Research Project: Aligning Engineering Education with Engineering Practice
The
overarching hypothesis for this NSF funded study is that the current
educational system is poorly aligned with engineering practice. That
is, experiences in high school and college give students an inaccurate
and incomplete picture of what it means to be an engineer, and of the
skills and knowledge they need to develop to become one. Therefore, potential
engineering talent is lost at all stages as students move from high school
to college and into professional practice. We hypothesize that aligning
the engineering education pathways with the skills, knowledge, values,
and ways of thinking of practicing engineers (their "epistemic
frame" ) will lead to and retain a broader and more diverse engineering
workforce. This project is studying (1) the engineering practice to identify
the skills, knowledge, values, and ways of thinking of effective engineers;
(2) teaching and counseling practices in high schools to better understand
how classroom and counseling experiences inform and/or hinder future
studies and careers in engineering; and (3) the learning experiences
of freshman engineering students to determine what influences them to
enter and remain in the field of engineering.
Current Work
Engineering practice research group, within the College of Engineering:
- Conducting an online survey and now analyzing initial results.
- Having freshman engineering students reflect on their personal background and conduct interviews of current engineers. Beginning to analyze this data.
- Completed mini-ethnographies of two engineering firms. Beginning two more this fall.
Engineering education research group, within the School of Education:
- Piloted an online survey for high school teachers and guidance counselors, beginning deployment.
- Compared Project Lead the Way (HS engineering curriculum) with traditional science and math courses.
- Reviewing characteristics of students taking Project Lead the Way courses.