Engineering education research

Notable institutions

Purdue University

Purdue University has contributed to the formal development of engineering education as an academic field. The university established its Department of Freshman Engineering in 1953, one of the earliest centralized first-year engineering programs in the United States. Purdue also created the Women in Engineering Program and Minority Engineering Program in 1969. In 2004, Purdue founded the School of Engineering Education, the first academic unit focused specifically on engineering education, followed in 2005 by what is recognized as the first Ph.D. program in the discipline. These milestones are documented in university archival materials, historical timelines, and published institutional histories.

Core research areas

The 2006 Report of the Steering Committee of the National Engineering Education Research Colloquies outlined the 5 key topic areas of engineering education research as follows:

1. Engineering Epistemologies: Research on what constitutes engineering thinking and knowledge within social contexts now and into the future
2. Engineering Learning Mechanisms: Research on engineering learners’ developing knowledge and competencies in context.
3. Engineering Learning Systems: Research on the instructional culture, institutional infrastructure, and epistemology of engineering educators.
4. Engineering Diversity and Inclusiveness: Research on how diverse human talents contribute solutions to the social and global challenges and relevance of our [the engineering] profession.
5. Engineering Assessment: Research on, and the development of, assessment methods, instruments, and metrics to inform engineering education practice and learning.

There are various doctoral-level (PhD) programs in Engineering Education, with primary research conducted in the aforementioned research areas. The American Society for Engineering Education Student Division created an open source workspace with information on engineering and STEM education, which includes a resource page of degree-granting graduate and/or research programs in Engineering Education.

Other research areas

Globalization

According to Borrego and Bernhard, international collaborations are developing in an effort to create global competencies in engineering students. Engineering global competency is the possession of "the knowledge, ability, and predisposition to work effectively with people who define and solve problems differently than they do." Educational programs that emphasize global engineering competencies research the development and assessment of global competency within the engineering practice.

Examples of programs in global engineering competency include:

• The Global Engineering Program at Purdue University
• Erasmus mundus (student centric global program)
• Global Engineering Programs at Stanford University
• Tokyo Institute of Technology Global Engineering for Development, Environment and Society
• Global Engineering Engagement at Penn State
• Global Engineering at Missouri University of Science and Technology
• Institute of International Education Global E3
• Texas A&M Global Programs
• University of Colorado Boulder Global Engineering

More examples are listed in Global Engineering Education. Research and development departments in transnational companies also contribute to international educational research. There are various methods for assessing competency and debates on how global and cultural competence training impacts engineering education.

Global engineering cultures

In 2008, a project titled "The Engineering Cultures Multimedia Project" was approved by the NSF. It was done by combine effort of "Virginia Tech and Colorado School of Mines to produce CD-based modules exploring how what counts as an engineer and engineering knowledge varies from country to country". https://globalhub.org/topics/AboutEngineeringCultures The main goal of this project was "To develop, disseminate, and assess learning experiences that will help students to identify, understand, and value perspectives other than their own."

Pre-college engineering education

Studies indicate that engineers will be better prepared for rigorous study in the engineering sciences if exposed to engineering concepts in the years prior to university study.

Methodology

“Rigorous” research in engineering education is defined as adherence to the National Research Council’s six guiding principles for scientific inquiry. The six guiding principles for scientific inquiry are:

1. Pose significant questions that can be investigated empirically.
2. Link research to relevant theory.
3. Use methods that permit direct investigation of the question.
4. Provide explicit, coherent chain of reasoning.
5. Replicate and generalize across studies.
6. Disclose research to encourage professional scrutiny and critique.

Connection to practice

Engineering education research is conducted based on the demands and patterns of engineering in industry, policy, and education. Globally, emphasis of research focuses on educational application. Research into industry and practice have yet to gain greater attention.

Policy

In the United States, there has been a greater push for development of formal policy for educating engineers. In 1918, the Mann Report noted an imminent lack of qualified engineers that could rapidly enter the workforce. There should be more hands-on experience, engineering educators should have practical work experience, and teaching should be more prominent even though research is also important. In 1955, the Grinter report specifically outlined undergraduate and graduate level engineering studies. Since then, some of these suggestions, including the senior capstone design course, have been implemented in public and private engineering institutions.

Engineering education policy applied to program requirements and curricula is externally driven to some degree. ABET (Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology) accreditation has incorporated industrial demands as part of the college and university program accreditation process. ABET EC 2000 emphasizes both technical (design, problem solving) and professional skills (teamwork, communication, ethical/global thinking). In 2021, Deans from Big Ten+ University Colleges of Engineering wrote a letter of support to ABET to urge more specific criteria in the general assessment related to diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI).

P-12 Educational Standards:

National policies such as No Child Left Behind and Race to the Top have influenced the recruitment and retention of future engineers.

In April 2013, the Next Generation Science Standards were released as the science standards for K-12 science education in the United States to replace the National Science Education Standards. These include engineering-based standards embedded within the science standards. The National Assessment Governing Board has created a Technology and Literacy Framework for the 2014 National Assessment of Educational Progress. This will be a pilot test and may turn into a permanent fixture of future testing.

Educational

There is a disconnect between engineering education research findings and implementation of the findings into the classroom. Research findings are published in a variety of journals primarily read by other researchers, not P-12 teachers or university faculty outside of the Education field. This breakdown of transfer between research and practice prevents the desired outcomes at the heart of the research

There have been proposals to connect Engineering Education practice and Engineering Education research. A cyclical model of transfer between research and practice has been proposed by Jesiek et al. (2010) and Borrego & Bernhard (2011). This model allows research and practice to continuously influence and develop one another.

Organizations and publications

There are several professional organizations devoted to engineering education, including:

• American Society for Engineering Education
• European Society for Engineering Education
• International Technology and Engineering Educators Association