What Faculty have to Share and Want to Know

Two of the questions at the end of the survey asked:

1)  What do you do currently that you see as most successful that other instructors or schools might adopt?

2) What things do you think you might learn from other schools that would help you?

The answers to those questions are now available (58/105 answered one or the other).

Themes seem to be:

• BIM/Revit
• Capstone Design
• Practice/Practitioner interaction updating
• Integrated design - with other engineering disciplines as well as architecture

Faculty Comments about AE Design Teaching and the Survey

In other blog entries and the AEEE paper I've summarized the results of the survey.

The last two questions in the survey were open-ended, asking faculty for their comments about both the overall subject of the survey and the questionnaire itself.  Fifty one (out of 105) faculty replied to one or the other of the questions - including the survey author.  All the comments are on the following web page as well as the survey text itself in PDF form.  They are edited only to remove identifying information.

• Faculty Responses to the Final Questions on Survey
• The Survey questions themselves in PDF format

Defining AE Design - ASEE-2009 Paper (AC 2009-448)

Next week I'll be giving a paper based on the survey that 105 faculty in the 17 schools that I visited completed.  The paper in the ASEE proceedings was completed before all the survey results were collected.  This version (link) provides updated results.  There were some changes in both the coding methodology and the results between the two that are noted in the paper.  This one is more complete and appropriate.
The abstract is:

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An online survey of representative faculty at ABET-accredited Architectural Engineering schools addressed the question of what constitutes “Architectural Engineering Design” (AED). The faculty are first characterized in multiple ways: university, academic rank, years of experience, registration status and discipline. The results of their open-ended definition of AED are examined using nine categories derived from responses rated on 1-5 Likert scales, with the analysis broken down using the same faculty characterization. Faculty opinions about the disciplines necessary to include in AED are also analyzed. Overall there is general agreement that disciplinary “skills” are an important part of AED as are, to a lesser extent, the “products” produced. There is some agreement about the idea of “integration” of the disciplines and much less agreement on many of the other concepts, with several barely mentioned. Most faculty feel that their definition of AED is the same as their school’s, but many express uncertainty about the existence of a national definition. Similarly there is considerable agreement that more than one discipline (Architecture, Structure, HVAC, Electrical, Construction Management) is required to constitute AED, but there is marked disagreement about what specific ones should be included, with opinions ranging from two to all five.

PDF of Talk Slides