National Engineering Education Research Colloquies, The

Journal of Engineering Education, Oct 2006

THE STEERING COMMITTEE OF THE NATIONAL ENGINEERING EDUCATION RESEARCH COLLOQUIES

I. THE PROCESS

Will the U.S. have engineers prepared to collaborate and lead in a rapidly changing world? The answer to that question, in part, relies on our ability to transform how we educate our future engineers. Our premise is that we need fundamental knowledge of how engineers learn to under-gird these transformational decisions. With support from the National Science Foundation, the Engineering Education Research Colloquies (EERC) were designed to collaboratively develop a national research framework and agenda to conduct rigorous engineering education research. The endeavor represents the collective effort of more than seventy engineering, science, and mathematics education researchers, learning scientists, and practitioners who worked together during three face-to-face meetings. All of the individuals who actively participated in the creation of what we now present as the research areas for the new discipline of Engineering Education are acknowledged below. A summary report of their effort appears in the article that follows.

The article describes how the five priority research areas (Engineering Epistemologies, Engineering Learning Mechanisms, Engineering Learning Systems, Engineering Diversity and Inclusiveness, and Engineering Assessment) came to fruition. Participants in Colloquy One used a reverse roadmap process with progressive refinement to identify major engineering education research themes. The process used in excess of fifty-five desirable outcomes (i.e., competencies and attributes) of a graduating engineer as the discussion starting point. Three categories of outcomes were identified: established outcomes (those that are defined by ABET EC2000 and have already been widely discussed in the engineering education community, e.g., teamwork, communication skills); emerging outcomes (those that are newly identified in the literature and are currently part of the national debate, e.g., the nature of innovation, practical ingenuity); and opportunity outcomes (future outcomes that are being discussed locally or will be required to advance the future of engineering education, e.g., understanding globalization and its impact on the workforce, dealing with setbacks and failure).

The list of engineering education research themes developed during Colloquy One served as the starting point for the next colloquy. Participants in Colloquy Two used a COGS (Challenges, Opportunities, Gaps, and Strengths) analysis to transform the research themes into nineteen explicit research clusters. These nineteen research clusters were then synthesized during a third EERC meeting. The results of this final meeting are the five research areas described in the following article.

We believe these research areas will ensure a coherent, rigorous and innovative foundation for systemic and sustained transformation of our engineering education system. Thus, better preparing our graduates to adapt to the rapidly evolving technical, social, and global environment and to be leaders in addressing societal challenges.

II. THE PARTICIPANTS

(S)Robin Adams, Purdue University(C1, C2, C2 )

Dayne Aldridge, Mercer University(C2)

Cindy Atman, University of Washington(C1, C2, C2 )

Lecia Barker, University of Colorado at Boulder(C2)

Mary Besterfield-Sacre, University of Pittsburgh(C2,C2 )

Stefani Bjorklund, caseE(C2)

John Bransford, University of Washington(C1)

Lori Breslow, Massachusetts Institute of Technology(C2)

Scan Brophy, Purdue University(C2,C2 )

Veronica Burrows, Arizona State University(C2)

Ilene Busch- Vishniac, Johns Hopkins University(C1)

Marilyn Carlson, Arizona State University(C1)

Lawrence Carlson, University of Colorado at Boulder(C2)

Helen Chen, Stanford University(C2)

Marie Dahleh, Harvard University(C2)

Heidi Diefes-Dux, Purdue University(C2)

Thomas Dufry, Indiana University(C2)

Demetra Evangelou, Purdue University(C2)

Richard Felder, North Carolina State University(C2)

Cindy Finelli, University of Michigan(C2)

Deborah Tollman, Purdue University(C2)

(S)Norman Fortenberry, National Academy of Engr.(C1,C2,C2 )

Jeff Froyd, Texas A& University(C2)

Yolanda George, American Assoc. for Advancement of Science(C2)

Richard Goff, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University(C2)

Hayden Griffin, Virginia Polytechnic Institute & State University(C1)

(S)Kamyar Haghighi, Purdue University(C1,C2,C2 )

Trevor Harding, Kettering University(C2)

Tom Harris, Vanderbilt University(C2)

Daniel Hodge, ABET, Inc.(C2)

(S)PK Imbrie, Purdue University(C1,C2,C2 )

(S)LeahJamieson, Purdue University(C1,C2)

James Johnson, Howard University(C2)

David Jonassen, University of Missouri Columbia(C2)

Linda Katehi, Purdue University (now at University of Illinois)(C1)

Stephen Krause, Arizona State University(C2)

Pamela Leigh-Mack, Morgan State University(C2)

Thomas Litzinger, The Pennsylvania State University(C2,C2 )

(S)Jack Lohmann, Georgia Institute of Technology(C1,C2,C2 )

Susan Mailer, Purdue University(C2)

Jay Martin, University of Wisconsin-Madison(C2)