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EDITORS’ NOTE

Engineering education is developing into a domain meritingscientific study. Recognizing this development, the editors of theJournal of Engineering Education and the European Journal ofEngineering Education, Jack Lohmann and Jean Michel, respec-tively, launched a worldwide initiative in 2007 called, “Advancingthe Global Capacity for Engineering Education Research.” Overan 18-month period, workshops were held at 10 internationalengineering education conferences involving hundreds of persons.The authors of this paper provided leadership in the conduct ofthe workshops. They have sorted through the wealth of informa-tion collected and prepared this thoughtful paper, which was peerreviewed by both journals. Because of the significance of this con-tribution to the global development of this field, we are pleased tojointly publish this paper to reach both our journals’ audiences.

Erik de Graaff, Editor-in-Chief, European Journal of Engineering Education

Jack R. Lohmann, Editor, Journal of Engineering Education

I. INTRODUCTION

The field of engineering education research is going global. In2008 the European Society for Engineering Education (SEFI)

established a Working Group on Engineering EducationResearch (WG-EER) (SEFI, 2008), and the AustralasianAssociation for Engineering Education (AAEE) is developing itsown Educational Research Methods (ERM) group (AustralasianAssociation for Engineering Education, 2008). Since 2003, theAnnals of Research on Engineering Education (AREE) has served asa meta-journal and Web portal linking engineering and scienceeducation journals to an online scholarly community that is bothlively and internationally diverse (AREE, 2010). Since 2001, aseries of Global Colloquia on Engineering Education have beenheld by the American Society for Engineering Education (ASEE)and its partners in diverse locales, and the Society’s Journal ofEngineering Education (JEE) is now published in partnership withnine international organizations and distributed in 80 countries,including publication of selected articles in Chinese and Koreanfor distribution in China and Korea (Lohmann, 2010). In manynational and regional contexts, engineering education research isbeing bolstered by a growing array of conferences and workshops,courses, degree programs, research centers, funding sources, andpublication outlets (Jesiek, Newswander, and Borrego, 2009;Jesiek, Borrego, and Beddoes, 2009).

Yet, to what extent is engineering education research trulyinternationalizing as a field? As many scholars have recognized,emerging fields that lack a thoroughgoing international profilemay be characterized by isolated researchers tackling similar

Advancing Global Capacity for EngineeringEducation Research (AGCEER): RelatingResearch to Practice, Policy, and Industry

BRENT K. JESIEK

Purdue University

MAURA BORREGO AND KACEY BEDDOES

Virginia Tech

BACKGROUND

We report on the results of a joint initiative between the European Journal ofEngineering Education and Journal of Engineering Education titled AdvancingGlobal Capacity for Engineering Education Research (AGCEER). Morespecifically, we present findings from a series of moderated interactive sessionsheld at international engineering education conferences between July 2007and December 2008, where participants were asked to discuss the current stateand future trajectory of engineering education research.

PURPOSE (HYPOTHESIS)How did AGCEER session attendees describe: (1) the relationship betweenengineering education research and educational practice, policy considerations,and industry, and (2) important stakeholders, mechanisms/strategies, andchallenges for relating research to practice, policy, and industry?

DESIGN/METHOD

Thematic analysis was used to categorize and understand the textual data ofreport back transcripts and note pages from ten AGCEER sessions involving

300 participants on six continents. An open coding procedure was used tocapture issues raised in each of the sessions on the relation of research to prac-tice, policy, and industry.

RESULTS

We observed frequent discussion and widespread consensus amongAGCEER participants about the need to relate engineering educationresearch to the practice of engineering teaching. Discussions about relatingresearch to policy and industry remain formative, but appear to be gainingtraction.

CONCLUSIONS

We propose a cyclic model to better conceptualize how engineering educationresearch can be strategically related to practice, profession, and industry acrossdiverse local and global contexts.

April 2010 Journal of Engineering Education 107

“obvious problems” using “relatively crude” approaches (Lemaine,et al., 1976, p. 5). Their research findings, if published at all, arelikely scattered across disciplines and regions. As Lemaine et al.summarize, “Where informal communication is not established,growth appears to be seriously impeded” (1976, p. 6), as evi-denced by data from the social sciences, e.g., small group research(McGrath and Altman, 1966) or international relations (Wæver,1998).

In the engineering education research community, thereappears to be growing awareness of the dangers of isolation, aswell as the benefits of internationalization. Perhaps most notably,in 2007 the European Journal of Engineering Education (EJEE) andthe Journal of Engineering Education (JEE) launched an initiativetitled Advancing the Global Capacity for Engineering EducationResearch (AGCEER). Two of the leaders of this movementinvoked a research and development (R&D) metaphor to explainboth the importance of the initiative and benefits of cultivating aglobal community of engineering education researchers:

The vitality of any discipline depends on a vibrant commu-nity of scholars and practitioners advancing the frontiers ofknowledge through research and innovation. Just as engi-neering excellence depends critically on engineeringresearch and development, excellence in engineering educa-tion depends critically on research and development inengineering education. However, globally, engineeringeducation development is a more mature field in compari-son to engineering education research which is still in itsinfancy, both in terms of its philosophical structure andphysical infrastructure. Because research and developmentare mutually complementary activities each enhancing theother, there is a need to enhance the global capacity forengineering education research to better leverage the globaldevelopments in engineering education innovation(Lohmann and de Graaff, 2008, p. 1).

