Engineering education

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

Multiple perspectives on engaging future engineers

Abstract: Background Engaging future engineers is a central topic in everyday conversations on engineering education. Considerable investments have been made to make engineering more engaging, recruit and retain aspiring engineers, and to design an education to prepare future engineers. However, the impact of these efforts has been less than intended. It is imperative that the community reflects on progress and sets a more effective path for the future. Purpose The purpose of this article is to map a new innovation landscape for what it means to engage future engineers. This is a theoretically grounded divergent-thinking effort to enable a broader space of high impact innovations for engaging future engineers. Scope/Method A multiple perspectives methodology drawing from innovation, cross-disciplinary, and boundary work frameworks was used to make visible multiple facets of engaging future engineers. Scholars from diverse communities of thought and discourse were selected to present interparadigmatic perspectives, act as boundary agents, challenge and transform current ways of thinking, and illustrate new opportunities for engineering education innovation. Conclusions A new innovation landscape for engaging future engineers is needed, one that emphasizes epistemological development and social justice, new configurations on engineering thinking and connecting to the formative years of development, the entwinement of engineering knowing and being, and mutually informing consequences for opening up a broader space for innovation. We also need to adopt strategies and tools for using a multiple perspectives approach to better understand complex engineering education problems.

Development of Engineering Education as a Rigorous Discipline: A Study of the Publication Patterns of Four Coalitions

Abstract: A combination of publication analysis and faculty interviews was employed to study four NSF-sponsored engineering education coalitions as a case study of the recent history of engineering education. Current calls within the engineering education community for increased rigor can be understood in terms of the ways similar disciplines have emerged. In science education, for example, time was needed to develop consensus on important research questions, accepted methods, and standards of rigor. The

Conceptual Difficulties Experienced by Trained Engineers Learning Educational Research Methods

Abstract: This paper describes conceptual difficulties that may be experienced by engineering faculty as they become engineering education researchers. Observation, survey, and assessment data collected at the 2005 NSF-funded Rigorous Research in Engineering Education workshop were systematically analyzed to uncover the five difficulties encountered by engineering faculty learning to design rigorous education studies: (1) framing research questions with broad appeal, (2) grounding research in a theoretical framework, (3) fully considering operationalization and measurement of constructs, (4) appreciating qualitative or mixed-methods approaches, and (5) pursuing interdisciplinary collaboration. The first four can be understood in terms of disciplinary consensus; they represent explicit steps in education research that are implicit in technical engineering research because there is greater consensus of methods and standards. This work better frames the issue of rigor in engineering education research by clarifying the fundamental differences that prevent application of traditional engineering standards of rigor directly to engineering education research.

The Effects of Engineering Modules on Student Learning in Middle School Science Classrooms

Abstract: The Teachers Integrating Engineering into Science (TIES) Program is a collaborative project among faculty from the College of Education and the College of Engineering at the University of Nevada, Reno. The TIES project paired university faculty with middle school science teachers to create three units that included engineering design using a variety of interactive learning activities in order to engage a wide range of students. The units included a Web-based simulation activity, lesson plans, a design project, and three types of assessments that were standardized across schools. Results of assessments were disaggregated by gender, ethnicity, special education, and socio-economic level. Mean scores for these student population groups were compared to mean scores for the same groups on the 2004 Nevada eighth grade science criterion referenced test. These results indicate that engaging students in engineering curriculum activities may diminish achievement gaps in science for some student populations.

Conducting Rigorous Research in Engineering Education

Abstract: The field of engineering education is in the process of reinventing itself and the January 2005 special issue of the Journal of Engineering Education was a milestone event in this transition [1, 2]. The four most recent guest editorials have documented this reinvention and have suggested shifts that are needed to establish engineering education as a serious and rigorous researchbased discipline [3–6]. Gabriele suggested that research in engineering education move from curriculum reform to conducting fundamental research in how students learn engineering and he stressed that this shift is needed now to move the field forward [4]. Haghighi emphasized that “engineering education research is the most effective avenue through which we can address overarching and grand questions” [5, p. 351]. He also encouraged the broader community of engineering educators to shift from “teaching to learning.” [5, p. 352]. Currently, engineering education research still tends to focus very heavily on teaching and curriculum development rather than research. Given this backdrop, the question now becomes “How does one prepare engineering educators to conduct the kind of research that is now being called for?” Specifically, we ask, “What can be done to prepare engineering education researchers to shift their focus from teaching and curriculum development to exploring fundamental questions about engineering learning?” In an attempt to begin to answer this question, we share some insights that have been gained from working with engineering faculty in the NSFsponsored project, “Conducting Rigorous Research in Engineering Education: Creating a Community of Practice,” hereafter called RREE [7].