Realistic student enquiries, global challenges and the role of a development charity

Abstract Engineering programmes within higher education have significant scope to make a contribution to global challenges such as sustainable development and solutions to world poverty. Alongside such a contribution to society, universities are also exploring ways to focus student learning around realistic enquiries. It is therefore important to explore approaches that address such challenges and pedagogies, which indeed also offer a way forward in attracting and motivating students, and in preparing them for suitable careers. We report here on an evaluation of a student-based engineering design service for development organisations, involving a partnership between a charity, a university and development professionals. The service involves teams of undergraduate students designing, making and testing intermediate technologies. The paper explores a model based around enquiry-based learning, and draws on a set of naturally-occurring reflective accounts provided by the students involved. While learning about technical issues was important, the study shows how a realistic developing-world context motivated student work, enhancing students’ confidence and readiness to make a difference. Various technical issues emerged with scope to hamper the educational experience, as did the challenge of ensuring fairness across different enquiries. Strategies are proposed to manage rather than ignore or reduce such variation, an issue which has received relatively little attention hitherto in relation to project work or enquiry-based learning.