In line with this rationale, the initiative had multiple goals,among them: build a network of engineering education scholarsand practitioners, report on the discussions in the sessions,identify infrastructures to sustain a global community, and initi-ate a new research summit. This paper more specifically exam-ines how engineering education conference attendees aroundthe world described the relation of engineering educationresearch to what Lohmann and de Graaff termed “engineeringeducation development.” In other words, we seek to betterunderstand “engineering education research…[and] its rolewithin scholarly inquiry and practice of engineering educationbased on the discussions in the sessions” (Lohmann and deGraaff, 2008). Our analysis also provides opportunities toobserve how participants linked engineering education researchto two other domains of “development;” namely policy andindustry.

The setting for our study was ten AGCEER special sessions,held at engineering education conferences in Hungary, Turkey,Hong Kong, Australia, the United States, Denmark, Russia,South Africa, Brazil, and India. Participants were asked to answerquestions about the current state and future trajectory of engineer-ing education research, including needed expertise, existing anddesired infrastructures, and leading research areas. Our inquiry andanalysis was guided by the following research questions:

How did AGCEER session attendees describe:

• The relationship between engineering education researchand educational practice, policy considerations, and indus-try?

• Important stakeholders, mechanisms or strategies, and chal-lenges for relating research to practice, policy, and industry?

We observed generally high levels of agreement and consen-sus across AGCEER sessions, particularly regarding the benefitsof connecting research to educational practice. Discussions aboutrelating research to policy and industry, on the other hand, sur-faced in some sessions but were underdeveloped. We also notesome perennial challenges identified by participants, and proposea cyclic model to better conceptualize how engineering educationresearch can be strategically related to practice, policy, and indus-try across diverse local and global contexts. As additionalgrounding for our analysis, we begin by reviewing existingliterature on research-practice dynamics in the development ofacademic fields.

II. LITERATURE REVIEW

A. Privileging Research over Practice in the Development of Academic Fields

Many scholars have adopted and adapted Biglan’s (1973) clas-sification scheme to categorize and compare academic fields(Becher, 1994). Biglan originally distinguished “applied” fields,which are mainly concerned with applying knowledge, from thoselabeled “pure,” which are focused on generating fundamentalinsights. Since both engineering and education are typically associ-ated with the applied end of this spectrum, we can expect thatengineering education is also often viewed as an applied field.

Many have also observed that disciplines often shift over timefrom the applied to pure. This “academic professionalization”happens as researchers move away from empirical reality andpractice in favor of “basic” research, developing new theories, andmaking their work appear more scientific (Abbott, 1981, 2001).In fact, those who cultivate the most abstract forms of discipli-nary knowledge and theory are often rewarded with the higheststatus and prestige (Abbott, 2001, p. 146). As summarized byAbbott, “applied work ranks below academic work because thecomplexities of professional practice makes practical knowledgemessy and ‘unprofessional’” (Abbott, 2001, p. 22). These trendsare often synergistic with the gradual replacement of “theoreti-cally-based curriculum at the expense of earlier practicalemphases” (Blume, 1985, p. 148).

To the extent that many traditional engineering fields areclosely linked to industry and the engineering profession, they arealigned with practice and again pulled toward the applied end ofthe disciplinary spectrum. But as academic engineering disciplineshave become more theoretical and scientific—especially during thetwentieth century—they have taken on a more “pure” character(Seely, 1993, 1999). Disciplines like business, law, and educationsimilarly grew out of the applied realm, with basic research andabstract theory gaining prominence over time. In fact, there arelively discussions in the educational research community about therelation of research and practice, including whether there are prob-lematic gaps between the two (Biesta, 2007). Concerns about thisrelation are also evident in fields like science education. Fensham

108 Journal of Engineering Education April 2010

(2004) proposes “implications for practice” as one of fourteen cri-teria for evaluating the development of science education as anacademic field, although the rest of his criteria are focused onstructural factors (journals, conferences, etc.) and evaluating thequality of research.

B. Relating Research and Practice in Academic FieldsWhile research and practice are sometimes described as oppos-

ing forces or tendencies, some commentators have framed them inmore complimentary terms. Since the 1990s, for instance, broaderconcerns about relating basic scientific research and technologicalinnovation helped spur the development of some influentialresearch-practice frameworks. For example, Stokes (1997) pro-posed categorizing research based on whether it is driven by: (a)practical needs or uses, and/or (b) a desire for fundamental knowl-edge or understanding, as shown in Table 1.

