Ethical Validation: Reframing Research Ethics in Engineering Education Research To Improve Research Quality

Background

Prior to undertaking studies involving human subjects, engineering education researchers are required to consider the ethical implications of their work by obtaining approval from an ethical review board.

Purpose/Hypothesis

Recent research suggests that some unintended consequences of this procedure are that it externalizes and inflexibly formalizes ethical considerations, and limits researchers’ readiness to systematically identify and consider ethical questions that arise while conducting research.

Design/Method

We used a collaborative inquiry approach to examine such ethically important moments that emerged in two of our interpretive research projects. We drew on Walther, Sochacka, and Kellam's framework for interpretive research quality as the departure point for our shared sense‐making process.

Results

Our explorations revealed two insights that connect research ethics to research quality in novel ways. First, we found that the quality of our work improved when we critically explored the intersections between our motivations and intentions for investigating particular research topics and broader cultural agendas and assumptions. Second, we found that when we actively sought to do justice to the participants, co‐investigators, and readers of our research, we were afforded with opportunities to increase the quality of our work, in sometimes quite unexpected ways.

Conclusions

We synthesized the findings from our collaborative inquiry into a process‐oriented model for ethical validation, which we propose as a sixth construct to our prior five‐construct framework for interpretive research quality.     

Quantitative,Qualitative, and Mixed Research Methods in Engineering Education

The purpose of this research review is to open dialog about quantitative, qualitative, and mixed research methods in engineering education research. Our position is that no particular method is privileged over any other. Rather, the choice must be driven by the research questions. For each approach we offer a definition, aims, appropriate research questions, evaluation criteria, and examples from the Journal of Engineering Education. Then, we present empirical results from a prestigious international conference on engineering education research. Participants expressed disappointment in the low representation of qualitative studies; nonetheless, there appeared to be a strong preference for quantitative methods, particularly classroom‐based experiments. Given the wide variety of issues still to be explored within engineering education, we expect that quantitative, qualitative, and mixed approaches will be essential in the future. We encourage readers to further investigate alternate research methods by accessing some of our sources and collaborating across education/social science and engineering disciplinary boundaries.     

中卫模式产业集群质量协同管理评价研究

首先分析了中卫模式产业集群特点及核心企业与卫星企业之间质量协同管理内容,通过问卷调查和专家访谈方法从质量战略、策划与管理体系协同,质量知识与信息协同,质量形成过程质量协同,质量协同管理结果等四个维度建立质量协同管理评价指标体系;其次,采用5级评分法确定了不同评价指标的评分标准,运用序关系分析法(G1)确定各指标权重,给出质量协同管理水平的评价方法;最后以某机床产业集群中某个核心企业及相应的卫星企业为应用对象,对质量协同管理水平进行评价,分析质量协同管理存在的主要问题,提出改进建议.     

QQ Models: Joint Modeling for Quantitative and Qualitative Quality Responses in Manufacturing Systems

A manufacturing system with both quantitative and qualitative (QQ) quality responses (as a QQ system) is widely encountered in many cases. For example, in a lapping process of the semiconductor manufacturing, the quality of wafer’s geometrical characteristics is often measured by the total thickness variation as a quantitative response and the conformity of site total indicator reading as a binary qualitative response. The QQ responses are closely associated with each other in a QQ system, but current methodologies often model the two types of quality responses separately. This article presents a novel modeling approach, called “QQ models,” to jointly model the QQ responses through a constrained likelihood estimation. The QQ models can jointly select significant predictors by incorporating inherent features of QQ systems, leading to accurate variable selection and prediction. Both simulation studies and a case study in a lapping process are used to evaluate the performance of the proposed method. Supplementary materials to this article are available online.     

质量净收益与企业持续质量改进的经济性评价

在原有单纯质量成本的质量经济性评价方法的基础上，提出了质量净收益概念和基于质量净收益的质量经济性评价方法，并结合美国通用电气公司和摩托罗拉等跨国公司的实践，对企业进行持续质量改进的经济性进行了探讨和解释。     

工业产品声品质的评价与分析方法研究

产品声品质是影响产品综合性能的一个重要因素。结合声品质的概念给出了声品质的听觉评价模型,全面阐述了目前声品质评价的主要方法和分析手段。分析了声品质设计的主要步骤,提出了一个比较系统的产品声品质应用流程。为改善产品的声音质量,实现从设计阶段达到产品的声品质目标,提供了参考和依据。     

秦巴山区人居生活质量研究:关注城市发展建设对相关人群的影响

地处秦巴腹地的陕南地区正在开展一项大规模的避险移民工程。此项工程意在通过涵养自然生态、推进地区产业转型和城市就业、加大新城新区建设等以达到防灾、扶贫和提高城乡居民生活水平的目的。本文建议在秦巴山区开展以评估人居生活质量为主题的纵向社会学研究。此项研究主要依靠当地居民从个体视角出发,对生活状况的综合主观评价来衡量移民工程的社会意义。研究重点关注三类人群:已经完成搬迁安置的新移民,尚未搬迁——其中包括在未来有移民意向的农村居民,以及移民迁入地区的原有城镇居民。此项研究可以用于监测移民工程和城乡建设的进展,分析此工程对各个社会群体民生状况的现实影响,并对当地及其他地区政府的后续的政策规划提供参考意见。以此为出发点,本文综述了在社会学领域内生活质量研究的理论发展和研究体系,并针对秦巴山区的具体状况提出了若干建议。     

加权SERVQUAL模型的航班延误服务补救质量评价研究

介绍航班延误和服务质量评价,体现航班延误服务补救质量评价的重要性。通过对旅客的问卷调查,将加权SERVQUAL评价模型应用于航班延误服务补救问题,对航班延误进行服务补救质量评价,最后为航空公司更好地提高航班延误后的服务质量提出了较详细的建议。     

Quality engineering for continuous performance improvement in products and processes: A review and reflections

In the face of stiff and demanding competition internationally, there is a growing resolve in the industrial community to provide the customers and the market in general products and services of superior quality. Quality engineering has been established as an important continuous performance improvement methodology during the last decade. Consequently, numerous developments and innovative methods have been reported in the literature by researchers and practitioners alike. In this paper, a critical appraisal of recent developments, improvisations, and innovations in the field of quality engineering has been made. It is observed that there exists an immense body of knowledge in terms of better approaches, techniques, methodologies, aids, analysis tools, etc. However, most of these are oriented toward product improvement or process improvement in a localized manner, and a systematic approach for the application of quality engineering encompassing all the importnat functions in an organization is lacking. In view of this a comprehensive quality engineering methodology is also proposed in this paper so that the implementation of quality engineering in an organization will be more effective, and the benefits to be achieved will be substantial in real-life situations.     

专业镇中小微企业技术创新服务平台绩效评价与实证研究——以广东省为例

在现有文献关于广东省专业镇中小微企业服务平台评价指标基础上,运用数据包络分析法和德尔菲分析法对指标进行优化,确定一级指标6个,二级指标14个及三级指标40个。运用层次分析法等确定评价指标体系的权重,并以10个典型平台示例进行论证,研究结果基本与实际情况相吻合。