摘要: |
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 and19 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 context-dependent embedded knowledge exists in transportation engineering and efforts are necessary to integrate this knowledge in the curriculum. |