Building on one historical interpretation of the development ofPasteur’s anthrax vaccine in nineteenth century France, Stokes (1997)advocated “Pasteur’s Quadrant,” or the domain of “use-inspired basicresearch.” In Stokes’ view, Pasteur’s research was use-inspired becauseit aimed to generate a solution to the anthrax problem, but basicbecause it led to scientific discoveries. Many have used Stokes’ workto argue that impacting practice demands “scaling up” or “dissemi-nating” research-inspired interventions, similar to how Pasteur’svaccine was developed in the lab and then diffused to farms.

Stokes’ writing provided significant inspiration for scholars inmany fields, including engineering education (Smith, 2008). Yet

as Shaffer and Squire (2006) argue, applying the idea of Pasteur’sQuadrant to educational research and practice is problematic to theextent it: (a) assumes a unidirectional model where research resultsaffect practice but not the reverse, and (b) fails to challenge domi-nant educational practices. Additionally, they note that such mod-els may presume a boundary between researchers and practitioners.In response to these shortcomings, these same writers use Latour’salternate historical interpretation of Pasteur’s scientific work(Latour, 1988) to argue that research and practice should beviewed in even more integrated and cyclic terms.

As noted by Smith (2008), Stokes’ work also informed the“cycle of knowledge production and improvement of practice”model, attributed to RAND (Ball, 2003). It was later adapted foruse by the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) for itsCourse, Curriculum, and Laboratory Improvement (CCLI) pro-gram, which supports improvements in undergraduate STEM(Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) education(National Science Foundation, 2007). As indicated in Figure 1,this model proposes that novel educational research can chal-lenge existing teaching and learning methods, thereby stimulat-ing the development and evaluation of new educational innova-tions and assessment strategies. New research is generated inturn, and the cycle starts over. This cyclic framework also pro-poses that scaling-up can occur when new educational materialsand teaching strategies are “first tested in limited environmentsand then implemented and adapted in diverse curricula andeducational institutions” (National Science Foundation, 2007).


Table 1. Stokes’ research quadrants (Stokes, 1997).

Figure 1. Cyclic model relating knowledge production and improvement of practice (National Science Foundation, 2007).

Research can also be related to domains other than educationalpractice. As noted above, Burkhardt and Schoenfield (2003) dis-cuss how educational research might be linked to policymaking,but they do not describe specific mechanisms for achieving thisoutcome. Funding agencies in other parts of the world are alsoworking to both reconceptualize and bridge research and practice.“Evidence-based Policy and Practice,” for instance, is a currentEuropean Union (EU) initiative that funds “knowledge brokerageinitiatives” to support “coherent arrangements for the accumula-tion, mediation and application of educational research”(European Commission, 2009). In addition to advocating engage-ment with policymakers and educational practitioners, this pro-gram also supports projects that can help align educational andtraining systems with current and future labor market needs.However, the current call for proposals does not provide an explic-it framework for relating research to these other domains.

C. Relating Research and Practice in Engineering EducationAgainst the backdrop of changing national policy agendas, the

field of engineering education largely originated with the practicalconcerns of engineering educators. In the early 2000s, and espe-cially in the United States, calls were made to increase the quantityand quality of engineering education research, with an emphasison impacting practice (Jesiek, Newswander, and Borrego, 2009).A growing body of evidence also reveals widespread support in theglobal engineering education community for continuing to nurturethe connections between research and practice (Borrego, 2007;Jesiek, Newswander, and Borrego, 2009).

Referencing the work of Burkhardt and Schoenfeld (2003),Smith (2008) points to three specific mechanisms or models mostoften used to link research and practice in engineering education,namely: teachers reading and using research, summary or best-practice guides, and promoting faculty/staff development. Otherspecific bridging strategies proposed in recent years include: bring-ing new researchers into the field; working to identify generaliz-able results and knowledge transfer opportunities; promotingaction research (Feldman and Minstrell, 2000) and evidence-basedresearch; establishing engineering education centers at universities;organizing workshops to increase the level of scholarship andenhance the research skills of engineering educators; and publish-ing practice-oriented papers in outlets such as Advances inEngineering Education, Australasian Journal of EngineeringEducation, or Engineering Education: Journal of the HigherEducation Academy Engineering Subject Centre (Borrego, 2007;Jesiek, Newswander, and Borrego, 2009).

Others have framed the research-practice relationship by using amore general developmental framework, where engineering educa-tors might first embrace good engineering teaching and then movetoward scholarship and ultimately engineering education research(Borrego et al., 2008). By scholarship, we mean the scholarship ofteaching and learning, as defined by Boyer (1990) and Hutchingsand Shulman (1999). Scholarship of teaching “is public and open tocritique and evaluation, is in a form that others can build on,involves question-asking, inquiry and investigation, particularlyabout student learning” (Borrego et al., 2008, p. 155; Streveler,Borrego, and Smith, 2007). Frequently these exchanges occur atnational and international engineering education conferences, butthey may also happen at the campus level. Engineering educationresearch has the characteristics of scholarship but creates potential

for broader impact of results because it is also: (1) guided by aresearch question focusing on the “why” or “how” of learning oreducation more broadly; (2) is guided by a learning, pedagogical orsocial theory and interprets results in light of that theory; and (3)pays careful attention to study design and methods to stand up toscrutiny (Borrego et al., 2008; Streveler, Borrego, and Smith, 2007).Although delineation is necessary to aid readers, we emphasize thatwe and other authors who define these terms place them on a fluidcontinuum that downplays rather than reinforces rigid distinctions.

