Environmental Education Research: Implications for Engineering Education

Most environmental education in engineering has pertained to the development of technical environmental engineering skills. However, at the post‐secondary level, the spectrum of environmental education approaches is broad, and no consensus exists on the necessary curricular mix for forming effective environmental professionals. This paper examines the tension between the environmental education goals of knowing and caring: learning to scientifically describe how environmental processes work, and learning to value and feel concern for the environment. Literature on the development of environmental sensitivity is explored for insights into how the environmental sensitivity of engineering students could be assessed and nurtured.     

Virtual Reality: Potential for Research in Engineering Education

Computer systems have recently been developed which enable the prototyping of 3D CAD models as though the designed objects were actually real. The systems incorporate the use of display devices which are worn on the user's head, instrumented gloves which provide tactile feedback and enable the intuitive manipulation of virtual objects, and 3D acoustic displays. For its first major objective, this paper describes such systems, reviews a number of current applications developed for use within the engineering and design community, and suggests future applications. The techniques described should also be applicable to educational research in engineering. The second major objective of this paper is to propose research and instructional adaptations of virtual reality for students involved in engineering design, analysis, and evaluation activities. Additionally, because of the unique “immersive” nature of virtual reality, the potential exists for incorporating transparent data acquisition systems to track and analyze the design process as well as student performance. The potential for enabling research through the development of new and unique instructional methods in engineering education is virtually unlimited.     

庙圷社区厨房中的行动研究和参与式设计

目的根据2015年在中国农村完成的合作研究,对参与式设计过程进行了重要评估。除了设计和社会成果外,研究还针对参与式设计中关键的、概念的和实践的框架,就其产生影响的有效性提出了问题。方法研究涉及了两个互补的学科,即应用社会科学与设计,及其相应的研究方法,即行动研究与参与式设计。这种合作结合了社会性和物质性,并在社区厨房中进行了实践,促使村民发展了新型社会企业和集体组织。结论在复杂的社会过程中重新定位参与式设计,可以帮助将设计重新定义为"社会物质的聚合",并将其与社会情境集成,成为一个复杂的自适应系统,透过知识生成和转化过程(对话,解译,商讨)来显现。此外,这有助于将参与式设计重新定位为针对农村可持续发展的有效工具,进而增进对资源、能力作为本地知识的形式来理解。     

An Introduction to the Community of Professors: The Engineering Education Scholars Workshop

It can be difficult for new faculty to get the information they need on issues such as teaching, advising, and setting up a research program. While some have excellent mentors, others have come to rely on trial and error or word of mouth. In 1996, the NSF Engineering Education Scholars Workshop began at Carnegie Mellon University to address the needs of new and future engineering faculty by:

• ? providing professional teaching development;
• ? offering guidance in supervising graduate students and conducting research;
• ? discussing likely engineering education and research challenges in the 21^st century; and
• ? providing intellectual and social support with colleagues.

After three years, a significant amount of knowledge and experience has been gathered by the workshop co‐chairs. This paper details the structure of the workshop and discusses the underlying principles and implementation to provide guidance for those planning similar workshops.     

The Creative Experience in Engineering Practice: Implications for Engineering Education

This research came about as an outgrowth of mounting concern among industrial leaders about the impact of traditional engineering education on the creative potential of future engineers. As there is little agreement on creativity or how to teach it, we chose to begin the study without assuming a theoretical stance about engineering creativity. Instead, we started with a search for first-hand information about creativity and the creative process experienced by working engineers. This phenomenological research paradigm is a way to describe a complex, dynamic experience without prior assumptions, the results of which can then be used to generate theory or develop a structure directly from the data. This approach has similarities to an expert system development, in which the knowledge and skills of an expert are gathered and processed to develop an understanding of the system or phenomenon. Eight professional engineers from the southeastern United States were selected by peer nomination as examples of (expert) creative engineers. They were trained in different areas of engineering (eg. chemical, mechanical, industrial) and worked in organizations ranging from large international consulting firms to small regional businesses. These subjects were interviewed about their experiences in doing creative work and their thoughts about the creative process, including the impact of relevant educational experiences. These interviews were audio-recorded and subjected to a phenomenological data analytic procedure, which extracted the experiential themes and educational issues. The experiential themes involved in the creative process of working engineers clustered as

• ? Desire and fulfillment (motivation),
• ? Autonomy and support (environment),
• ? Openness and knowledge (tools), and
• ? Engrossment and connection (process).

This paper discusses the implications and application of these themes for curricular innovation in engineering education.     

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.