Keeping it Real: The Role of Real-World Problems in Students' Engineering Competence Development in Interdisciplinary Project-Based Learning

Research Paper Recommended citation: Feng, X., & Sundman, J. (2025). Keeping it Real: The Role of Real-World Problems in Students' Engineering Competence Development in Interdisciplinary Project-Based Learning. In Kangaslampi, R., Langie, G., Järvinen, H.-M., & Nagy, B. (Eds.), SEFI 53rd Annual Conference. European Society for Engineering Education (SEFI), Tampere, Finland. DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.17631887. This Conference Paper is brought to you for open access by the 53rd Annual Conference of the European Society for Engineering Education (SEFI) at Tampere University in Tampere, Finland. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-Share Alike 4.0 International License. 1 Corresponding Author X Feng [email protected] KEEPING IT REAL: THE ROLE OF REAL-WORLD PROBLEMS IN STUDENTS’ ENGINEERING COMPETENCE DEVELOPMENT IN INTERDISCIPLINARY PROJECT-BASED LEARNING X Fenga 1, J Sundmana a Aalto University, Espoo, Finland 0000-0003-4143-0499, 0000-0003-2590-632X Conference Key Areas: 10. Engineering skills, professional skills, and transversal skills 15. Improving higher engineering education through researching engineering education Keywords: Engineering competences, problem-based learning, project-based learning, interdisciplinary education, task authenticity ABSTRACT Engineering education increasingly adopts problemand project-based learning (PBL) to engage students with real-world challenges. Even when working with hypothetical cases, they are often designed to simulate authentic professional contexts, encouraging students to collaborate, make responsible decisions, and take their work seriously. This study investigates how characteristics of interdisciplinary PBL relate to students’ perceived development of engineering competences. Survey responses were collected from 33 students enrolled in interdisciplinary PBL courses, measuring their perceptions of task authenticity, team climate, team composition, and self-assessed engineering competences. Additionally, 29 student interviews were included to complement and contextualize the survey findings. Regression analysis revealed that task authenticity is significantly associated with students’ perceived engineering competences. Qualitative analysis also showed how students are driven by real-life projects, especially to collaborate with real clients, gain futurerelevant skills, and engage with topics related to future career aspirations. However, barriers such as limited client communication, vague project briefs, and uneven team engagement were perceived to undermine authenticity. These findings suggest the need to scaffold students in dissecting project brief, support effective teamwork, and strengthen student-stakeholder communication. Such support can better prepare students to navigate ambiguity and complexity, and, at the same time, leveraging these complexities as productive learning dilemmas to foster deep learning. 1 INTRODUCTION Interdisciplinary problemand project-based learning (PBL) has gained prominence in engineering education, not only in capstone courses but also increasingly across the curriculum (Dym et al., 2005; Lehmann et al., 2008). Studies have shown that interdisciplinary PBL can enhance students’ collaboration skills and their ability to integrate diverse perspectives and problem-solving approaches. However, the implementation of interdisciplinary PBL varies widely across courses, curriculums, and institutions (Kolmos et al., 2024). One key consideration in these implementations is the authenticity of the problem or project students work with, in other words, the degrees to which the learning tasks reflect real-world relevance. Task authenticity in PBL has been suggested to influence students’ feeling of ownership over their learning, learning satisfaction and perceived learning outcomes (Bowen & Peterson, 2019; Joo et al., 2019; You, 2024). While many interdisciplinary PBL courses involve collaboration with industry or societal stakeholders, the extent to which the problems reflect real-world complexity can differ significantly and may influence students’ learning experiences and outcomes (You, 2024). Furthermore, teamwork in interdisciplinary settings does not naturally ensure effective collaboration (O’Connell et al., 2023). Each team develops its own dynamics and working processes, which can shape students’ experiences and development (Feng et al., 2024). To gain a deeper understanding of what shapes student learning in interdisciplinary PBL, this study investigates how perceived learning environment, specifically task authenticity and team climate, relate to students’ self-reported development of engineering competences. This study offers new insights by using both survey and interview data to explore potential links between interdisciplinary PBL characteristics and students’ competence development, and to illustrate how students’ lived experiences of authenticity and teamwork can shape their perceptions to learning. The research is guided by the following research questions: (1) How do students perceive task authenticity and team climate in interdisciplinary problem-based learning? (2) How do task authenticity and team climate relate to students’ perceived development of engineering competences? 