Department of Building Construction and Contracting

Purdue University

West Lafayette, Indiana

The Building Construction and Contracting Department required information for the development and improvement of its only required course in mechanical construction. A multi-part study was conducted to collect this information from students, placement records, construction educators, and construction industry professionals. Student career interests, and the department's last six years of placement records were studied to determine the area of industry focus for the class. Construction educators and construction industry professionals were surveyed to determine the importance of existing course topics, and to identify important course topics which are not being covered in the class. The study indicates that the majority of students in the class are interested in general construction and construction management, and that the majority of graduates over the past six years have found employment with general construction and construction management firms. In addition, the study identifies scheduling and coordination as the only two topics which appear within the five most important topics of both construction educators and construction industry professionals. This paper provides results of the study and serves as a resource to other educators who are currently modifying their course in mechanical construction.

Keywords: Mechanical construction, general construction, construction management, teaching, survey, graduates, placement, alumni, scheduling.

 

Depending upon the type of structure, the mechanical portion of a construction project is often a significant percentage of the total project cost. Because of this significance, it is imperative that we adequately educate our students in the area of mechanical construction. In fall 1994, in a continuing effort to provide quality mechanical construction education, our department initiated the process of reviewing its only required course in mechanical construction to determine the most applicable topics and the overall course perspective.

The required course, BC 334 Mechanical Construction, is a three credit hour course and is taught each semester to approximately 50 to 70 students. It is an introductory course that provides a limited overview and exposure of the mechanical construction process. Course topics and expected outcomes are illustrated in Figures 1 and 2. In our efforts to improve the course, we established two objectives for the study. Our first objective was to determine the most important course topics. The second objective was to determine if our assumption on the course perspective was correct that the course should be taught from the perspective of the general contractor/construction manager (GC1 CM) rather than from the mechanical contractor.

We expected that the results of the studies would indicate the important topics to be scheduling, coordination, plan and specification interpretation, basic terminology, and methods and materials, because they are more applicable to the perspective of a GC/CM. The perspective of the GC/CM is managing the mechanical construction work that is being performed by a subcontractor. The perspective of the mechanical contractor is one of a much higher proficiency that involves the actual performance of the work. We believed that the course should be taught from the general construction/construction manager perspective because it appeared that the majority of BC graduates have traditionally obtained such positions. According to the BC faculty "elders," the majority of our alumni over the past 25 years have traditionally entered the fields of general construction and construction management.

The study was conducted in four distinctive parts.

In Fall 1994, eight construction educators at the ASC Region III Regional Meeting were surveyed to obtain their opinions regarding the most important topics to be taught in a mechanical construction course. A roundtable presentation (Koontz, 1994) was conducted to state the problem to the audience who then provided verbal feedback and completed a survey instrument (see Appendix A).

In Spring 1995, resulting from the input provided by the construction educators in Fall 1994, a telephone survey was conducted of construction industry professionals to collect their opinions regarding what should be taught in a mechanical construction course. Forty-one survey participants were selected randomly from among BC alumni who work for general contracting or construction management firms. These randomly selected alumni were chosen specifically from general contracting or construction management firms because at this point it was hypothesized that the majority of BC graduates are typically employed by the general contracting or construction management firms. The average industry experience was eight years. Alumni graduation dates ranged from the years 1975 to 1994.

A survey instrument was developed (Appendix B) that included a list of twenty-four topics which required a rating of DK for don't know or no opinion, or a rating of I through 5 for not important through important. The instrument topics were created from the course syllabus for BC 334 Mechanical Construction, and from telephone interviews with four alumni who are employed by three Lafayette, Indiana general contractors.

In Fall 1995, an informal poll of students enrolled in BC 334 was conducted to determine the number of students interested in careers in General Contractor/CM, Residential, Mechanical / Industrial, Electrical, Heavy Highway/Excavating, Government/ Municipal, Lumber/Building Materials, and Other (Figure 3). It was believed that this informal study of student career interests, although relatively insignificant, would help to develop the course perspective.

