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Mapping the landscape of engineering education research: An Australian perspective
Abstract
The landscape model presented in this paper stimulated dialogue around the nature of topics and research in our community and allowed participants to find a place to belong. We argue that such a dialogue will help us identify, develop and grow our research domain and support those seeking to participate in or move within it. We propose a developmental model that combines the landscape with active pursuit of the characteristics exhibited in quality research. We found that one indication of progress of an emerging researcher on their developmental journey is their use of multiple perspectives, interpretations and dimensions in their research. We suggest that such a model would encourage improvements in quality of the studies in all areas of the landscape, rather than the perception that improvement can be achieved by adopting a specific approach or type of research. A practice versus research dichotomy is ultimately divisive and does little to assist researchers develop their expertise. We believe national conferences should provide a forum for all authors in an environment aimed at improving the quality of research, publications and the development of academics wherever they are on the landscape.
Currently there is limited understanding about the academic qualifications (or formal research training) which engineering education researchers possess, and which university departments they primarily reside in. The objective of this study is to capture information on these researcher characteristics via bibliographic analysis of publicly available sources. A list of 104 authors affiliated with Australian institutions who published in at least one of thirteen engineering education journals between 2018-2019 (inclusive) was retrieved. For each author, information about their qualifications and where they worked was compiled from available biographic information in their publications (e.g. often common in IEEE publications), ORCID profile, Scopus profile, the Australian TROVE database, and online university researcher profile. In total, 80 authors held a known PhD; 30 in technical engineering, 12 in engineering education, 3 in education, 21 in other disciplines, and 14 not specified. Of the 67 with known bachelor degrees, 69% were in engineering, the remainder widely varied. 92 authors worked in a university; 56 in engineering faculty, 9 in computing faculty, 13 in other faculty, 9 in teaching and learning departments, 4 in other capacities at a university. 4 authors did not work at a university. Our findings show that while a minority of engineering education researchers hold technical engineering PhD degrees, PhD theses on engineering education topics are becoming more widespread and we can predict a growing community of Australian engineering researchers. These data can assist with planning strategies for further increasing engagement with engineering education research in the Australian context.
In The Advancement of Learning, Huber and Hutchings (2005) state that the “scholarship of teaching and learning … is about producing knowledge that is available for others to use and build on” (p. 27). Can viewing the scholarship of teaching and learning (SoTL) as an educational research activity help make SoTL findings more available and easier to build on? This chapter describes a program that prepared engineering faculty to conduct rigorous research in engineering education. Project evaluation revealed that engineering faculty had difficulty making some of the paradigm shifts that were presented in the project.
Engineering education research in many countries and regions is gaining momentum and coherence as a field of academic activity. Yet what quantity and kinds of research are currently being done, both worldwide and in specific nations and regions? Additionally, what collaborative patterns are now evident in the field, including in terms of the size and multi-national composition of research teams? To address these research questions, we first review previous attempts to quantify and characterize research on engineering education and related fields. We then use theoretical and methodological insights from social studies of science, bibliometrics, and scientometrics to perform quantitative and qualitative analysis of 2,173 journal articles and conference papers published 2005 to 2008. Our findings are presented in five main parts. First, we describe how basic criteria were used to identify 885 empirical research papers and track changes in the orientation of the major publication outlets in the field. Second, analysis of author affiliation information allows us to report on publication activity by country and region. Third, we discuss evidence of collaborative patterns, including co-authorship trends and prevalence of multinational research teams. Fourth, we examine keywords in article metadata to report on the prevalence of 38 categories representing different research topics and contexts. Fifth and finally, we examine co-occurrence of articles by category. The paper concludes with recommendations for building global capacity in engineering education research, including suggestions for expanding cross-national collaboration in targeted research areas and improving access to the field's literature.
Over the past years, the European Journal of Engineering Education (EJEE), the journal of the European Society for Engineering Education (SEFI) developed as a more research oriented journal. Bibliometric analyses show that EJEE keeps pace with other leading journals in the field of Engineering Education in most respects. EJEE serves a worldwide audience with about as many contributions from Europe as from other parts of the world. Yet, the impact factor of the journal calculated according to the formula of Thomson's ISI Web of Science seems to be lagging behind. As an explanation for this phenomenon, it is argued that EJEE keeps on publishing papers that are appreciated by practitioners in the field, even if they do not generate a lot of citations in scientific journals.
Background
In recent years, engineering education research (EER) has emerged as an internationally connected field of inquiry through the establishment of EER conferences, interest groups within engineering education societies, Ph.D. programs, and departments and centers at universities. Improving the preparation and training of engineers through EER is critical to solving major engineering challenges in sustainability, climate change, civil infrastructure, energy, and public health. PurposeThe purpose of this article is twofold: (1) to introduce EER as a field of inquiry, and (2) to describe the U.S. and Northern and Central European approaches to EER as two examples of the diversity of approaches. Scope/Method
The article is organized around a framework from the European didaktik tradition, which focuses on answering the w-questions of education. The major sections describe what, why, to what end, where, who, and how EER is conducted. Conclusion
Northern and Central European educational approaches focus on authentic, complex problems, while U.S. approaches emphasize empirical evidence. Additionally, disciplinary boundaries and legitimacy are more salient issues in the U.S., while the Northern and Central European Bildung philosophy integrates across disciplines toward development of the whole person. Understanding and valuing complementary perspectives is critical to growth and internationalization of EER.
Engineering education research is a diverse, rapidly-evolving, international field in which scholars apply the methods of educational research to address a variety of issues pertaining to teaching and learning in engineering. As the field has grown, so has the need for a standardized terminology and an updated taxonomy to map and communicate research initiatives. Refining a U.S-centric taxonomy is the focus of this workshop. Participants will engage in activities to reflect on a draft taxonomy and offer suggestions to refine it. Participants are encouraged to bring a computer, and interested participants at any experience level are encouraged to join this dialogue.
This article reports on an investigation into the variation in how research is experienced by established senior researchers. It provides a new, discipline-neutral, non-technical framework for interpreting how academics are responding to the challenges of the changing context of higher education. The study identié ed four qualitatively different ways in which research is understood. These are differentiated according to whether they have an external product orientation or an internal process orientation; and whether the researchers themselves are in the forefront of their awareness or whether they appear to be incidental to their awareness. In the context of concern about the nature and role of research in the economy and about how it should be funded, and at a time when knowledge is said to be in crisis, the article suggests that the framework can contribute to rational analysis and decision-making.
This paper describes conceptual difficulties that may be experi-enced by engineering faculty as they become engineering educa-tion researchers. Observation, survey, and assessment data col-lected 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 disci-plinary 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 educa-tion research by clarifying the fundamental differences that pre-vent application of traditional engineering standards of rigor directly to engineering education research.
This chapter looks across all of the chapters in the book to identify the common threads that demonstrate the ways in which
the early career experience can be characterized as similar, despite different roles and academic fields. This is the basis
used to describe the notion of identity-trajectory; a notion that emphasizes the integration of past-present-future in the
individual experience of academic work and the individual’s desire to enact intentions and hopes through time. Central to
the notion of identity-trajectory is the interweaving of three distinct but interrelated strands: intellectual, networking,
and institutional. The intellectual strand represents past and continuing contributions to one’s disciplinary specialty. The
networking strand represents the web of local, national, and international relationships one has been and is connected with.
The institutional strand represents relationships and responsibilities where an individual is physically located. We argue
that the notion of identity-trajectory can provide a reflective framework for taking personal action.
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