Action competence in PBL: Revitalizing educational ideals to foster meaning and engagement in engineering education for sustainable development

This abstract looks at the concept of Action Competence and its potential contribution to engineering education for sustainable development. The abstract outlines an often-highlighted issue of the missing ‘meaningfulness’ in engineering education and suggests action competence as an educational approach that can help bridge the gap between ‘meaning’ and intended learning outcomes in formal curricula. Action competence as a theoretical concept is rooted in the central European “Bildung” tradition and Danish critical pedagogy. In this abstract we take a deeper look at its origin and how it can be combined with problem-based learning (PBL) in engineering education to create a more meaningful and engaging curriculum to support a much needed transformation of the understanding of the role of engineering itself in society as well as a shift towards student-centered learning in engineering education by providing students the ability and the belief that they can be a part of solving current and future global sustainability challenges.