In fall 1995, 448 BC department student placement records from 1990-1995 were studied to identify types of entry-level positions obtained by BC graduates. Entry level positions were identified as General Contractor/CK Residential, Mechanical/ Industrial, Electrical, Heavy Highway/Excavating, Government/Municipal, Lumber/ Building Materials, and Other (Figure 4). It was believed that this study would support or refute the hypothesis that the majority or our students are typically employed by general construction or construction management firms, thereby determining the perspective of course instruction. Should the course be from the perspective of future mechanical contractors, or from the perspective of future general contractors/construction managers?

The first part of the study was the collection of opinions from the eight construction educators at the ASC Region III Regional Meeting. The educators were asked their opinions on the importance of 17 mechanical construction topics. They were asked to assign a value from I to 10 for each topic with I = unnecessary and 10 = mandatory. The mean ratings for the top 15 topics are presented in Figure 3.

Upon review of the data from the two surveys, illustrated in Figures 3 and 4, two observations of interest can be made. Industry professionals rated scope of work issues as the most important topic (#I), while educators, on the other hand, rated scope of work issues as the least important topic (# 15). Industry rated piping materials as a relatively unimportant topic (# 13), and educators rated piping materials as their most important topic (#I). Both topics,scope of work issues and piping materials, indicate a strong difference of opinion between industry and educators. The results of the third part of the study, the Fall 1995 semester informal poll of student career interests, is displayed in Figure 5. The results of the fourth part of the study, as illustrated in Figure 6, consisted of a study of 448 BC graduate records regarding entry-level placement between the years of 1990 and 1995.

Regarding our first objective, important course topics, we had expected that the results of the studies would indicate the five most important topics to be scheduling, coordination, plan and specification interpretation, basic terminology, and methods and materials, because they are more applicable to the perspective of a GC/CM.

Of the top five items in each list, only scheduling and coordination appear to be important mechanical construction topics to both educators and industry. Educators ranked scheduling as their second most important topic, and coordination as their third most important topic. Industry ranked coordination as #3 and scheduling as #4. Though considered to be an important item to both educators and industry, scheduling has not been covered in the BC 334 Mechanical Construction course. Coordination, on the other hand, has been taught and will continue to be taught in the course.

Regarding the remaining three items of the top five items, educators listed: #1 Piping Materials and Methods, #4 HVAC Equipment, and #5 Plumbing Systems. Industry, on the other hand, listed as the remaining 3 items of the top five items: #I General Contractor/Mechanical Contractor Scope of Work Issues, #2 Mechanical Construction Terminology, and #5 Mechanical Shop Drawing Review and Understanding. Though those three items of the top five items were not the same for both educators and industry, all of the top five items listed for both educators and industry have been and continue to be taught in the course, with the exception of #5 Mechanical Shop Drawing Review and Understanding.

In Fall 1996, scheduling will be implemented to incorporate specific instruction for mechanical scheduling into the existing BC 334 course. In addition, due to strong industry response, mechanical shop drawing review and understanding will also be incorporated into the course.

Regarding our second objective, course perspective, it was found that the course should be taught from the general construction/construction manager perspective. It appears from the information provided by Part Four of the study (Figure 6) that although our students enter several areas of construction, the GC/CM interest area has been the dominating area for the last six years. With such a large percentage of students indicating career interest in GC/CM (Figure 5), coupled with such a high percentage of alumni who have entered that particular career area (Figure 6), it appears most appropriate to present material and examples which are from the GC/CM perspective. It would serve well to maintain the focus of "what a general contractor or construction manager should know about mechanical construction."

For the purposes of this initial study, the information provided was sufficient, however, future studies should involve the distribution of identical lists and rating scales to both educators and industry. This study provided appropriate information for determining course content and teaching perspective which has been implemented into the BC 334 Mechanical Construction course.

Koontz, J. R., and Richard, J. T. (1995). Teaching mechanical construction estimating: Information for course development. Proceedings of the 31st Annual Conference of the Associated Schools gf Construction 77-85.

Koontz, J. R_ (1994). Round table discussion: Developing a course in mechanical construction. Associated Schools of Construction Proceedings of the Great Lakes Regional Meeting 59-61.

Koontz, J. R., and Richard, J. T. (1994). Information from industry for developing a course in mechanical estimating. Associated Schools of Construction Proceedings of the Great Lakes Regional Meeting , 25-42.

Koontz, J. R. (1992). Mechanical contracting education. Associated Schools of Construction Proceedings of le Great Lakes Regional Meeting, 57-60.

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