III. METHODS

A. Setting and ParticipantsThe setting for this study is Advancing the Global Capacity for

Engineering Education Research (AGCEER):

AGCEER is a joint initiative by the European Journal ofEngineering Education, published by the Société Européennepour la Formation des Ingénieurs (SEFI), and the Journal ofEngineering Education, published by the American Societyfor Engineering Education. The goal is to significantlyadvance the global capacity for engineering educationresearch through moderated interactive sessions offered in aseries of international engineering education conferencesbetween July 2007 and December 2008. The sessionsaddress fundamental questions facing the development of aglobal community of scholars and practitioners in engineer-ing education research (Lohmann and de Graaff, 2008, p. 1).

Table 2 lists the conferences at which the AGCEER sessionswere held, a summary of participant characteristics, and theabbreviation for each session used throughout the rest of this arti-cle. Sessions varied in length from approximately 45 minutes totwo hours. Each session featured one to four invited guest speak-ers who commented for 10–20 minutes on a topic related tobuilding global capacity for engineering education research. Ingroups of four to six, participants then discussed questions relatedto the nature of engineering education research, importantresearch questions or areas, and types of available support.Questions were updated for each session, including improvingtheir clarity, based on the outcomes of the previous sessions. Thequestions asked at each session are listed in Table 3. European 1participants self-selected groups to discuss only one of the ques-tions; participants at all other sessions were asked to discuss allquestions and report on as many as time allowed. European 3 wasalso an exception to this format; there, participants held a singlediscussion as one large group. In each case, one member of eachgroup took notes on the group discussion and submitted them tosession organizers.

AGCEER participants are typical engineering education con-ference attendees: staff/faculty interested in improving their teach-ing; staff/faculty presenting their scholarship of teaching andlearning; engineering deans/heads of schools and heads of depart-ments; researchers and other scholars who study engineering edu-cation; and industry/government employees or similar stakehold-ers in engineering education. In most cases (all but HongKong/China), AGCEER sessions were optional (held in parallelwith other conference sessions), so there was some degree of selfselection beyond attending an engineering education professional


conference. The participants are representative of those who mightattend an ERM (ASEE or AAEE) or EER-WG (SEFI) groupmeeting or technical session, most of whom conduct some type ofscholarly work in engineering education themselves. While we arecareful not to characterize the level of scholarship in particularcountries or regions, we posit that AGCEER participants are gen-erally representative of the group of stakeholders in engineeringeducation research movements across the globe. While the lengthof the sessions necessarily restricted the depth of our data, weemphasize that its breadth (involving over 300 participants from

10 conferences on 6 continents) is unprecedented in internationalanalyses of engineering education.

B. Data CollectionSession organizers made audio recordings of the reporting por-

tions and collected note pages from each group. Human subjectsapproval (Virginia Tech IRB #07-295) was secured to use theserecordings and notes as data sources. Transcripts of AGCEERreport back, AGCEER presentation slides, and general observa-tions at other conference sessions also served as data sources.


Table 2. Conference sessions and participants.

C. Data AnalysisWe applied thematic analysis (Boyatzis, 1998) to categorize

and understand the textual data of report back transcripts and notepages. The open source TAMS Analyzer software application wasused to manage the coding and analysis of all data (Weinstein,2006). According to an open coding procedure (Strauss andCorbin, 1998), codes (the columns in Table 4) were created asnecessary to capture issues raised in each of the sessions. Two ofthe authors worked together to develop the initial list of codesusing three session transcripts. Once the coding scheme wasagreed upon, one author applied it to all transcripts and notepages, while the other two checked her work. All three authors

worked together to confirm the findings by triangulating themwith related research and the literature (Patton, 2002).

This paper is focused on research-practice relationships; otherfindings (related to specific research areas and interdisciplinary col-laboration) are reported elsewhere (Borrego, Beddoes, and Jesiek,2009). Preliminary results based on data from the first fourAGCEER sessions were also published previously (Borrego,Jesiek, and Beddoes, 2008). The final coding scheme appears inTable 4. Because AGCEER discussions varied widely in contentand scope, the authors did not systematically examine how specificsession questions were correlated with specific discussion topics orthemes. However, these relationships were used on an as-needed


Table 3. AGCEER session questions.

Table 4. Relating research to practice, policy, and industry.

basis to help contextualize the data. In addition, it is inappropriateto provide frequency counts for each session given the qualitativenature of this data. Further, frequencies would be artificially highfor groups that listed issues on their note pages and mentionedthem in their report back.

A major limitation of this data is lack of depth due to time con-straints on the sessions (most of which were under two hours). Wewere careful not to over-interpret participant responses. Oneimplication for this analysis is that if a particular issue was notmentioned at a specific AGCEER session, we cannot concludethat it is not a concern in that region; we can only report that itwas not mentioned in that session. Although this data does notprovide enough detail to describe subtle variations across countriesand regions, the frequency with which many similar issues werementioned across the sessions is encouraging for the future of theinternational engineering education scholarly community.

