Impact of the Emerging Engineering Education Research and Innovation Community

Elizabeth Litzler, Ph.D., is the director of the University of Washington Center for Evaluation and Research for STEM Equity (UW CERSE) and an affiliate assistant professor of sociology. She has been at UW working on STEM Equity issues for more than 15 years. Dr. Litzler is a member of ASEE, incoming chair of the ASEE Committee on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, and a former board member of the Women in Engineering ProActive Network (WEPAN). Her research interests include the educational climate for students, faculty, and staff in science and engineering, assets based approaches to STEM equity, and gender and race stratification in education and the workforce.

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Jeremi S. London Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University

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Dr. Jeremi London is an Assistant Professor in the Engineering Education Department at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University. London is a mixed methods researcher with interests in research impact, cyberlearning, and instructional change in STEM Education. Prior to being a faculty member, London worked at the National Science Foundation, GE Healthcare, and Anheuser-Busch. She earned B.S. and M.S. degrees in Industrial Engineering, and a Ph.D. in Engineering Education from Purdue University.

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Julia M. Williams Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology

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Dr. Julia M. Williams is Professor of English at Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology. Her research areas include technical communication, assessment, accreditation, and the development of change management strategies for faculty and staff. Her articles have appeared in the Journal of Engineering Education, International Journal of Engineering Education, IEEE Transactions on Professional Communication, and Technical Communication Quarterly, among others.

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Jennifer M. Case Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University

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Jennifer Case is Head and Professor in the Department of Engineering Education at Virginia Tech. She holds an honorary position at the University of Cape Town. Her research on the student experience of learning, focusing mainly on science and engineering education, has been published across a range of journal articles in higher education and her recent book, Researching student learning in higher education: A social realist approach published in 2013 by Routledge. She holds an academic development post in the Department of Chemical Engineering at UCT, and teaches in the undergraduate programme there. She is a coordinating editor for the international journal Higher Education and a co-editor for the Routledge/SRHE series Research into Higher Education.

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Abstract

The Engineering Education departments at three large public universities are collaborating on an NSF-funded program to document the impact of the emerging EER&I community. This paper is a report on what has been learned to date. Goals of the program include (1) identifying the broader EER&I network, (2) identifying examples of EER&I impact, (3) organizing and hosting a summit of EER&I leaders to develop a systematic process for documenting the impact of EER&I, (4) piloting the process, and (5) compiling and disseminating best practices. Members of the community have been identified, including many who are conducting engineering education research without being part of a formal engineering education program, and some examples of the impact of engineering education research have been gathered. The summit has been held, and a process for documenting the impact of EER&I has been proposed. Results of the summit include a range of possible metrics that can be used to document EER&I impact and ways to communicate that impact. Some pilots have been conducted at the three collaborating schools and several other sites, and a few institutions are now preparing documentation. Results of the summit and the pilots will be shared. In their pilots, engineering education programs have been able to collect and analyze data that describe their efforts to impact how engineering is taught at the university level. Quantitative metrics include research expenditures, publications, number of graduates, positions graduates hold, faculty leadership in groups that influence engineering education policy, and so on. It has proven to be more difficult to demonstrate a direct causal relationship between those efforts and actual changes in the way engineering is taught in the traditional disciplines. The path to each change seems to be unique, and the most effective way to convey the impact is through telling each individual story. Thus, ongoing work focuses on generating a range of qualitative approaches that can be used to document and analyze these change processes. Collaborators on the NSF program are currently piloting ways to convey those stories to the many audiences interested in the results.

Citation
Format

Fentiman, A. W., & Riley, D. M., & Litzler, E., & London, J. S., & Williams, J. M., & Case, J. M. (2020, June), Impact of the Emerging Engineering Education Research and Innovation Community Paper presented at 2020 ASEE Virtual Annual Conference Content Access, Virtual On line . 10.18260/1-2--34759

TY - CPAPER
AB - The Engineering Education departments at three large public universities are collaborating on an NSF-funded program to document the impact of the emerging EER&amp;amp;I community. This paper is a report on what has been learned to date. Goals of the program include (1) identifying the broader EER&amp;amp;I network, (2) identifying examples of EER&amp;amp;I impact, (3) organizing and hosting a summit of EER&amp;amp;I leaders to develop a systematic process for documenting the impact of EER&amp;amp;I, (4) piloting the process, and (5) compiling and disseminating best practices. Members of the community have been identified, including many who are conducting engineering education research without being part of a formal engineering education program, and some examples of the impact of engineering education research have been gathered. The summit has been held, and a process for documenting the impact of EER&amp;amp;I has been proposed. Results of the summit include a range of possible metrics that can be used to document EER&amp;amp;I impact and ways to communicate that impact. Some pilots have been conducted at the three collaborating schools and several other sites, and a few institutions are now preparing documentation. Results of the summit and the pilots will be shared. In their pilots, engineering education programs have been able to collect and analyze data that describe their efforts to impact how engineering is taught at the university level. Quantitative metrics include research expenditures, publications, number of graduates, positions graduates hold, faculty leadership in groups that influence engineering education policy, and so on. It has proven to be more difficult to demonstrate a direct causal relationship between those efforts and actual changes in the way engineering is taught in the traditional disciplines. The path to each change seems to be unique, and the most effective way to convey the impact is through telling each individual story. Thus, ongoing work focuses on generating a range of qualitative approaches that can be used to document and analyze these change processes. Collaborators on the NSF program are currently piloting ways to convey those stories to the many audiences interested in the results.
AU - Audeen W. Fentiman
AU - Donna M. Riley
AU - Elizabeth Litzler
AU - Jeremi S. London
AU - Julia M. Williams
AU - Jennifer M. Case
CY - Virtual On line
DA - 2020/06/22
PB - ASEE Conferences
TI - Impact of the Emerging Engineering Education Research and Innovation Community
UR - https://peer.asee.org/34759
DO - 10.18260/1-2--34759
ER -