Paradigm shift in construction education is vital for the future of our profession

In 2001, a survey found that 87% of engineering professors in the United States spend the entire class time lecturing to a passive group of students material that is copied down and never looked at again. This paper presents the results of scientific inquiry and keen observations all leading to the same conclusion: engineering education has to reform itself. Presently, almost all engineering students learn best doing lots of homework (∼50%) and theoretical study (25%) are accommodated by lectures, homework, and rote-problem tests. Regrettably, an overwhelming number of the creative students do not learn this way and fail. Learning as a process needs to be put at the heart of education moving us away from the traditional educational enterprise. The presented data benefits researchers and practitioners in that they highlight the urgency of the issue and show how the proposed paradigm shift is underpinned by our understanding of how people learn.