building working devices. The major sponsors of the competitions as of 2004 are listed. Although some competitions have excellent Web pages with detailed histories of winners (e.g., [5]), some do not and data collection was challenging.
Regional competitions that are qualifying events for national competitions, such as the National Concrete Canoe competitions, were excluded because the data were rarely systematically available. New contests that started in 2004 are not included because no record was available when the data were collected. Competitions open to students enrolled at only one institution or at a very restricted list of institutions, such as Soybean Checkoff Board competitions, were excluded. Awards for best poster/ presentation for undergraduate research were excluded because of the very heavy advisor involvement in setting research questions.
The winning institutions for the contests in Table 1 were recorded for 2001-2003 for first, second and third place overall and subcategory winners. Table 2 shows that for the 44 contests, 263 first, 225 second, and 184 third place prizes were awarded for a total of 672 winners. There were more first place awards because some contests only award a first place. A total of 151 institutions won at least one first place, 64 institutions that did not win a first place won at least one second place, and 27 institutions that did not win a first or second place won at least one third place during the three year period; thus, a total of 242 institutions won at least one award. The average number of awards was 2.8 per institution; the median number of awards was two while the mode was one representing 87 institutions. A large number of institutions also won three, four, five, six, or seven awards each, while only eight institutions won more than seven awards.
The four universities with the most awards during this three year period are listed in Table 3. Since institutions often enter more than one team, an institution could have several finishes in the top three for the same subcategory. The 28 wins by Virginia Tech represent (28/672) × 100 = 4.2 percent of the first, second, and third place awards during the three year period, whereas the top four institutions represent (74/672) × 100 = 11.0 percent of the awards. Clearly, the area of student competitions is not highly concentrated.
Table 4 is a partial listing of institutions that consistently won specific contests from 2001 to 2003. Longer histories are available for some contests. For example, the National Concrete Canoe Competition has been sponsored by the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) and Master Builders (now Degussa Admixtures) since 1988 [5]. This competition is extremely competitive and institutions must place first or second in a regional competition to be invited to the national competition. From 1988 to 2004 the following institutions won a national first, second, or third place award: UC-Berkeley, 1988-1997, 9 times; Alabama-Huntsville, 1992-2004, 9 times; Michigan State, 1989-1996, 5 times; Clemson, 1998-2002, 5 times and placed fourth in 2004 [5]. Another example of a long tradition of winning a particular contest is Ferris State University whose students have won first or second place awards in the American Society of Heating, Refrigeration and Air-Conditioning Engineers (ASHRAE) competitions every year since 1998. Also, students from the University of Kansas have won the following awards in the American Institute of Chemical Engineers (AIChE) student contest problem from 1984 to 2003: 1984, 2nd; 1985, 1st and 2nd; 1986, 1st; 1989, 3rd; 1993, 2nd; 1995, 2nd; 1996, 1st; 1997, 1st; 1998, 1st and 2nd; 2000, 1st; 2002, 2nd; 2003, 1st and 3rd. This pattern of an institution consistently winning for a number of years is common.
Find Research Guides for:
Find Featured Titles for: News
Most Popular Articles in Reference
- The importance of understanding organizational culture
- Credit card attitudes and behaviors of college students
- What factors attract foreign direct investment?
- Libraries Need Relationship Marketing - mutual interest marketing concept, ...
- How to set performance goals: employee reviews are more than annual critiques
- More »