Engineers and the Metrics of Progress

工程师和进度指标

• 批准号: 0549442
• 负责人: Gary Downey
• 金额: $ 17.19万
• 依托单位: Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2005
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2005-09-15 至 2008-08-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=0549442&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Engineers; Metrics; Progress

To understand the relationship between engineers and national identity, the PIs examine the debates among engineers over the contents of engineering education. Such debates are simultaneously about what should count as engineering knowledge and who engineers should be as people. The PIs will spend eighteen months collecting and analyzing data on what has counted as engineers and engineering knowledge in eight different countries. The project tests the descriptive hypothesis that distinct patterns of engineering identities and valued forms of engineering knowledge emerged, in part, as responses to nationally distinct metrics of progress. An initial outcome from the project is a book-length, comparative historical ethnography of engineers and the metrics of progress. Methodologically, the project relies on ethnographic interviews, participant observation, and extensive collection of primary and secondary documents to map engineering education archaeologically from the present to the past and metrics of progress historically from the past to the present. Mapping engineering education involves outlining current debates and reform movements in engineering education and documenting the emergence of the principal structures and emphases in engineering education. Mapping metrics of progress involves exploring the emergence and evolution of the nation and national identity, modes of education at all levels, and dominant popular images of progress. A second outcome is expanded research collaboration among Virginia Tech, Colorado School of Mines, and Taiwan's National Tsing Hua. This project calls attention to the national and transnational importance of engineers and engineering knowledge by using the concept of professional identity to re-theorize engineering. The project will help policymakers in engineering education both inside and outside the U.S. better engage and participate in national and transnational deliberations over educational policies. Over the past two decades, virtually every country in the world that produces engineering graduates has been rethinking and restructuring the contents of engineering education, often implementing dramatic changes. This project will conduct the spadework that will put the uniqueness of the current situation in historical perspective, documenting how globalization and the dominant contemporary logic of economic competitiveness have different implications for engineers and engineering education in different countries. Accounting for national differences in engineers and engineering knowledge is a key prerequisite to understanding contemporary movements to globalize engineering education.

为了了解工程师和国家认同感之间的关系，私人投资者调查了工程师之间关于工程教育内容的辩论。这样的争论同时也是关于什么应该被算作工程知识，以及工程师应该是谁的问题。PI将花费18个月的时间收集和分析八个不同国家的工程师和工程知识的数据。该项目测试了描述性假设，即出现了不同的工程身份模式和有价值的工程知识形式，部分原因是对国家不同的进展指标的反应。该项目的初步成果是一本书长的、可比较的工程师历史民族志和进步的衡量标准。在方法上，该项目依靠人种学访谈、参与者观察和大量收集初级和二级文献，以考古的方式绘制从现在到过去的工程学教育地图，以及从历史上从过去到现在的进步衡量标准。测绘工程教育包括概述当前工程教育中的争论和改革运动，并记录工程教育中主要结构和重点的出现。绘制进步的衡量标准涉及探索国家和民族认同的出现和演变、各级教育模式以及占主导地位的流行进步形象。第二个成果是扩大了弗吉尼亚理工大学、科罗拉多矿业学院和台湾国立清华大学之间的研究合作。这个项目通过使用专业认同的概念来重新理论性工程，唤起人们对工程师和工程知识在国家和国际上的重要性的关注。该项目将帮助美国国内外的工程教育政策制定者更好地接触和参与国家和跨国教育政策的讨论。在过去20年里，世界上几乎每一个培养出工科毕业生的国家都在重新思考和重组工程教育的内容，经常实施戏剧性的变化。该项目将进行基础工作，将当前情况的独特性放在历史的角度，记录全球化和占主导地位的当代经济竞争力逻辑如何对不同国家的工程师和工程教育产生不同的影响。考虑各国在工程师和工程知识方面的差异是理解当代工程教育全球化运动的关键前提。