Despite a series of reports and white papers that address the U.S.’s deteriorating competitive position and, consequently the need to increase the quality and output of engineering graduates, the overwhelming evidence is that much remains to be accomplished.  Compared to other developed countries where 15% or more of college graduates major in engineering, less than five percent of U.S. College graduates are engineers.  Thus, a major concern is not only how to increase the quantity of engineering graduates, but equally important, how to improve the quality with foci on both pathway issues and improved learning.   This grant focused on developing a set of recommendations that would lead to increased learning, effective use of technology, and increased diversity via the propagation of proven results throughout engineering education spectrum. The work as centered around four questions, specifically: (1) What accomplishments have been produced to date?; (2) To what extent have innovations been propagated?; (3) What remains to be done?; and (4) How best can future work be propagated?          

To address these questions several strategies were employed involving the engineering education community.  First, a Delphi Study was conducted to answer two critical questions: “What are the most critical unresolved issues facing engineering education research and its propagation related to: learning inside and outside the classroom, improving and diversifying the pathways, and the role of technology; and “Who are the people best to discuss these issues”?  The results of the Delphi Study were revealed at a Special Session at the 2015 American Society for Engineering Education (ASEE).  Feedback regarding the results of the Delphi was obtained from multiple areas of engineering education not just those that traditional engaged in engineering education research.  Writing teams consisted of one ‘senior’ researcher and one ‘junior’ researcher in engineering education that were experts in their areas were invited based on their identification from the Delphi Study.

The writing teams used the Delphi results along with the literature and prepared a presentation at an invitation only one and half day workshop in the fall 2015.  The objectives of the workshop were to: provide additional insights and wisdom as to the important engineering education issues and how they are best propagated.  By the end of the workshop, the collective group of engineering education researchers had provided the writing teams with a strategic in-depth understanding of and potential agreement on the issues, and tactical considerations for how research on these issues may be conducted.  From here, the writing teams created work-in-progress papers for a second ASEE special session during the summer of 2016. The world café session allowed for multiple small group discussions to further explore issues with the writing teams.

Using the information gathered from the multiple meeting venues and Delphi study coupled with the literature, the writing teams created three journal papers, one around each area.  The papers were submitted to the Advances in Engineering Education (AEE) journal, which were reviewed by five to eight experts reviewers per paper.  The papers will appear in a special issue of the AEE in the late fall 2018 or early spring 2019.  To verify that the community engages in reading the special issue, marketing is targeted to three audiences: engineering education researchers, early adopters and practitioners in engineering education, and administrators in engineering education. The special issue consists of an editorial about the research grant – its objectives, the results of the Delphi Study, fall workshop and special sessions at ASEE.  YouTube videos will go to the three audiences invited them to watch the videos with links to the AEE special issue to read the articles and provide comments to the articles to further ideas for propagating engineering education innovations.

The purpose of this work was to understand the landscape of current educational innovations and form a set of recommendations that will promote their propagation across engineering education and to other STEM fields.  However, this work moves beyond broader impacts in that it will assist in meeting a national need to increase the U.S.’s economic competitiveness, the STEM workforce, and potential partnerships between academia and industry. 

Last Modified: 08/13/2018
Modified by: Mary Besterfield-Sacre