In response to complex sustainability challenges, engineering education increasingly embraces experiential learning to prepare graduates for interdisciplinary problem-solving and societal impact. Yet, research on the intersection of experiential learning and sustainability education remains fragmented. Our study addresses this gap through a systematic review of 83 empirical studies, in which we analysed sustainability integration approaches, teaching and learning principles, and reported learning outcomes. Our findings highlight a dichotomy where experiential learning fosters boundary-crossing collaboration, bridges education with real-world practice, and addresses diverse learning objectives. However, current research disproportionately focuses on elective curricula, disciplinary contexts, and outcomes that emphasise cognitive, behavioural, and technical competencies. Thus, affective and socio-emotional dimensions remain underexplored. These gaps limit understanding of experiential learning’s transformative potential for sustainability education. To address this, we propose a nine-item research agenda to guide future studies and inform the design of more impactful experiential learning practices in engineering education.

Creativity is widely recognised as a key competence in higher education for future graduates to address societal challenges through creative thinking and problem-solving. However, despite multiple definitions of creativity and pedagogies across disciplines, challenges remain in fully integrating creativity into teaching. Based on interviews with 18 educators, we uncovered various creativity teaching dilemmas related to identity, practice, and the broader educational system. These dilemmas constitute a ‘dilemmatic space’, requiring educators to continuously adapt their identities and teaching while confronting systemic challenges. Further, we found that educators navigated these dilemmas by leveraging knowledge, expanding expertise, adjusting scaffolding, reforming curriculum, and providing emotional support. We conceptualised an ‘actor space’ associated with the educators’ utilisation of navigation strategies, emphasising the role of diverse actors in this process. The actor space complements dilemmatic space, highlighting diverse actors in supporting educators’ transformative learning as they tackle disorienting dilemmas in creativity teaching.

Universities globally are called to educate collaborative and ethical engineers. In response, interdisciplinary problem-based learning is increasingly used to equip students with competencies needed to solve grand societal challenges. However, complex problem-solving in interdisciplinary teams can challenge students’ existing beliefs and cause confusion. Our study examines these challenges through the lens of ‘disorienting dilemmas’ from transformative learning theory and investigates students’ coping strategies. Through twenty-nine student interviews, we uncovered disorienting dilemmas related to self-identity, problem-solving, disciplinary perceptions, conceptual understanding, and collaboration. Additionally, based on varied cognitive and behavioural responses, we identified four coping strategies: integrating, investigating, negotiating, and withdrawing. Notably, we observed shifts in students’ use of coping strategies. Our research advances transformative learning theory through its focus on shared learning and the recognition of diversity of coping strategies, thus providing insights for designing supports that guide students towards more constructive strategies and facilitate transformative learning.

Engineering education has become increasingly multidisciplinary in order to prepare future experts to transcend disciplinary boundaries and to co-construct solutions to solve grand challenges. However, faculty members’ perspectives and experiences have been largely ignored in the literature. To understand and support faculty members, the present study investigated faculty members’ conceptualisations of multi-, inter-, and transdisciplinary education. We conducted semi-structured interviews with 13 faculty members from engineering, business, art and design with varied experiences with multidisciplinary teaching, course design, and programme management. We found that while some faculty members conceptualised multidisciplinary education as an encompassing concept, most used disciplinary integration to distinguish multi-, inter-, and transdisciplinary education. However, their conceptualisations of the differences between multi-, inter-, and transdisciplinary education were nuanced. Summarising the perceived nuances in different aspects of course design, we propose a typology to demonstrate the variety of types in faculty members’ course design. By identifying the diversity and complexities of faculty members’ conceptualisations, this study attempts to help faculty members achieve an in-depth understanding of their conceptualisations and practices, as well as support engineering educators in designing courses with disciplinary integration.

This study examines engineering faculty and students’ views of collaboration beyond their own field, based on 12 engineering faculty interviews and a survey with 101 mechanical engineering students. Our analysis shows that faculty members’ views on collaboration exhibit more diversity in terms of crossing disciplinary, functional, organisational, and geographic boundaries, and they view this collaboration as more integrated into engineering work, professional practices, and problem-solving. Students, in turn, report a narrower scope of collaboration, primarily focusing on multidisciplinary collaboration to utilise engineering output. Our study helps inform engineering educators to integrate diverse collaboration more effectively with course design.

Engineering education requires competent teachers to facilitate students' interdisciplinary learning in solving complex problems and engage students in interdisciplinary teamwork. While most studies in the literature have focused on identifying or measuring students' competencies, few studies have focused on teachers. What teacher competencies are essential for effective interdisciplinary teaching in engineering education? To answer this question and contribute to teacher development and improve student learning, this study analyzes teachers' competencies in interdisciplinary engineering education. We conducted qualitative interviews with 14 teachers in engineering education with diverse disciplinary backgrounds in engineering, design, technology, science and business. Thematic analysis is used to highlight teachers' social, affective, and pedagogical competencies. The results show that all three areas of competencies are considered to be essential for teachers. Teachers appear to have a good level of social competency, as they recognize the importance of effective communication with students and co-teachers across disciplines, as well as with industry partners. Teachers also exhibit a decent level of affective competency through their motivation for learning. In addition, we found that the lack of interdisciplinary-related knowledge added more difficulties for teachers to gain pedagogical competency in interdisciplinary engineering education. The results of this study can be used for designing teachers' professional development programs related to interdisciplinarity.

Interdisciplinary initiatives have been encouraged in higher education curricula, especially in mechanical engineering as a result of the industry’s calls for talent with multidisciplinary competencies to solve complex real-world problems. However, disciplinary distance, due to disciplinary differences, poses great challenges in interdisciplinary teaching and learning. How can interdisciplinary faculty members collaborate effectively in teaching? How can students with different backgrounds learn significant knowledge? Collaboration for interdisciplinary education across disciplines is challenging, as co-teachers are usually affiliated with different departments or even schools, and they tend to speak different disciplinary languages and value different disciplinary cultures. Similarly, students in engineering design teams come from different backgrounds. Consistent with Klein’s concepts of Wide Interdisciplinarity and Narrow Interdisciplinarity, we propose the concept of disciplinary distance to present the research findings of disciplinary differences and their implications on interdisciplinary teaching and learning. This paper presents a qualitative analysis of disciplinary distance, as manifested in interdisciplinary education from faculty members’ perspectives. From 13 semi-structured interviews, we find that disciplinary distance plays a vital role in interdisciplinary teaching and learning. It influences teamwork — both in co-teacher teams and student teams. Interdisciplinary course content and interdisciplinary co-teacher teams can also create a wide disciplinary distance that serves as a barrier for interdisciplinary learning. We further find that interdisciplinary collaboration may help to mediate the negative impact of disciplinary distance.