Conference Session

Professional Skills and the Workplace

Collection

2008 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

James Trevelyan, University of Western Australia

Tagged Divisions

Educational Research and Methods

these signs that engineering education may not be providing graduates with sufficientattributes to commence their careers, it is interesting to observe that little research has beenreported on engineering practice.There are very few recent reports of systematic research on engineering practice, with thepossible exception of certain aspects of engineering design14. Florman5 complained that "Theaverage citizen has very little idea what we do, often confusing us with people who run trainsor take care of boiler rooms." In fact it is still not easy for the interested citizen to find acoherent written account that could provide a comprehensive answer.On reflection, the reason for this gap in the research literature might be explained by therelatively

Conference Session

Faculty Attitudes and Perceptions

Collection

2008 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Sarah Zappe, Pennsylvania State University; Natalia Kapli, Pennsylvania State University

Tagged Divisions

Educational Research and Methods

13.196.3perceptions of active learning and how this relates to perceptions of course effectiveness,feelings of course relevance. This paper will explore three research questions in the context ofan engineering education course focusing on teaching concepts for graduate students. Theseresearch questions and hypotheses follow:1. What is the relationship between students’ perceived helpfulness of the course activities andtheir perception of active learning?We hypothesize that those students who have a positive perception of active learning techniqueswill also find the activities used in a specific course to be helpful. Given that the majority of theactivities used in the course are designed to have students actively involved with their learning, itis likely

Conference Session

SPECIAL SESSION: Describing the Engineering Student Learning Experience Based on CAEE Findings: Part 1

Collection

2008 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Cynthia Atman, University of Washington; Lorraine Fleming, Howard University; Sheri Sheppard, Stanford University; Ronald Miller, Colorado School of Mines; Karl Smith, University of Minnesota; Reed Stevens, University of Washington; Ruth Streveler, Purdue University; Christine Loucks-Jaret, University of Washington; Dennis Lund, University of Washington

Tagged Divisions

Educational Research and Methods

educations and explore how misalignments betweenuniversity and workplace practices impact preparation and retention.This paper presents recent research results on the engineering student learning experience fromthe multiple campuses involved in the study. These summarized results—from the students'perspective(s)—present initial conclusions about significant themes. In the longer run, thesethemes will be synthesized across the results of this large study. Among other ideas, theseresults question the veracity of the pipeline metaphor that has been used to describe students’navigation through their education. The “leaky pipeline” metaphor has also been questioned byothers, including Watson and Froyd26 recently, who are calling for an alternative view

Conference Session

Institutional and Curricular Reform

Collection

2008 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Jeffrey Froyd, Texas A&M University; Charles Henderson, Western Michigan University; Jean Layne, Texas A&M University; Andrea Beach, Western Michigan University; Noah Finkelstein, University of Colorado; R. Sam Larson, Kaiser Permanente Colorado

Tagged Divisions

Educational Research and Methods

interviews with physics faculty, some of whom had beliefs thatwere aligned with theories emerging from physics education research, but had not adoptedresearch-supported pedagogies, found several structural barriers to adoption of research-supported pedagogies. These included anticipated resistance from students, the one-size-fits-allschedule of courses that meet three fixed-length times a week for a semester, amount of materialthat is expected to be covered in a single course, department norms that support traditionalapproaches, and lack of time (see above). Student resistance to pedagogies that expect moreactive participation in class has been reported elsewhere47,48. Cooper et al.48 offer the followingstrategies to address anticipated student

Conference Session

Faculty Attitudes and Perceptions

Collection

2008 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Susan Lord, University of San Diego; Michelle Camacho, University of San Diego; Christina Aneshansley, University of San Diego

Tagged Divisions

Educational Research and Methods

According to A. Kimball Romney, cultural consensusanalysis provides researchers with a valid, replicable, and objective method to study socialgroups and their beliefs.12 In fact, this method has been used across a wide variety of disciplines.In the field of cross-cultural management, consensus analysis has been used to measure sharedknowledge among diverse members of business organizations. 13 Medical anthropologists haveused the method to explore intracultural variation among physicians10 and patients.14, 15 Otherresearchers have used the method to explore variation among, for example, experts andnovices,16, 17 women and men,18, 19 target populations for marketing research,20 and parent-teacher interactions.21 We use this method to measure whether

Conference Session

Institutional and Curricular Reform

Collection

2008 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

David Goldberg, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign; Andreas Cangellaris, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign; Michael Loui, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign; Raymond Price, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign; Bruce Litchfield, Univ Of Illinois-Urbana Champaign

Tagged Divisions

Educational Research and Methods

innovations did not spread widely, and arecent report13 explores the reasons for the failure of those efforts to take hold. The reportsuggested that a particularly important factor in the lack of diffusion is the culture of researchdominant in many engineering schools. The report suggests a number of cultural changes to tryto place more emphasis on undergraduate education, including tenure reform and changedincentive structures, but three types of organizational response to the need for increasedundergraduate emphasis in practice are common: the standalone program, the engineeringeducation department, and the interdisciplinary program or institute.Standalone undergraduate programs ensure that undergraduate education is a primary focus ofthe