Between Engineers and Instructors

Details

• Creators:
  Brown, Shane ; Dixon, Michael
• Corporate Creators:
  National Institute for Advanced Transportation Technology (NIATT) (U.S.)
• Corporate Contributors:
  United States. Department of Transportation. Research and Special Programs Administration
• Subject/TRT Terms:
  • Transportation engineering
  • Engineers
  • Instructors
  • Education and training
  • Education
  • Research projects
  • Education
  • Education and training methods
  • Research projects
• Publication/ Report Number:
  KLK722 ; N12-11
• Resource Type:
  Tech Report
• Geographical Coverage:
  Idaho
• Edition:
  Final report; Dec. 2010-June 2012.
• Corporate Publisher:
  National Institute for Advanced Transportation Technology (NIATT) (U.S.)
• Abstract:
  Substantial research in a diversity of fields suggests that being successful in a skilled profession requires ways of thinking that ; are unique to the context of that profession and present in practitioners of that field. Two critical concepts are sight distance and ; stopping sight distance as applied to highway geometric design. These concepts play important roles in designing highway ; horizontal and vertical curves, establishing safe speed limits, and safe traffic signal timing. The purpose of this study is to ; characterize instructors’ and engineers’ embedded knowledge of highway geometric design sight distance and stopping sight ; distance and similarly examine course materials. Individual interviews were conducted with 29 transportation engineers and 19 ; transportation instructors. Course notes from a selection of instructors and three commonly used textbooks were also analyzed. ; Although instructors and practitioners expressed similar content knowledge, there were significant differences in the context in ; which it was embedded. Engineering practitioners used and referred to software, manuals, and specific experiences, while ; instructors primarily spoke in a more abstract context, or referred to textbooks. Also, engineers discussed methods to mitigate ; minimum design criteria violations; this was not found in course notes or textbooks. This research strongly suggests that contextdependent ; embedded knowledge exists in transportation engineering and efforts are necessary to integrate this knowledge in the ; curriculum.
  More +
• Format:
  PDF
• Funding:
  DTRT07-G-0056
• Download URL:
  https://rosap.ntl.bts.gov/view/dot/24940/dot_24940_DS1.pdf
• File Type:
  [PDF - 210.71 KB]
• Collection(s):
  University Transportation Centers ; US Transportation Collection
• Main Document Checksum:
  urn:sha256:5d612bf77c80d440eee6b1b7efcade0fae86acf6d5e028affef0a2f132a84ff5