Introduction Group work is an important part of the engineering curriculum as employers are stressing the need for future engineers to be able to work collaboratively with those both in and out of their preferred field. The use of technology in the classroom is also becoming a necessity as most students today have been immersed in technology since childhood and globalization is forcing engineers to connect to all parts of the World 1 . Engineers must become World-Class Engineers that are able

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... work with a wide variety of cultures in a collaborative setting from their own desk as the World is "flattening" through the effects of globalization and technology 2 . The need for students to be prepared for collaborative work through technology brings about the question on just how does technology, such as email, instant messaging (IM), and text messaging, affect the group dynamic. The traditional face-to-face collaboration for localized group work may be reshaped by the widespread use of technological communication 3 , such as IM. Most new college students are arriving to school already familiar with communication technologies. A recent Pew Internet and American Life Project study found that in 2004, 62% of the internet users between the ages of eighteen and twenty-seven had used IM 4 . This number will only continue to rise as the technology becomes more and more popular. A trend towards the use of IM over face-to-face meetings is already taking place in the business world. In addition to personal use, 10% of the IM users in 2004 were business people 5 and the Radicati Group predicted half the IM users to be business users by 2006 4 . The use of IM in the business world leads one to believe that students should be exposed to IM as a tool for group collaboration. However, inclusion of IM as a tool for group collaboration brings about other concerns that should be addressed. One concern with the use of IM for group work is how this technology will affect the traditional group dynamic. If the students use IM heavily, will the face-to-face meetings cease to exist? If this is the case, will it defeat the purpose of exposing engineering students to the experience of group work that employers say is a necessary skill? Another concern is how different students will react to and perceive the use of the technology. Gender and learning style are two differences that may play a key role in how students feel about using technology as a collaboration tool, and thus should be addressed. Gunawardena and Boverie 6 found that student satisfaction varied according to learning style when using computermediated classes. Chou and Wang 7 studied learning during homepage design training and found that the learning style was a significant factor in the scores for different tasks. These results are enough to draw concern that if technological collaboration tools are a necessity for tomorrow's engineers, these differences should be addressed to determine how all students could benefit. Page 13.655.2 The purpose of the research is to assess how engineering students perceive the use of communication technology during group work, the current use of communication technology by students, and how technology may affect the traditional interactions of localized group work. The more specific goals are to understand how different learning styles feel about the use of technology for group work and to determine if there is a difference between genders. These goals will be addressed through four research questions: (1) What are the current technologies available for collaboration during group work and which of these students use? (2) Does the use of technology take away from the traditional face-to-face group work or does it enhance the experience? (3) Is there a difference among students with different learning styles on the use of technology and group work? Does it affect the learning of those individuals? (4) Is there a difference due to gender on the use of technology and group work? Does it affect the learning of those individuals? Methodology Research questions, indicated above, require a comprehensive multi-method data collection. The data collection and related results will be presented in a series of publications. This paper is the first in the series. Below first we summarize plans for data collection and related instruments for the comprehensive study. Then, we provide details on the completed pilot study. Overall, students will be asked, through surveys and focus groups, what type of technological communication, if any, they currently use to complete group work, if they have had any experience with remote group work, and their perceptions on incorporating group work through technology into the engineering curriculum. These data will indicate the level of technology already in use by the students and if they feel it would be beneficial to their education. Comparisons will be made based on the students' learning style and gender. This will help determine if differences between these groups need to be addressed when implementing technological communication into in-class group work. A survey on the use of communication technology will be distributed to all students in the College of Engineering at The Pennsylvania State University. This survey will indicate how frequently students use tools such as instant messaging and text messaging in both their social and school lives. Students will also be asked about the requirement of using communication technology in their classes. The students will be asked to list the courses in which they use communication technology to separate the use in engineering courses from the use in general education courses. The survey results will be examined for the use of communication technology among all engineering students as well as for predetermined groups. Differences between engineering disciplines, class levels, gender, and learning styles will be investigated to determine if there may be gaps in the use of technology among these groups. The difference between the use of technology for social communication and class project communication will also be explored. Focus groups will be conducted to explore how students perceive the introduction of communication technology, such as IM, into the curriculum. Ideas on how best to implement the technology will also be gathered from the students. This information will then be used in a Page 13.655.3