IV. RESULTS

We expected to find significant differences across AGCEERsessions, but instead observed generally high levels of agreementand consensus. Consequently, the results are presented as onecoherent description, using direct quotes from all sessions andhighlighting critical differences when and where they arise.

A. Relating Research to Educational PracticeOne major theme that surfaced at many AGCEER discussions

was captured by a European 3 participant, who asked: “What’s theobjective of the research? Is it getting to know why, or is it gettingto know how to improve education?” Groups at the South Africaand European 2 sessions noted similar challenges related to identi-fying audiences for projects and publications, including researchersand/or educators. One Global Colloquium group characterizedengineering education research as “stratified from local to rigor-ous,” and they expressed concerns about the field being overlyfocused on the latter. Still other Colloquium participants warnedthat a lack of strong researcher-practitioner ties could come with a“danger of elitism.”

Despite such concerns, we observed frequent discussion andwidespread consensus among AGCEER participants about theimportance of relating engineering education research to the prac-tice of engineering teaching, as indicated in Table 4. However,closer analysis also reveals some notable variations, both withinand across sessions, about how participants described research-practice relationships and how they might best be advanced.

1) Stakeholders: As we report elsewhere, AGCEER participantsconsistently expressed a desire for interdisciplinary collaborationthrough teamwork (Borrego, Beddoes, and Jesiek, 2009). That is,they advocated conducting research via teamwork between engi-neers and social scientists, including educational researchers.

Educational practitioners were also frequently identified asimportant stakeholders in these collaborative efforts because ofboth their teaching experience and knowledge of engineering sub-jects and content. As one South Africa participant explained:“Obviously the engineers are more familiar with the disciplinesubject, the thinking processes required for it, the difficult materialand such areas where students have problems.” At other sessions,participants noted that engineering education research demands

“teaching experience” (Brazil) and “a very strong connection withengineering education practice in that specific discipline” (U.S.). AEuropean 2 group similarly noted the importance of having“researchers (at least part of them) [who] are also educators,” whilea European 3 participant added that the relevance of researchmight be enhanced if “we have not to think in terms of doingresearch by researchers but doing research by teachers.” In light ofthese observations, we propose that one continuing challenge forthe field involves supporting both multidisciplinary collaborationsand the movement of individual educators along a path towardscholarly teaching and perhaps also educational research (Streveler,2007).

2) Directionality: As noted in the literature review, research andpractice can be viewed in directional terms, such as by asking howresearch can inform practice, or vice-versa. We observed threekinds of directionality in the AGCEER discussions. The firstinvolved advocating the dissemination or diffusion of researchfindings to engineering teachers. Representative statementsincluded: “transfer research results to engineering education prac-tice” (U.S.), “the knowledge does need to get disseminated”(Australia), and “transferring of pure or fundamental foundationalknowledge into applied courses such that there’s no irrelevancethere” (European 2). One Hong Kong/China group offered aneven more systematic formulation by defining “innovation in engi-neering education” as “implementation of practically useful meth-ods and techniques based on the outcomes of education research.”While such remarks may appear rather straightforward, Shafferand Squire’s (2006) work reminds us that these comments maycarry problematic assumptions about research driving practice in aunidirectional manner.

A second kind of directionality was implied when AGCEERparticipants posited that researchers should consider questionsabout the applicability and relevance of their studies at the outset.After explaining the types of expertise that engineering instructorsbring to engineering education research, a South Africa groupemphasized an important benefit: “And coming from a practicalviewpoint the research will feed back directly into the teachingprocess.” One European 3 participant explained: “It’s very nice ifwe know that we have scientific knowledge about so and so, but ifit has no relevance for improving education then I think from anengineering education perspective it’s useless.” The group went onto recommend including engineering instructors in a “kind of par-ticipating research” with “the teacher as a researcher.”

In the Hong Kong/China session, participants more specifical-ly explained that there was a shift underway in China from theoryto application-oriented research. “In China, most of the scholarsfocus on the theory study, since the government encourages us todo so. Now, in order to enhance the level of application, we paymore attention to the application study.” The need to keep prac-tice in mind when conducting research also came up in European2, with one group arguing that if teachers are the intended audi-ence for a research project, then the research questions and argu-ments should be tailored to them rather than other researchers.Many of these comments suggest a reversed directionality, withresearch significantly driven by practical needs and considerations.

Groups at two AGCEER sessions advocated a third kind ofdirectionality, namely a “cyclic relationship” between research andteaching practice. More specifically, Global Colloquium partici-pants noted the importance of “support[ing] researchers on the


journey in practice and research cycle,” while Australasian partici-pants explained:

You might have a clear cut question to do research … whichleads to innovation, which leads to an implementation,which leads to reflection, and then perhaps an implementa-tion [in/and] practice. It’s more of … a cycle that has rigorand research and reflection attached and research and inno-vation might be part of that.

