CASTeL member Leah Ridgway presented two papers and facilitated a workshop at the 2026 European Society for Engineering Education (SEFI) annual conference in Prague. Based in the School of Electronic Engineering at DCU, Leah’s papers focus on the effectiveness of engineering education at third level.

“Delivering Electronic Engineering Laboratories to Non-specialists: A Combined Simulation and Prototyping Approach” was written alongside Jacob Baneham (CTYI and Mechanical & Manufacturing Engineering), exploring the benefits and value to non-engineering students participating in engineering practicals. By initially building student capability and confidence using simulation tools, participants are then able to complete more open-ended engineering tasks without becoming overwhelmed.

“Investigating Student Progression In Peer Assessment Cycles” was a quantitative analysis of three years of data of an innovative curriculum designed to improve students evaluative judgement skills of technical reports as part of enhancing feedback literacy. This work was co-authored with Niall Cullinane in the School of Electronic Engineering, and Seamus Campau and Rob Lowney from DCU’s Teaching Enhancement Unit.

During the conference, The SEFI Handbook on Teaching Transferable Competencies and Skills in Engineering was published. This open-access book provides a practical guide to engineering educators on embedding transferrable skills into technical degree programmes. With 155 contributors from 56 different higher education institutes and professional organisations across 23 countries, Leah was lead author for chapter 2.11 “Feedback for Learning in the Engineering Disciplines”. Grounded in student centred models, feedback is presented a learning dialogue which needs to go beyond task-level comments and grades and be considered in curriculum design. A workshop session at the conference further engaged attendees with the key concepts from the chapter.

The Feedback for Learning in the Engineering Disciplines can be found here: https://doi.org/10.59490/mt.266.67

The index for the entire book can be found here: https://doi.org/10.59490/mt.266.