2 LITERATURE REVIEW Engineering graduates are increasingly expected to possess not only strong technical expertise but also a range of transversal skills (Conley et al., 2017; Passow & Passow, 2017). These expectations can be captured by the concept of engineering competence – the set of knowledge, skills, and dispositions needed to perform effectively in the engineering profession. Rather than being a check list of abilities, engineering competence is context-dependent, which requires the coordination of technical and interpersonal abilities in practical, professional settings (Trevelyan, 2019). These competences often include problem-solving, critical thinking, and learning motivations (Passow & Passow, 2017). In engineering education, interdisciplinary PBL is particularly well-suited to fostering these competences, as it engages students in solving complex, real-world problems while working effectively in teams (Stentoft, 2017). Studies have shown that interdisciplinary PBL can support students’ development in areas such as engineering knowledge and skills, collaborative skills, and higher-order thinking, while also challenging them to navigate unfamiliar epistemologies and discourses (Kolmos et al., 2021; Feng & Hölttä-Otto, 2021; Routhe et al., 2023). Central to interdisciplinary PBL is teamwork, which requires students to work toward a common goal and engage in shared learning through integrating diverse disciplinary perspectives and skillsets. Effective collaboration in such settings relies heavily on trust, interdependence, and the ability to manage conflict constructively (Borrego et al., 2013). As students collaborate in teams over time, they develop shared perceptions of their group environment, which gives rise to team climate. Team climate can be understood as the shared perceptions among team members of their immediate working environment, particularly regarding trust, psychological safety, task orientation, and support for innovation, all of which shape how students interact, collaborate, and contribute to collective outcomes (Anderson & West, 1998; Hunter et al., 2007). These shared perceptions do not form in a vacuum but are shaped by the way teams are organized and conditions under which the collaboration takes place. As Kolmos et al. (2024) found out, team configurations vary widely in interdisciplinary PBL, from small, co-located groups to larger networks involving multiple smaller core teams. Teams also differ in terms of the level of disciplinary diversity. These structural differences, combined with distinctive team climates, add more layers of complexity to students’ learning experiences. Equally important is the authenticity of the problems or projects students work on. The design and framing of problems play a pivotal role in how students engage with the task, perceive its relevance, apply their knowledge, and navigate ambiguity, especially in interdisciplinary PBL environments (Dym et al., 2005; Guerra & Holgaard, 2019). Ill-structured problems – particularly those reflecting societal complexity and multiple stakeholder perspectives – are essential for fostering meaningful interdisciplinary learning and preparing students for change-oriented professional roles (Dobson & Tomkinson, 2012). Whether adopting real-world challenges proposed from industrial partners or constructed by the course teachers to simulate real-life scenarios, the learning tasks in interdisciplinary PBL generally aim to reflect the complexity and relevance of professional practice (Holgaard & Kolmos, 2021). However, it remains unclear to what extent students perceive these experiences as applicable to their future careers or see opportunities to meaningfully apply their knowledge and skills in real-world contexts. 3 METHODOLOGY This study employed a mixed-methods approach to investigate how students’ perceptions of task authenticity and team climate in interdisciplinary PBL environments relate to their perceived development of engineering competences. After gaining the ethical approval from Research Ethics Committee of Aalto University (D/413/03.04/2024), the data collection began. Survey responses were collected from 33 students across 9 Master’s level interdisciplinary PBL courses at Aalto University in Finland, among which two responses were incomplete and excluded, resulting in 31 complete cases for analysis. Participants recruitment started with identifying relevant interdisciplinary PBL courses based on online course descriptions. The second author then contacted course instructors to help distribute the survey link to students and explained that the survey was fully anonymous, and participation was voluntary. Given the relatively limited number of survey responses, likely due to students’ high study load and existing course feedback obligations, qualitative interviews were also conducted for data triangulation. A total of 29 interviews were included from three of the nine courses that had the highest number of survey responses to explore students’ learning experiences in more depth. The interview data was analyzed through thematic analysis (Braun & Clarke, 2021). By integrating findings from qualitative and quantitative data, our study provides insights that extend beyond what can be learned from each separately (Fetters et al., 2013). The survey consisted of demographic questions (e.g., age, gender, prior work experience, team size, and disciplinary diversity). Other quantitative measures included scales adapted from prior research, including task authenticity (3 items, α = .79), team climate (5 items, α = .81) from You (2024), and engineering competences (8 items, α = .87) from Passow & Passow (2017). The survey also included questions related to course satisfaction, personal growth, and the course’s emphasis on sustainability, for course development purposes but were excluded from the present analysis. Descriptive statistics, correlations, and multiple regression analyses were conducted in R Studio to explore relationships between the variables. Additionally, model diagnostics were performed to check assumptions of linearity, normality, and multicollinearity for model robustness. Descriptive statistics of students’ backgrounds and team compositions are presented in Table 1. The average age of participants was 25.16 years (SD = 2.62), ranging from 22 to 34 years. Regarding gender, 58% of the participants identified as female (n = 18), 32% as male (n = 10), and 10% selected “Other” or “Prefer not to say” (n=3). For university education, participants reported an average of 5.32 years (SD = 1.35), ranging from 3 to 8 years, while an average of 3.19 years (SD = 3.05) for prior working experiences, with some having no work experience and others reporting up to 11 years. In terms of team formation, the average team size was 5.77 students (SD = 1.89), ranging from 3 to 10 members. There was an average of 3.13 different disciplines (SD = 1.18) in a team, ranging from 1 to 5 disciplines, which indicated a moderate level of interdisciplinary diversity. Additionally, 52% (n=16) of the students participated in a field trip as part of their project course, while 48% (n=15) did not. Table 1. Descriptive statistics of demographic and team variables Variables N Mean SD Median Min Max Range Age 31 25.16 2.62 24 22 34 12 Years of university 31 5.32 1.35 5 4 10 6 Years of work 31 3.19 3.05 2 0 11 11 Team size 31 5.77 1.89 5 3 10 7 Discipline size 31 3.13 1.18 3 1 5 4 It should be noted that given the relatively small sample size (n=33), the demographic information in Table 1 is context-specific and is not intended to represent broader populations. 4 RESULTS RQ1: How do students perceive task authenticity and team climate in interdisciplinary PBL? Overall, students reported favourable perceptions of both task authenticity and team climate in their interdisciplinary PBL experiences. On a five-point scale, the mean score for task authenticity was 4.12 (SD = 0.71), and for team climate, 4.12 (SD = 0.65). Perceived development of engineering competences was assessed on a fourpoint scale, with a mean of 2.59 (SD = 0.61). The mean is slightly above the scale midpoint, indicating that students generally perceived development in their engineering competences. RQ2: How do task authenticity and team climate relate to students’ perceived development of engineering competences? Firstly, Pearson correlations were computed to examine relationships among the study variables. Correlation analysis (Table 2) revealed that task authenticity was positively correlated with team climate (r = .56, p < .001). This indicates that students who perceived the tasks as authentic also experienced more positive team climates. Both task authenticity (r = .54, p < .001) and team climate (r = .49, p < .01) were significantly correlated with students’ perceived development of engineering competences. This means that higher task authenticity and better team climate were linked to stronger perceived competence development. Interestingly, team size (r = -.46, p < .01) was negatively correlated with competence development, meaning that students working in larger teams reported lower levels of perceived competence development. This suggests that larger teams could introduce potential challenges in learning. Table 2. Correlation matrix of the key variables Task auth. Team climate Engineer comp. Years univ. Years work Team size Disc. size Gender Task auth. 1*** Team climate 0.56** 1*** Engineer comp. 0.54** 0.49** 1*** Years univ. 0.12 0.19 -0.15 1*** Years work -0.14 -0.16 -0.22 0.25 1*** Team size -0.09 -0.33 -0.46** -0.01 -0.15 1*** Disc. size 0.15 -0.29 -0.1 -0.19 0.21 0.3 1*** Gender -0.11 -0.39* -0.23 0.1 0.22 0.35** 0.46** 1*** p < .001***, p < .01**, p < .05* Additionally, gender differences emerged in team climate (r = 0.39, p < .05), team size (r = 0.46, p < .01), and discipline size (r = 0.46, p < .01), though gender was not significantly related to competence development. Specifically, male and non-female students were more likely to be in larger and more interdisciplinary teams, which might contribute to their less positive perceptions of team climate. Other demographic factors, including years of study, work experience, and disciplinary diversity, showed no significant associations with competence outcomes, although the observed relationships are indicative rather than generalizable. To examine how task authenticity, team climate, and student or team characteristics relate to perceived development of engineering competences, two multiple linear regression models were performed. The initial model included task authenticity, team climate, age, gender, years of university study, years of work experience, field trip participation, team size, and discipline diversity as predictors. The overall model was significant, F(9, 21) = 2.82, p = .024, explaining 35.4% of the variance in engineering competence development (Adjusted R² = .354). However, age was neither a significant predictor (β = -0.02, p = .82) nor theoretically essential given its overlap with education and work experience. Furthermore, variance inflation factor (VIF) analysis indicated a high collinearity issue for age (VIF = 9.03). To improve model stability and address multicollinearity, age was removed from the subsequent analysis. The revised model (Table 3), excluding age, remained statistically significant, F(8, 22) = 3.31, p = .012, accounting for 38.2% of the variance in perceived competence development (Adjusted R² = .38). More importantly, task authenticity emerged as the only significant positive predictor (β = 0.37, p = .036), indicating that students who perceived their project tasks more authentic reported greater development of engineering competences. Additionally, a marginal negative association was observed between team size and engineering competences (B = -0.12, p = .076). Despite that it is non-significant, this could suggest that larger teams may hinder students’ perceptions of competence development. No significant effects were found for gender, years of university study, years of work experience, participation in a field trip, or team disciplinary diversity. VIF values were calculated again, and all predictors were below 2, indicating minimal multicollinearity concerns. Table 3. Multiple regression of predictor variables and perceived engineering competences Predictor Estimate (B) Std. Error t p Intercept 1.87 0.93 2.01 .058 Task Authenticity 0.37 0.17 2.23 .036* Team Climate 0.14 0.19 0.72 .479 Gender 0.10 0.16 0.59 .561 Years University -0.10 0.07 -1.34 .193 Years Work -0.03 0.03 -0.81 .429 Field Trip -0.04 0.23 -0.20 .849 Team Size -0.12 0.07 -1.86 .077 Discipline Size -0.04 0.11 -0.37 .713 Signif. codes: 0 ‘***’ 0.001 ‘**’ 0.01 ‘*’ 0.05 ‘.’ 0.1 ‘ ’ 1 Residual standard error: 0.4759 on 22 degrees of freedom Multiple R-squared: 0.5464 Adjusted R-squared: 0.3815 F-statistic: 3.313 on 8 and 22 DF p-value: 0.01227 Qualitative thematic analysis further highlighted the importance of real-world elements in shaping students’ learning experiences. Multiple dimensions of task authenticity emerged, including opportunities for interdisciplinary collaboration (n=10), working with a real client or partner (n=9), engaging with context relevant to students’ future career interests, such as healthcare, biotechnology, or agricultural entrepreneurship (n=8), acquiring skills relevant to future work (n=6), and conducting fieldwork (n=3). Overall, all students expressed strong appreciation for the authenticity of the projects. One design student shared that their goal was “to realize what it means to work, especially with engineers,” and to “demystify engineers and understand how they think and act.” Others highlighted how the real-life context deepened their experience beyond the classroom, sharing that “in our […] program, we don’t really collaborate. So, this was a chance to hear different perspectives […] and going to new places, not just as a tourist, but really seeing the culture and life on the ground level.” However, not all students found the process fully authentic. Some pointed out the limitations, such as the lack of funding for field research, vague project briefs, limited communication from clients, and a sense that clients saw students more like learners than collaborators. Others mentioned disengaged teammates and the lack of realworld consequences, besides course grades, all of which reduced their perceived authenticity of the work. 5 DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSIONS This study highlights the critical role of task authenticity in shaping students’ perceived development of engineering competences in interdisciplinary PBL. Among the various factors explored, task authenticity emerged as the only significant positive predictor. Qualitative findings offered more insights regarding the multiple dimensions through which students perceive authenticity. At the same time, several students expressed concerns regarding aspects that undermined the authenticity of their experiences in relation to their communication with clients and internal teamwork. These findings point to a need for stronger collaboration between educators and external partners in designing interdisciplinary PBL courses, especially regarding communication and shared commitment to student learning. More importantly, educators need to explicate to students the importance of resilience and mindset needed to navigate the complexities of real-world projects. In practice, many industry or societal stakeholders may be unclear, unresponsive, or hold unrealistic expectations, all of which students are likely to face in their future professional lives. Rather than shielding students from these difficulties, educators can design learning experiences that intentionally include such “disorienting dilemmas” as opportunities for growth. Drawing from transformative learning theory (Mezirow, 1991), these dilemmas can be reframed as moments for reflection, perspective-taking, and adaptive problem-solving. Leveraging these dilemmas in pedagogical scaffoldings, such challenges can become catalysts for deeper learning and professional development. In conclusion, this study highlights the value of task authenticity in engineering education, especially in interdisciplinary PBL. While structural course elements matter, students’ perceived alignment between their work and the real world also appears to drive meaningful competence development. Future research could explore more fine-grained aspects of authenticity and further investigate how different student backgrounds and course designs shape learning in complex, collaborative environments. 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