These characterizations suggest that more nuanced and multifac-eted understandings of the research-practice relationship, such asthe cyclic framework adopted by the U.S. NSF, are tentatively beingtaken up in the engineering education community. As we discuss inmore detail, this kind of framing may also help reduce research-practice tensions by providing bidirectional modes of interaction.However, such approaches may also demand continuing efforts toboth identify appropriate roles for relevant stakeholders and developspecific mechanisms and strategies for relating research and practice.

3) Mechanisms and Strategies: AGCEER participants discussedmany specific mechanisms and strategies for relating research andpractice, as summarized in Table 5.

As previously noted, some groups advocated disseminatingresearch findings to specific target audiences, including engi-neering teachers. A European 1 group saw value in showcasingquality educational research, including examples of how it canimprove practice. On the other hand, a European 2 group notedchallenges associated with presenting findings to different audi-ences, since researchers and teachers “may not be convinced bythe same arguments.”

More common were discussions about building connectionsand community, both among researchers and betweenresearchers and instructors. Specific strategies for building com-munity included: recruiting and supporting scholarly teachersand researchers, organizing conferences and workshops, andpublishing results with practitioner audiences in mind.Australasia participants were uniquely interested in using onlinemechanisms to establish and share relevant literature andresearch findings. They went on to discuss developing Webresources such as a bibliography accessible to novices, statisticstutorials, examples of good practices, case studies, and links toother pertinent Web sites. Participants at European 3, on theother hand, more directly proposed turning engineering teachers


Table 5. Mechanisms and strategies for relating research and practice.

into educational researchers. They explained that this wouldentail giving engineering instructors the right knowledge, meth-ods, and tools so they could research their own questions and“solve their own problems.”

There was also widespread interest in providing formal trainingfor instructors (“teacher training” or “faculty/staff/professionaldevelopment”). General mention of this theme came from manysessions, with participants at the U.S. session elaborating:

… a research area that needs some definite work is facultydevelopment. With the professors that get to be professorswith no pedagogical training at all, what sort of impact canthat have in engineering and the university in general tohave greater faculty development?

Others spoke of the value of teaching educational/learning the-ories to graduate students, who represent the next generation offaculty. Infrastructures such as training programs and centers forteaching and learning were advocated in the Hong Kong/China,Global Colloquium, and European 1 sessions. Global Colloquiumparticipants added that such initiatives should focus on trainingboth new and experienced professors.

It is worth emphasizing that faculty/staff development wasitself identified as an important research area at five of tenAGCEER sessions, as indicated in Table 5. In addition, at six often AGCEER sessions (Europe 1, U.S., Europe 2, Europe 3,Brazil, and South Africa), participants more generally indicatedthe desirability of conducting research on the beliefs, perspectives,and/or behaviors of engineering faculty/staff. Given these findings,there may be great potential to develop enhanced understandingsof research-practice cycles, including by providing more opportu-nities for faculty/staff development and conducting research onsuch interventions.

To bolster recognition of scholarly and research-driven teachingsome AGCEER participants at the Global Colloquium called forimproved recognition of teaching effectiveness in promotion andtenure, while others desired more and better teaching awards orfellowships for engineering faculty. Groups at Hong Kong/Chinaand Global Colloquium advocated working through traditionalengineering professional societies and their associated conferences,including to disseminate research findings.

B. Relating Research to PolicySome AGCEER participants recognized that engineering edu-

cation research can and should have impacts that extend wellbeyond the domain of teaching practice. In European 1, for exam-ple, a group noted that events like conferences could “supportexchanges of ideas beyond actual classroom practice, beyond actualteaching, so looking at engineering education on a much broaderscale.” In three of the sessions (European 1, Hong Kong, European2), participants more specifically discussed relating research andpolicy. For example, a group at European 1 expressed concerns that“people may or may not be making [policy] decisions based onresearch studies,” while some Hong Kong/China participantsadvocated that educational policy changes should be “informed byresearch.” One suggestion, from a group at European 2, would beto “embed the value of engineering education research in the mindsof policymakers,” including by showing how research can provide asound background for educational innovations.

A second way in which policy entered the discussion wasthrough mention of “engineering education policy” and “engineer-ing education systems” as important research areas by a group atEuropean 2. On one hand, these comments appear synergisticwith the kinds of research-driven policy and practice initiativesthat seem to be gaining traction in the EU and elsewhere. Yet asthe European 2 participants acknowledged, working in these areaswould also likely demand the involvement of researchers with“totally different competencies,” especially as compared to “peda-gogical research.”

C. Relating Research to Industry and the Engineering Profession

Our data also reveal interest in relating engineering educationresearch to industry and the engineering profession. A European 2group identified “relation to industry” as an important researcharea, while India participants noted the value of “developingstrategies for bridging the gap between industry and (academic)engineering institution(s).”

