Articulation and progression: an investigation into the transition of engineering students from applied to theoretical programmes Llorens, M Lecturer Dublin Institute of Technology Dublin, Ireland O’Shaughnessy, S 1 Lecturer Dublin Institute of Technology Dublin, Ireland Carr, M Lecturer Dublin Institute of Technology Dublin, Ireland Sheridan, D Lecturer Dublin Institute of Technology Dublin, Ireland Sorby, S Visiting Professor, Engineering Education and Innovation Centre Ohio State University Cleveland, Ohio, USA Bowe, B Head of Learning Development, College of Engineering & Built Environment Dublin Institute of Technology Dublin, Ireland Conference Topic: Continuing Engineering Education and Lifelong Learning INTRODUCTION One morning, when Gregor Samsa woke from troubled dreams, he found himself transformed in his bed into a horrible vermin. He lay on his armour-like back, and if he lifted his head a little he could see his brown belly, slightly domed and divided by arches into stiff sections. The bedding was hardly able to cover it and seemed ready to slide off any moment. His many legs, pitifully thin compared with the size of the rest of him, waved about helplessly as he looked. [1] Intellectual life is a succession of developmental states that progress from the basic acquisition of language to the furthest development of abstract reasoning. It is to be hoped that the transition from one state to another may be accomplished with less emotional violence than that suffered by Gregor Samsa when he awoke to find his new state that of an insect, and, indeed, it may be regarded as the duty of educators from pre-school to post-graduate studies to ensure that this is the case. One obstacle to achieving a smooth transition is the haphazard development of the educational system. For most of the past 2000 years, the majority of the population was illiterate, with universal education only appearing after the demands of the Industrial Revolution required basic literacy and numeracy amongst 1 Corresponding Author O’Shaughnessy, S