New Engineers for a Bright Future: Deconstructing the Promises of Challenge-Based Learning

PROMISES	RATIONALES	MAIN ASSOCIATED REPERTOIRES
Promise to be societally important	Solve real challenges Work on sustainability Contribute to society Work cross-disciplinarily Learn to critically examine the role of technology in society	Challenge-based learning Sustainable development and ESD Futuristic techno-optimism
Promise to be professionally successful	Learn professional skills Become employable Individualize your education Flexible education for society	The new engineer Employability
Promise of sated curiosity and important knowledge	Learn specific content knowledge Learn topics that are important in industry or research Learn topics of personal interest	Inherent value of science and technology Passionate interest in science and technology

Table 2

Words used before the term “challenge” in the text, modifying its meaning.

Domain	societal, scientific, deep research-related, reality-based.
Temporal	new, contemporary, recent, future/of the future, current
Other	global, grand, large, broad, complex, cross-disciplinary, real

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DOI: https://doi.org/10.21061/see.172 | Journal eISSN: 2690-5450

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Language: English

Page range: 129 - 151

Submitted on: Mar 16, 2024

Accepted on: May 8, 2025

Published on: Jul 15, 2025

Published by: Virginia Tech Publishing

In partnership with: Paradigm Publishing Services

Keywords:

challenge-based learning,

discourse analysis,

sustainability,

engineering education reform,

employability

© 2025 Johanna Larsson, Anders Johansson, Oskar Hagvall Svensson, published by Virginia Tech Publishing
This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Volume 6 (2025): Issue 1