Harnessing Theory in the Service of Engineering Education Research (original) (raw)
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The authors observe that many research papers in engineering education do not explicitly state the theoretical perspective underpinning their work. In this article they argue for the value of theory in assisting researchers in communicating their research findings. Three theoretical perspectives that can be used to support one’s research are described, namely; positivism, constructivism and critical inquiry, and in each case examples of research questions that best match the particular framework are given. Researchers are advised to be aware of the limitations of each perspective and to use the one that best assists them in understanding and solving the problems they wish to address.
Taking the “Guess-work” Out of Engineering Education: Establishing the Virtuous Cycle of Research
Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences, 2013
Challenges of the 21st Century on future engineers results in the need to transform engineering education, ie how we educate students to be engineers. The Grand Challenges of the 21st Century for engineering education identified in various reports requires graduates who can comfortably solve novel, multidisciplinary problems. In addition, today's engineering graduates are expected to not only have content knowledge, but also have professional skills, such as working in multi-disciplinary teams, deep learning, thinking and problem solving skills, communication skills, etc. The calls for major changes in engineering education results in a flurry of modifications and adaptations throughout the world, even in renowned research universities, such as the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard University in the United States. Nevertheless, these transformations can be costly, and would be futile without proper efforts to take the scholarly approach. Consequently, there are efforts to conduct rigorous research in engineering education to determine the actual problem and seek meaningful solutions that will bring significant impact, leading to the virtuous cycle of research. While there are high level of activities in engineering education research in North America and Europe with government and institutional support in the form of funding, efforts from across the globe are also flourishing, from Australia to Asia, South America and Africa. Efforts in conducting rigorous research and the collaborative network in engineering education currently taking place world-wide is discussed in this paper. The paper then focus on how to conduct engineering education research in establishing the virtuous cycle of research to attain meaningful outcomes that can enhance the quality of engineering education to produce graduates who can rise up to the challenges of the new millennium.
Researching engineering education: Some philosophical considerations
Frontiers in Education Conference, …, 2009
Research into engineering education can take different forms, ranging from large scale multiinstitutional studies, to cross-institutional impact analysis, to individual teachers undertaking action research. It can often be challenging, requiring an understanding of not only how students learn but also an understanding of educational research methods. Many academics, when first embarking on research into education, naturally draw upon the research methods associated with their own discipline, but this may not be the most appropriate approach for educational research. We reflect here on our own development as researchers into engineering education, diversifying from methods rooted in our own disciplines, electrical engineering and computer science, into methods borrowed from other disciplines. Consideration of underlying philosophical concepts frames this journey and key concerns are the value of controlled experiments in engineering education and the use of interpretativist approaches to illuminate particular situations. Additionally, ethical considerations should inform both the conduct of the research and the dissemination of findings. These reflections will be of interest to engineering educators embarking on their own educational research projects.
2018
It was in the year 2005 when I first heard a children's story on "Seven Blind Mice" by Ed Young (1991) in connection to a talk given by Dr. Ralph Cordova at the University of California, Santa Barbara. The story retells in verse the Indian fable of the blind men discovering different parts of an elephant and arguing about its appearance. This metaphorical story created an important rich point for me academically to further my personal learning journey in searching, developing and making sense of different ways of researching and understanding discourse, knowledge and social practice in educational settings, and the possibilities and limitations each strand of research entails for informing educational theory and practice (see also Green, Camilli, & Elmore, 2006). Most importantly, this story inspired me to explore research approaches in education whose logic-ofinquiry would allow researchers to move beyond a narrow and one-sided focus of analysis, towards acknowledging part-whole relationships and micro-macro level dynamics of educational processes and the opportunities such an approach can afford for unpacking engagement, learning and identity building among the participants. All those who have conscientiously read the chapters of this volume are most likely to agree that the studies and their logic-of-inquiry create a set of compelling academic narratives for educational researchers interested in the study of everyday life in science and engineering classrooms as situationally constructed in and across space and time. The studies zoom in and out of the everyday life of science and engineering classrooms conveying insights regarding specific cultures of learning-how they are relationally and iteratively constructed into being, maintained and transformed in situ and over time. Altogether, the studies illustrate the expressive potential (Strike, 1974) of the so called the interactional ethnographic approach (Green & Castanheira, 2012) to address many complex goals and challenges of contemporary science and engineering education.
Dilemmas in framing research studies in engineering education
2003
There has been considerable debate about the need for more empirical, evidence based studies of the impact of various interventions and practices in engineering education. A number of resources including workshops to guide engineering faculty in the conduct of such studies have emerged over recent years. This paper presents a critique of the evolution of engineering education research and its underlying assumptions in the context of the systemic reform currently underway in engineering education. This critique leads to an analysis of the ways in which our current understanding of engineering, engineering education and research in engineering education is shaped by the traditions and cultural characteristics of the profession and grounded, albeit implicitly, in a particular suite of epistemological assumptions. It is argued that the whole enterprise of engineering education needs to be radically reconceptualized. A pluralistic approach to framing scholarship in engineering education is then proposed based on the principles of demonstrable practicality, critical interdisciplinarity and holistic reflexivity. This new framework has implications for engaging and developing faculty in the context of new teaching and learning paradigms, for the evaluation of the scholarship of teaching and for the research-teaching nexus.