Engineering education

About: Engineering education is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 24293 publications have been published within this topic receiving 234621 citations.

Quality Assurance of Engineering Education through Accreditation: The Impact of Engineering Criteria 2000 and Its Global Influence

Abstract: For more than 70 years, accreditation has provided quality control for engineering education in the United States, seeking to assure that graduates of accredited programs are prepared for professional practice. However, by the 1980s, the accreditation criteria had become increasingly prescriptive, inhibiting development of innovative programs to reflect changing needs of practice. In response, ABET (formerly Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology) and its stakeholders developed revised criteria, Engineering Criteria 2000 (EC2000), which emphasize learning outcomes, assessment, and continuous improvement rather than detailed curricular specifications. These criteria, together with international agreements among engineering accrediting bodies, facilitate mobility of an increasingly global profession. To assess the utility of the new criteria, ABET has commissioned a multiyear study of the impact of EC2000 on U.S. engineering education. Initial results from the study are encouraging and, as more results emerge, should support continuous improvement of the accreditation process, itself.

Bringing Engineering to Elementary School

Abstract: Incorporating engineering in the elementary school curriculum provides students with ways of connecting, applying, and reinforcing knowledge in math, science, and design. To bring what is essentially a new discipline to K-12 education means developing and supporting new tools for the classroom, additional curriculum, teacher training, and support resources. Using LEGO materials and the ROBOLAB software as the toolset, Tufts University?s Center For Engineering Educational Outreach has had significant success with our efforts to bring engineering into a number of schools and classrooms. Examining the classroom results these efforts have yielded highlights the problems and obstacles, a significant potential for expansion, as well as a number of effective practices and strategies.

Emerging Research Methodologies in Engineering Education Research

Abstract: Background Methodology refers to the theoretical arguments that researchers use in order to justify their research methods and design. There is an extensive range of well established methodologies in the educational research literature of which a growing subset is beginning to be used in engineering education research. Purpose A more explicit engagement with methodologies, particularly those that are only emerging in engineering education research, is important so that engineering education researchers can broaden the set of research questions they are able to address. Scope/Method Seven methodologies are outlined and for each an exemplar paper is analyzed in order to demonstrate the methodology in operation and to highlight its particular contribution. The methodologies are: Case Study, Grounded Theory, Ethnography, Action Research, Phenomenography, Discourse Analysis, and Narrative Analysis. It is noted that many of the exemplar papers use some of these methodologies in combination. Conclusion The exemplar papers show that collectively these methodologies might allow the research community to be able to better address questions around key engineering education challenges, such as students' responses to innovative pedagogies, diversity issues in engineering, and the changing requirements for engineering graduates in the twenty-first century.

Is Adding the E Enough? Investigating the Impact of K-12 Engineering Standards on the Implementation of STEM Integration

Abstract: The problems that we face in our ever-changing, increasingly global society are multidisciplinary, and many require the integration of multiple science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) concepts to solve them. National calls for improvement of STEM education in the United States are driving changes in policy, particularly in academic standards. Research on STEM integration in K-12 classrooms has not kept pace with the sweeping policy changes in STEM education. This study addresses the need for research to explore the translation of broad, national-level policy statements regarding STEM education and integration to state-level policies and implementation in K-12 classrooms. An interpretive multicase study design was employed to conduct an in-depth investigation of secondary STEM teachers' implementation of STEM integration in their classrooms during a yearlong professional development program. The interpretive approach was used because it provides holistic descriptions and explanations for the particular phenomenon, in this case STEM integration. The results of this study demonstrate the possibilities of policies that use state standards documents as a mechanism to integrate engineering into science standards. Our cases suggest that STEM integration can be implemented most successfully when mathematics and science teachers work together both in a single classroom (co-teaching) and in multiple classrooms (content teaching—common theme).