Research
Engineering education research is research on how people learn engineering content. It is an interdisciplinary research area requiring expertise from engineering, education, and other social sciences. Thus, the PhD program in ENGE at Virginia Tech has three main clusters of coursework: engineering, education, and engineering education. Our engineering education courses are specially designed to help students make connections which relate education concepts to engineering settings.
Graduates of an engineering education PhD program can find employment as:
- faculty in a department of engineering education
- faculty in another engineering department, particularly at an undergraduate institution
- corporate trainers
- public servants and policymakers
- staff in college of engineering dean’s offices
- directors of engineering diversity programs
- K-12 teachers (with the appropriate additional credentials)
- and many other positions requiring coordination of engineering and education components
The PhD is a research degree, so even ENGE PhD candidates who are preparing for teaching careers need to do a systematic research study. Depending on the research design, this might be done in a single classroom with a relatively small group of students. Criteria distinguishing research from other engineering education improvement activities (such as scholarly teaching, scholarship of teaching and learning, or assessment) would be:
- Build on prior work by citing the experiences and results of other engineering educators.
- Pose questions or hypotheses that are of broad interest to the engineering education community (e.g., “Which types of projects best facilitate student teamwork?” Is better than “How can I get my students in ENGE 1024 to work together better?”).
- Employ an explicit educational or engineering theory to guide data collection and analysis.
- Provide a coherent and explicit chain of reasoning, with methods which address the research question, variables and analyses guided by theory, and full consideration of alternative interpretations of the findings.
- Replicate results from prior studies in similar settings to evaluate generalizability or transferability across specific settings.
- Publish or present results so that they can be evaluated and replicated by the scholarly community.
These criteria were adapted from Scientific Research in Education.
The Department of Engineering Education at Virginia Tech has cultivated core research strengths in professional skills (interdisciplinarity, communication, cross-cultural competence), design education, and first-year courses (particularlylearning technology). Retention, diversity, and assessment are important foundational concepts in the field of engineering education; as such, they are elements of all of our projects.Most of our teaching responsibilities (including teaching assistantships offered to graduate students) are in the first-year engineering program, but we maintain connections with all the engineering departments. Levels we concentrate our research on are undergraduates, professional engineers, graduate students and faculty.
Read more about individual faculty research interests.
Recent Grants and Awards
| Primary Investigator | Program | Title | Start Date | Award Amount |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Paretti, Marie | NSF ENGINEERING EDUCATION | CAREER: An Exploration of Faculty Expertise and Student Learning in Capstone Experiences | 01/01/2009 | $405,308.00 |
| Watford, Bev | NSF S-STEM: SCHLR SCI TECH ENG&MATH | IDEAS - A STEM Scholarship Program | 07/15/2008 | $600,000.00 |
| Borrego, Maura | CCLI-Phase I (Exploratory) | Expanding Global Engineering Education Research Collaboration | 3/15/2008 | $150,001.00 |
| Johri, Aditya | ITR-CreativeIT | Examining Creativity with IT in Engineering Design (X-CITED) | 8/1/2008 | $193,641.00 |
Recent Publications
Borrego, M., & Newswander, L. K. (2008). Characteristics of Successful Cross-disciplinary Engineering Education Collaborations. Journal of Engineering Education, 97(2), 123-134.
Borrego, M., Streveler, R. A., Miller, R. L., & Smith, K. A. (2008). A New Paradigm for a New Field: Communicating Representations of Engineering Education Research. Journal of Engineering Education, 97(2), 147-162.
McNair, L., M. Paretti, and A. Kakar*, “Case Study of Prior Knowledge: Expectations and Identity Construction in Interdisciplinary, Cross-Cultural Virtual Collaboration,” in special issue of International Journal of Engineering Education: Design and Engineering Education in a Flat World, edited by Clive Dym. Vol. 24, No. 2, 2008.
Paretti, M.C., and L.D. McNair, “Communicating in Global Virtual Teams,” Handbook of Research on Virtual Workplaces and the New Nature of Business Practices, edited by Zemliansky, P., and St. Amant, K. Hershey, PA: Idea Group, 2008.Terpenny J., Goff RM., Lohani VK., Mullin J., Lo J. "Preparing Globally and Socially-conscious Engineers: International and Human-centered Design Projects and Activities in the First Year". International Journal of Engineering Education, Vol. 24, No. 2, pp 409-419. 2008.