CAREER: Becoming Boundary Spanners: Investigating, Enhancing, and Assessing the Experiences of Early Career Engineers

这个由CAREER项目支持的工程教育研究项目将使早期职业研究人员能够研究工程学位课程如何将学生培养成能够跨组织、学科、地理、人口、利益相关者和其他边界进行沟通、协作和协调的边界跨越者。这些技能对于工程师在全球化劳动力中有效发挥作用是越来越必要的。该项目将调查学位课程和劳动力中跨界能力的本质，并探讨学位课程如何提高这些能力。本研究采用顺序混合方法设计，并将开发一种方法来评估工程实践中边界跨越能力的关键维度。这个项目更广泛的意义和重要性源于这个项目试图将一系列21世纪的技能整合成一个可测量的能力，然后开发评估和教授这种能力的方法。这些尝试可以通过告知学位课程如何减少获得学位的时间，同时保持毕业工程师具备当今劳动力所需技能的能力，从而产生系统性影响。该项目与NSF的战略目标重叠，即通过培养具有新能力和专业知识的工程人才来改变前沿。此外，通过支持创新学习系统的发展，NSF实现了为社会创新的目标。

This engineering education research project supported by the CAREER program will enable an early career researcher to investigate how engineering degree programs can develop students to act as boundary spanners who can communicate, collaborate, and coordinate across organizational, disciplinary, geographic, demographic, stakeholder, and other boundaries. Such skills are increasing necessary for engineers to function effectively in a globalized workforce. The project will investigate the nature of boundary-spanning competencies both in degree programs and the workforce, as well as explore how degree programs can enhance these competencies. The study uses a sequential mixed-methods design and will develop a measure to assess key dimensions of boundary spanning competence in engineering practice.The broader significance and importance of this project arises from the project's attempt to integrate a range of 21st Century skills into one measurable competency, then develop ways to assess and teach this competency. Such attempts can have systemic impact by informing degree programs about ways to reduce time to degree while maintaining the ability to graduate engineers with skills needed by today's workforce. This project overlaps with NSF's strategic goals of transforming the frontiers through preparation of an engineering workforce with new capabilities and expertise. Additionally NSF's goal of innovating for society is enabled by supporting the development of innovative learning systems.