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ASSESSING THE IMPACT OF CONTINUING ENGINEERING EDUCATION Meg Karakekes, Susan Anderson, Jim Moharam, Ray Chen The University of Texas at Austin/SPIE/University of Central Florida/The University of Texas at Austin

I. INTRODUCTION

Continuing education is critical for engineers and the organizations that employ them (Gomes, Houche- Mong, Houche-Mong and Wakelin, 199 1; Wolff, 1993). However, findings on the impact of continuing engineering education are mixed. Social Research Inc. (1969)4 examined characteristics of engineers laid off by a major corporation. The common denominator was that none had taken part in continuing education during the preceding six years. Klus and Jones (1975)4 found a direct statistical relationship between individual engineers’ salaries and their participation in continuing education. Dalton and Thompson (1971) however, found no relationship between performance ratings of engineers and participation in continuing education. The limited research on the impact of continuing education contributes to the confusion.

._Current trends in continuing education are encouraging more attention to this area of inquiry. Potential participants and sponsoring employers are asking for proof of value for their time and monetary investment. The National Alliance for Photonics Education in Manufacturing’s (NAPEM) mission is to enhance the national training effort by providing regionally-based educational programs focused on applying photonics to commercial applications. Only by assessing the impact of its educational programs can NAPEM determine if and how its continuing education offerings enable engineers to be more effective. Table 1 identifies NAPEM members.

Table 1: Alliance Members and Manufacturing Areas Served Alliance Members Manufacturing Area -. University of Central Florida Dual-use & End-to-end System Testing Industrial Technology Institute (Michigan) Optical Metrology and Durable Goods University of Connecticut Laser Materials Processing The University of Texas at Austin Semiconductor The International Society for Optical Engineering (SPIE) (NAPEM is partially funded through a federal Technology Reinvestment Project grant.)

Additionally, each regional program recruits a Curriculum Advisory Board. NAPEM unites the strengths of a professional society, educators, engineering managers, engineers, and human resource personnel in designing, implementing, and evaluating experimental continuing education programs. This paper focuses on assessing the impact of NAPEM’s regional pilot programs for the semiconductor, and dual-use and end-to-end systems testing industries. (These programs piloted before the other regional NAPEM.)

~’tixi$! 1996 ASEE Annual Conference Proceedings ‘.

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Anderson, S., & Chen, R., & Karakekes, M., & Moharam, J. (1996, June), Assessing The Impact Of Continuing Engineering Education Paper presented at 1996 Annual Conference, Washington, District of Columbia. 10.18260/1-2--5892