Some thought about practice and research of engineering education

I have been thinking the relationship between practice and research of engineering education from time to time. In this week’s reading, I find this issue is also concerned by many engineering education researchers. It was stated in Prof Adams and Felder’s article (2008) that engineering education researchers were challenged by how to communicate their work with educators to ensure the applications of their research findings. In the report of ASEE (Jamieson & Lohmann, 2009), the authors also pointed out that only a few engineering educators would use educational research results such as learning theories to guide the educational innovations. While there are problems with the applications of educational research to the teaching practice, there are also problems with the justifications of educational research problems due to a lack of practical data (National Academy of Engineering, 2005). When I read engineering education research paper, I find some research problems are not fully justified. I think it could be hazardous to carry out research without really figuring out what the actual situation is in practice. For example, some studies claimed that because the retention rate of engineering student was low, we should look into the problem seriously to figure out the underlying reasons. However, there is representational data showing that the retention rates of engineering majors are actually very high compared to other college majors (Ohland et al., 2008). Also, some studies focused on the improvement of the persistence rate of women in engineering because they wanted that more women could become engineers. But there is also data showing that the persistence rate of women is almost the same as men once they are enrolled in engineering (Xie & Shauman, 2004). The actual cause of small percentage of women engineering student is that far less women enroll in engineering. In my opinion, the research results would be more valuable if the focus is shifted from studying persistence to investigating the enrollment of women engineering student. As novice engineering education researchers, I think we should all keep in mind the justification and evaluation of our research. It is very important that we base our research on a set of carefully gathered data from practical situations and real learning environments.

Reference:

Adams, R. S., & Felder, R. M. (2008). Reframing Professional Development: A Systems Approach to Preparing Engineering Educators to Educate Tomorrow’s Engineers. Journal of Engineering Education, 97(3), 259-261.

Jamieson, L., & Lohmann, J. (2009). Creating a culture for scholarly and systematic innovation in engineering education. Phase 1 report.

National Academy of Engineering. (2005). Educating the Engineer of 2020: Adapting Engineering Education to the New Century. Washington, DC: National Academy of Engineering Press.

Ohland, M. W., Sheppard, S. D., Lichtenstein, G., Eris, O., Chachra, D., & Layton, R. A. (2008). Persistence , Engagement , and Migration in Engineering Programs. Journal of Engineering Education, 97(3), 259-278

Xie, Y., & Shauman, K. (2004). Women in science: Career processes and outcomes. Social Forces, 82(4), 1669-1671.

Blogging in H&P

While thinking of what I wanted to blog, I was thinking of how I wished I used the blog over the last semester. I think writing a brief synopsis of my thoughts on the end of each course would have helped me considerably. Identify what I did and the big "ah ha" moments of the class. While writing my last essay I kept thinking... oh what class was that... what week... what reading. It seems like the blog could have given me that space to identify what week, reading and class.

I am now thinking of creating a personal blog for that reason. I put in a small post on my thoughts of each class I have. Then I could tag what course and what reading, or maybe even what idea I generated.

Reflecting back on the semester, how would you of used the blog differently?

Where did i learn about engineering education this semester?

My learning about engineering education and engineering education rigorous research this semester took place in my judgment in order of impact on my skills and knowledge in these 13 ways:

in my  History and Philosophy, Inquiry, and Seminar class sessions,
through my writings of the papers, essays and research proposals,
in my discussions in faculty offices,
through my readings of articles and text book chapters,
in my meetings with Amy Van Epps and my meetings with Dr Ohland,
through my writing and editing of the NSF Essays,
through books and articles i obtained from Hesse, Amazon and the Purdue libraries links
through my attendance at the Thursday research seminars,
through discussions with ENE graduate students,
through my regular meetings with Michele Strutz, James Cawthorne and Mark Carnes,
through readings on the blogs,  
through the CITI online learning modules,
in my discussions in my work groups and teams.

where and how did you learn this semester?
dan
. 

the engineering education researcher

From discovery,

learning rigorous research,

springs a researcher.

This opinion piece by Sternberg is timely, I'd say, with regard to our discussions and reading. I enoyed reading this article.

What Makes a University Great?

Ang

Hi everyone,

This came across my 'desk' this morning - I have not given it an in-depth look, but there are some interesting reports that can be linked to from the article.

