This engineering education research project will support a workshop for emerging leaders and mid-career faculty to build support networks and strategize about leadership directions in the emerging research discipline of engineering education. The workshop builds on a social identity theoretical framework to facilitate membership in a social group, defining the group of emerging leaders in engineering education research, and exploring how differences between groups can be acknowledged and managed.
The broader significance and importance of this project arises from the potential impact on the engineering education research community, and thus the long term impact the research discipline can have on the STEM workforce. 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.