Williams, B., & Figueiredo, J. (2016, June), Engineering Practice as an Emerging Field of Inquiry: a Historical Overview  Paper presented at 2016 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition, New Orleans, Louisiana. 10.18260/p.26660

\bibitem{asee_peer_26660}
  Williams, B., \& Figueiredo, J. (2016, June), \emph{Engineering Practice as an Emerging Field of Inquiry: a Historical Overview}
  Paper presented at 2016 ASEE Annual Conference \& Exposition, New Orleans, Louisiana.
  10.18260/p.26660

Bill Williams and Jose Figueiredo.  "Engineering Practice as an Emerging Field of Inquiry: a Historical Overview".  2016 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition, New Orleans, Louisiana, 2016, June.  ASEE Conferences, 2016.  https://peer.asee.org/26660 Internet.  17 May, 2024

\bibitem{asee_peer_26660}
  Bill Williams and Jose Figueiredo.
  "Engineering Practice as an Emerging Field of Inquiry: a Historical Overview".
  \emph{2016 ASEE Annual Conference \& Exposition, New Orleans, Louisiana, 2016, June}.
  ASEE Conferences, 2016.
  https://peer.asee.org/26660 Internet.  17 May, 2024

@INPROCEEDINGS{asee_peer_26660
author = "Bill Williams and Jose Figueiredo"
title = "Engineering Practice as an Emerging Field of Inquiry: a Historical Overview"
booktitle = "2016 ASEE Annual Conference \& Exposition"
year = "2016"
month = "June"
address = "New Orleans, Louisiana"
publisher = "ASEE Conferences"
note = {https://peer.asee.org/26660}
number = {10.18260/p.26660}
}

TY  - CPAPER
AB  - Perception of the nature of engineering practice is an aspect of technology literacy of direct interest to engineering educators, one that impacts a variety of actors: potential and present engineering students, engineering faculty and the general public.  For much of the twentieth century there was a broad consensus that what engineers do is apply engineering science to solve technical problems. However from the 1970’s onwards there has been an accumulating body of empirical research which strongly suggests that we also need to consider the sociotechnical dimension to be able to describe engineering work. Furthermore since the beginning of the twenty first century there are notable signs of the emergence of engineering practice studies as a distinct and evidence-based area of study.
The authors present a position paper which proposes that engineering practice studies can claim to be an emergent and increasingly important field of inquiry, one that has a significant contribution to make to decisions about knowledge and skill development of engineering professionals and to the training of future engineers. We aim to demonstrate the value of promoting an informed discourse about this field based on the small but growing body of empirical data on workplace practice that already exists scattered through a range of disciplinary areas. 
The emergence of this field of inquiry is concisely exemplified using Fensham’s framework to map significant lines of research currently being carried out in various parts of the world.  This recent emergence is then put in perspective by setting out a timeline of empirical studies of engineering practice carried out in the US, Europe and Australia from the 19th century to today. Finally, significant implications for educators of the empirical findings from of this field are set out.

AU  - Bill Williams
AU  - Jose Figueiredo
CY  - New Orleans, Louisiana
DA  - 2016/06/26
PB  - ASEE Conferences
TI  - Engineering Practice as an Emerging Field of Inquiry: a Historical Overview
UR  - https://peer.asee.org/26660
DO  - 10.18260/p.26660
ER  -