Exploring senior engineering students' conceptions of modeling

Modeling is a pervasive feature of engineering that is rarely explicitly taught to engineering learners. The implicit inclusion of modeling often results in conceptions of models being primarily descriptive, originating from everyday and coursework use. A broader understanding of modeling is achieved when students are given opportunities to learn about the predictive nature of some modeling applications. A significant shift was observed between pre and postsurveys of senior engineering students taught a modeling intervention. Descriptive-centric conceptions remained prevalent with an additional focus on predictive mathematical models.