From Trailing & Failing to Learning & Progressing: A bespoke approach to failure in engineering education

Starting with the research question “How can we reverse the negative impact of failure on engineering students’ futures?” the ‘Changing Futures Project’ is a five year longitudinal project which aims to identify and address the pedagogy of failure, and in doing so make a positive difference to students’ educational outcomes and progress. It builds on previous work [1, 2] to look at the issues behind ‘failure’ from the perspectives of individual students. In looking at the issues through the eyes of the students themselves this paper makes a distinctive contribution to current debates to the field of engineering education in general, but particularly in the areas of attrition, retention and student support. The paper ends with a total of 10 recommendations for institutions, colleagues and students