This engineering education research project seeks to synthesize the results of two prior NSF studies done at Pennsylvania State University: "Prototype to Production: Conditions and Processes for Educating the Engineer of 2020" and "Prototyping the Engineer of 2020: A 360-degree Study of Effective Education". The proposed synthesis will enable audiences of educational administrators and national policy makers to understand best practices that contribute to the goals outlined in the National Academy of Engineering's "The Engineer of 2020" (2004) and "Educating the Engineer of 2020" (2006).
The broader significance and importance of this project is to help ensure that best practices in engineering education are broadly adopted by creating a channel for such practices to flow to administrators and policy makers. This project overlaps with NSF's strategic goals of transforming the frontiers by making investments that lead to emerging new fields of engineering, or shifting existing fields. Additionally NSF's goal of innovating for society is enabled by creating results and research that are useful for society by informing educational policy and practices.
Intellectual Merit This grant supported the dissemination of research findings from two studies, funded by the National Science Foundation, designed to benchmark and explore current educational conditions and processes in undergraduate engineering programs, and to identify effective practices for preparing students for the workplace of the near future. The Prototype-to-Production study (NSF DUE-0618712) surveyed engineering faculty, program chairs, associate deans, undergraduates, and alumni from 31 colleges and universities and 15 community colleges. The study entitled Prototyping the Engineer of 2020 (NSF EEC-0550608) explored engineering education practices through six case studies of exemplary engineering schools that are already educating students who resemble the "engineer of 2020. These studies responded to concerns, expressed in two reports sponsored by the National Academy of Engineering: The Engineer of 2020 and Educating the Engineer of 2020. The reports recommended ways in which engineering education would need to change in response to the needs of a rapidly evolving, technologically fluid, multidisciplinary, and increasingly global workplace. Our studies sought to 1) assess engineering educators’ willingness and capacity to meet the challenges posed by the NAE and the future; 2) identify educational processes that support the kinds of learning outcomes that the workplace of the future demands; and 3) study the extent to which pre-engineering programs in community colleges might provide pathways to bachelor’s degree programs in engineering for a diverse student population. Following the completion of the Prototype-to-Production and Prototyping the Engineer of 2020 studies, our research team applied for another National Science Foundation grant to bring key research findings to the attention of individuals in positions to effect change in engineering schools and in the public policy arena. We developed two publications that (a) highlight key findings from the studies using accessible language and graphical representations, and (b) translate, when appropriate, research to practice with evidence-based examples of effective educational and administrative practices and conditions from six case studies of exemplary engineering education. One of these publications, entitled, 2020 Vision: Progress in Preparing the Engineer of the Future, shares findings from engineering administrators, faculty, undergraduate students, and graduates of four-year engineering programs. When combined, this evidence presents a comprehensive assessment of where and to what extent undergraduate curricula, instructional practices, and co-curricular (out-of-class) programs align with the vision of The Engineer of 2020, as well as how much faculty and administrators buy into this vision. In addition, our findings identify the curricular, instructional and co-curricular experiences that are associated with the development of students’ reports knowledge and skills in engineering design and problem solving, interdisciplinary competence, and contextual competence. The findings from this study are too numerous to summarize here, but the 60-page 2020 Vision report can be accessed from deepblue.lib.umich.edu/handle/2027.42/107642. An executive summary of the findings is found on pages 1 through 5. A second report, America’s Overlooked Engineers: Community Colleges and Diversity in Engineering Education, explored the characteristics and outcomes of students in 15 of the largest pre-engineering programs in community colleges. Because of the rich diversity of their student populations, two-year community colleges are attracting attention as potential reservoirs of the kinds of diverse people and diverse thinking needed in a creative and competitive engineering workforce. This study contrasts three groups of students: community college students who indicated they "probably" or "definitely" would transfer to a four-year school to complete a bachelor’s degree in engineering; transfer students who started in a community college and then transferred into a four-year engineering program at one of the 31 four-year schools we studied; and students who began their engineering studies at those same 31 institutions to examine pathways into baccalaureate degree programs. Combining information on the characteristics and experiences of students in pre-engineering programs with that of community college transfer students who successfully completed four-year programs will help educators and policy makers judge the feasibility and capacity of community colleges to increase diversity in engineering programs and in the workforce. America’s Overlooked Engineers, which summarizes the study’s findings in 12 pages, can be accessed from deepblue.lib.umich.edu/handle/2027.42/107460. In August 2014, we mailed copies of both reports to the deans of U.S. engineering schools and policy-makers interested in engineering education to put this information in the hands of concerned decision-makers who could make it matter. Broader Impacts The "engineer of 2020" studies compiled evidence of the current capacity of U.S. engineering programs to achieve the kinds of educational outcomes associated with the engineering workforce of the future. The two reports developed through this grant from the National Science Foundation, 2020 Vision and America’s Overlooked Engineers, brought information on the current state of undergraduate engineering education and the potential of pre-engineering programs in community colleges to diversify engineering programs and the engineering workforce to an audience of high-level administrators and policy makers who can act to make change happen.