More specific research topics discussed at AGCEER sessionsincluded university-industry alignment, or “making sure that weunderstand what it is that industry wants and expects with engi-neers of the future in this global market” (U.S.). However, someEuropean 2 participants identified continuing engineering educa-tion and “upskilling” as important research areas. As one groupexplained: “In the U.K. particularly … we’re concerned with theeffectiveness of workplace delivery of engineering teaching, of up-skilling the workforce.” They went on to note the value of con-ducting longitudinal studies that followed students through highereducation and into professional careers. One European 3 attendeeadded that researchers should look at the “sustainability of knowl-edge [throughout the] professional career,” and a Brazil groupemphasized the importance of both “engineering markets” andbringing the realities of industry practice into engineering courses.

Some European 2 participants also discussed the need forindustry expertise among engineering education researchers,including “firsthand experience of industry” and the “ability toreach out to industry.” One U.S. group added that researchersshould be willing to partner and work with industry. Yet specificstrategies for relating research to industry and the engineering pro-fession were not articulated. One Global Colloquium groupexplained that it was important to “get industry involved” to helpsupport and sustain engineering education research, but theystopped short of identifying specific mechanisms to support thisobjective. Questions remain, however, about whether a lack ofconnections between engineering education research and industryreflect the field’s more general tendency toward “academic profes-sionalization,” with “pure” academic research privileged over themessy realities of actual engineering practice.

D. Relating Research, GloballyExplicit discussions about how engineering education research

might be related to practice, policy, and/or industry across coun-tries or regions were scarce, at best. In fact, a more general effortby organizers to form a discussion group on “enablers and barriersto international collaboration” at the European 1 session failedbecause of a lack of interest among attendees.

Nonetheless, AGCEER participants did discuss issues andchallenges with likely implications for relating research and


practice across both local and national boundaries. One European2 group emphasized that Europe alone has more than 30 differentnational educational systems. They added that many researchresults are published in a wide variety of national languages.Another group at the same session pointed to differences betweenindividual institutions, including different emphases on researchand/or teaching. Yet another European 2 group noted inter-uni-versity competition as a concern: “university management …might want to hinder publishing openly all educational develop-ment research because that is directly linked to core competenciesof a university.”

Other relevant local and regional variations observed atAGCEER sessions include: a preference for top-down change ledby university administrators in the Hong Kong/China context(Borrego, Jesiek, and Beddoes, 2008); recognition of unique con-straints and opportunities posed by the Bologna Declaration andpolicy process in the EU; and concerns about how excessive educa-tional regulations may inhibit teaching and learning innovations inBrazil. An Australasia group pointed to still another relevant con-cern: “accreditation panels … are not necessarily recognizing theimportance of innovation.” In each case, contextually appropriatemodels and strategies will likely be required to enhance the effectivelinking of research to educational practice, policy, and industry.

V. DISCUSSION AND RECOMMENDATIONS

Across AGCEER sessions, comments about relating researchto educational practice surfaced repeatedly. However, we observedlittle discussion about the implications of adopting differentunderstandings of the research-practice relationships (e.g., dissem-ination versus cyclic). Further, these different understandings wererarely explicitly related to: (a) the larger goals and objectives ofengineering education research, (b) different stakeholder popula-tions, and (c) specific mechanisms or strategies for relatingresearch and practice. Conversations about relating research topolicy and industry were also underdeveloped. To promote contin-ued discussion and study of these important themes, we close by

proposing three new ways to think about how research can berelated to practice, profession, and industry across diverse local andglobal contexts.

First, we take some inspiration from Lohmann and de Graaff’sresearch-development metaphor (2008), as well as the AGCEERgroups that described the research-practice relationship in cyclicterms. Yet as noted, even these types of framing may be problem-atic to the extent they oversimplify the research-practice relation-ship, privilege research over practice, and/or fail to challenge dom-inant educational practices. In response to such shortcomings, wesympathize with Burkhardt and Schoenfeld’s description of a pro-ductive “dialectic” between research and practice (2003). This termimplies a more balanced and integrative relationship, whereresearch-practice interactions promote the emergence of new syn-thesis over time.

Second, we propose enriching this cyclic model by adoptingLatour’s terms translation and enrollment (1988), as illustrated inFigure 2. The term translation emphasizes that novel practices andinterventions are rarely diffused or scaled up in static form, but arerather received, negotiated, and perhaps even rejected by stake-holders who are both unruly and diverse. Latour’s (1988) conceptof enrollment on the other hand, reminds us that change almostalways demands that leading actors convince other stakeholdersand groups to adopt specific roles and rally around particular pro-jects and visions. These ideas suggest, for example, that engineer-ing instructors should be enrolled as equal and active partners inengineering education research. This can help ensure that studiesare relevant, results are translated and disseminated in an accessiblemanner, and educators are given opportunities to learn how toconduct educational research. Research should also be framed sothat engineering teachers feel invited into the field, rather thanexcluded by an elite class of researchers (Jesiek, Newswander, andBorrego, 2009). Many similar insights follow from a diffusion ofinnovations (Rogers, 1995, 2003) view of how novel interventionsand research findings are disseminated in engineering education.