Wising Up on STEM Completion

I also saw this piece on earned doctorates and women - not sure of the interest there, but I'll share anyway.

Women Lead in Doctorates

Cheers ~ Angela

Assessment and Pedagogy in Engineering Ethics course

Assessment of general moral reasoning has been studied and significantly advanced. Several instruments exist for the purpose of measuring moral reasoning. Several disciplines have developed instruments for measuring the moral reasoning of members of their community. However, according to Ohland and Barry (2009), while the health and business professions have advanced discipline- specific assessment tools to target professional ethics and found value in the creation of such instruments, engineering does not currently have a similar fully developed assessment tool. The literature revealed very little published research on the subject of an engineering-based moral reasoning assessment tool. Two conference papers, published in 2003 and 2004, identified this apparent deficiency and discussed research efforts to develop an instrument (Shuman et al., 2004; Sindelar et al., 2003). Unfortunately, that work remains incomplete and correspondence with the principal investigators indicates no immediate plans to revive the study (Barry, 2007).

The framework for most of the modern efforts to assess moral reasoning was developed by Lawrence Kohlberg. Kohlberg believed that individuals progress through a series of six stages of moral reasoning. Kohlberg’s field instrument for measuring moral reasoning is known as the Moral Judgment Interview (MJI). The assessment focuses on the justification for the participants’ reasoning, rather than the evaluation of correct or incorrect responses. Participants are scored based on the relation between their responses to the dilemmas and Kohlberg’s six pre-defined stages. The MJI has been shown to be a valid and reliable assessment of moral reasoning (Ohland & Barry, 2009).

Literature shows that the pedagogical framework of engineering ethics education has evolved primarily toward utilization of case studies and codes of ethics, in some instances supplemented by an introduction to moral theory. Substantial progress has been made in the development of case materials, including high profile cases, everyday cases. Cases are widely disseminated in textbooks and online.

According to Ohland and Barry (2009) within the literature associated with the Engineering profession, there is much discussion and debate over instruction methods and curriculum incorporation methods. The use of case-based instruction methods appears to be the most common pedagogical method within the engineering professional education. Research related to professional ethics within the discipline has primarily focused on assessment of student learning, rather than evaluation of instructional methods and/or curriculum incorporation methods. A limited number of studies have been published that compare two methods of instruction or two methods of curriculum incorporation.

In the widely used engineering ethics text by Harris, he makes the statement that “there is widespread agreement that the best way to teach professional ethics is by using cases.” However, a meta-analysis of conference papers conducted by Haws (2001) identifies emphasis on codes and theoretical grounding as two other methods of engineering ethics instruction. Likewise, codes and ethical theories are also discussed extensively in the texts of Harris et al. (2005) and Fleddermann (2008).

My personal experience from attending and observing a few classes where ethics is taught is leading me to the conclusion that it is not sufficient to teach ethics of the professions through example alone. One cannot expect that students will be able to understand and adapt to professional standards and values of the community simply by observing the behavior of professionals. Learning by observation requires interpretation. The rationale and assumptions that underlie behavior are not always obvious. Observational learning, alone, is not an efficient method of communicating critical issues.

My philosophy is that when educating engineering students for the professional world they need to be engage in challenging decision making exercises and encourage students’ enthusiasm for life-long learning, competency in the subject, and self-assurance to apply their knowledge in real world settings. In my opinion, students often learn what will help them to pass the final exam or course requirements; however, in assessing knowledge in engineering ethics course instructors must measure a student’s ability to recognize an ethical issue and analyze possible courses of action, not assess their performance from their textbook knowledge. The pedagogy have to focus not on lecturing ethical theories and memorizing philosophical terms, but on presenting, discussing, and exchanging perspectives.

References:
Haws, D. R. (2001). Ethics instructions in engineering education: A (mini) meta-analysis. Journal of Engineering Education, 90(2).

Ohland, M. & Barry B., (2009) Applied Ethics in the Engineering, Health, Business, and Law Professions: A Comparison. Journal of Engineering Education, October 2009.

Shuman, L.J., Sindelar, M.F., et al. (2004). Can our students recognize and resolve ethical dilemmas? Paper presented at the American Society for Engineering Education Annual Conference& Exposition, Salt Lake City, Utah.