The concepts of translation and enrollment are also morebroadly applicable. Research results with policy implications, forexample, should be translated in ways that enhance their reception


Figure 2. Advancing engineering education scholarship locally and globally via cycles of translation and enrollment.

and cultivate open, bidirectional dialog with policy analysts andpolicymakers. More specifically, pressing concerns about teachingpractices or new educational policies can help drive the develop-ment of new research questions, even as prior findings shouldstimulate research-informed educational interventions and policyreforms. Opportunities to perform systematic research in relatedareas—such as staff/faculty development, STEM policy, andindustry needs and practices—should also be seized, therebybroadening and enriching the scope of engineering educationresearch. To increase impact and chances of success, policymakersand policy researchers should be actively enrolled in such initia-tives.

Third and finally, we conclude that identifying similaritiesacross countries and regions represents another important steptoward building an effective global research community, pushingthe frontiers of research, and avoiding isolated, local studies that“reinvent the wheel.” Yet it is essential to acknowledge and negoti-ate contextual diversity. Researchers should look for opportunitiesto translate research questions, theories, methods, and findings sothey are readable and relevant across national and institutionalboundaries. This in turn demands robust understandings of localdifferences in culture, educational systems, and desired graduateattributes. Examples of such translations include: how do local dif-ferences in culture and education inflect student learning styles,team dynamics, the implementation of problem-based learning, orunderstandings of sustainability? What student attributes andskills are desired across countries and regions? What researchefforts and findings related to curricular alignment, assessment,and accreditation are sharable across borders?

Internationalization trends in higher education can be lever-aged to begin addressing such questions. Many universities arenow encouraging global awareness, education, and citizenshipamong students and staff, including through cross-nationalresearch collaborations, partnerships with foreign institutions,study abroad programs, recruitment of international students andteaching staff, distance education initiatives, and internationalconferences and workshops (Knight, 2005; Stromquist, 2007).Many prominent engineering leaders and stakeholders are alsocalling on engineering educators to train “global engineers” whocan practice effectively in a diverse and globalized world (Grandinand Hirleman, 2009), while others have acknowledged the inter-national character of much engineering teaching and research(National Research Council, 2007, Ch. 3; Bremer, 2008). Thefield’s advocates and stakeholders should promote complimentaryobjectives, such as cross-national research partnerships, exchangesof students and teaching staff, and international workshops andsummits.

Yet as geographically diffuse researchers with similar interestsbegin to collaborate, they may encounter challenging differences indisciplinary paradigms, terminology, publishing traditions, careerpathways, project management strategies, human subjects protec-tions, and power dynamics (Hakala, 1998; National ResearchCouncil, 2008). Nonetheless, it is imperative that leading stake-holders proactively leverage current internationalization trends,while strategically relating engineering education research to prac-tice, policy, and industry across local and global boundaries.Failure to do so may thwart future collaboration and communitybuilding, thereby impairing the field’s development. In fact, engi-neering education researchers should heed the lessons from other

social science fields that developed regional schools of thought, orunderwent academic professionalization such that research appearsscarcely related to empirical realities. The strategies and frame-works presented above are intended to prevent such splinteringand promote international synergy and collaboration. In summary,we urge readers to think globally about the development of engi-neering education as a research field, while acting locally to enrollnew actors and perform context-sensitive translations.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

The authors thank the National Science Foundation for sup-porting Kacey Beddoes through grant number DUE-0810990.Special thanks goes to Jack Lohmann, Erik de Graaff, and JeanMichel for their partnership on this project. We are grateful toKarl Smith and David Radcliffe for helpful discussions aboutresearch and practice, and thank the reviewers for many helpfulsuggestions.

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AUTHORS’ BIOGRAPHIES

Brent K. Jesiek is assistant professor in EngineeringEducation and Electrical and Computer Engineering at PurdueUniversity. He holds a B.S. in Electrical Engineering fromMichigan Tech and M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in Science andTechnology Studies from Virginia Tech. His research examinesthe social, historical, global, and epistemological dimensions ofengineering and computing, with particular emphasis on topicsrelated to engineering education, computer engineering, andeducational technology.


Address: School of Engineering Education, Purdue University,Armstrong Hall, 701 West Stadium Avenue, West Lafayette,IN 47907–2045; telephone: (�1) 765.496.1531; e-mail: [email protected].

Maura Borrego is an assistant professor of EngineeringEducation at Virginia Tech. Dr. Borrego holds an M.S. and Ph.D.in Materials Science and Engineering from Stanford University.Her current research interests center around interdisciplinary grad-uate education, for which she was awarded a U.S. NSF CAREERgrant and Presidential Early Career Award (PECASE).

Address: Engineering Education (0218), Blacksburg, Virginia24061; telephone: (�1) 540.231.9536; e-mail: [email protected].

Kacy Beddoes is a Ph.D. student in Science and TechnologyStudies at Virginia Tech. Her current research interests are inter-disciplinary studies of gender and engineering education. Sheserves as managing editor of Engineering Studies and as WebEditor of Virginia Tech’s Research in Engineering Studies (RES)group.

Address: 222 Lane Hall (0247), Virginia Tech; Blacksburg, VA24061; e-mail: [email protected].


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