Early-Concept Exploratory Research on the Professional Formation of Engineers' Conceptions of the Public

公众工程师职业观念形成的早期探索性研究

• 批准号: 1551152
• 负责人: Nathan Canney
• 金额: $ 10.67万
• 依托单位: Seattle University
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2015
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2015-09-01 至 2017-08-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1551152&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Early; Concept; Exploratory; Research; Professional

The relationship between engineers and their ultimate client, the often-invisible public, lies at the heart of the engineering profession's identity and mission. Today, the over 2 million practicing engineers in the US routinely make complex and critical decisions with significant implications for the public's health, safety, and welfare in a relational vacuum, where publics are imagined rather than engaged with. Postulating that different conceptions of the public reinforce different professional ideologies, identities, and forms of practice, this research seeks to examine how engineers see their relationship to the public, what formal and informal mechanisms form those views, and how existing conceptions are expressed in interactions with diverse publics. This work constitutes a first step toward deeper insight into how the belief structures created by engineers' conceptions of the public enhance or weaken engineering practice and, ultimately, how they support or undermine the profession's aspiration to promote the social good. Results will provide a basis from which engineering education and the engineering profession at large could shift to include a reimagined view of the public that renders publics visible, underscores the technical and moral relevance of their voices, and gives them a well-defined role in the engineering enterprise. By extension, this research will make possible a revised understanding of engineers' role in society.This research is driven by the hypothesis that engineering education promotes conceptions that distance engineers from the publics they serve and compromise their ability to promote the social good in locally desirable and socially just ways. The proposed study initiates research in engineers' conceptions of the public - what these conceptions are, how they form, and how they are expressed in interactions with diverse publics during boundary work - through a single case study methodology. The research design includes the following data sources: 1) official engineering documents that frame the profession's discourse around engineers' relationship with society, 2) interviews with engineering students, faculty, and practicing professionals, and 3) interviews with members of mobilized publics who have extensive experience - positive and/or negative - interacting with engineers. The analysis will involve two qualitative research techniques to identify prevalent engineering conceptions, and will culminate in data triangulation to determine points of convergence and divergence between how engineers view the public and how members of diverse publics view themselves. This work is exploratory, aiming to build a deeper understanding about engineers' conceptions of the public. The goal is to set a foundation from which educational interventions that foster mutually edifying collaborations between engineers and society can be explored, developed, and implemented.

工程师和他们的最终客户，通常是看不见的公众之间的关系，是工程专业的身份和使命的核心。今天，美国有超过200万的执业工程师，他们经常在关系真空中做出复杂而关键的决定，对公众的健康，安全和福利产生重大影响，在这种真空中，公众是想象出来的，而不是参与其中。假设不同的公众概念加强了不同的专业意识形态，身份和实践形式，本研究旨在探讨工程师如何看待他们与公众的关系，形成这些观点的正式和非正式机制，以及现有的概念是如何表达与不同的公众互动。这项工作构成了第一步，更深入地了解工程师对公众的概念所创造的信念结构如何增强或削弱工程实践，以及最终如何支持或破坏该行业促进社会公益的愿望。结果将提供一个基础，从工程教育和工程专业在整个可以转移到包括一个重新想象的公众，使公众可见的观点，强调他们的声音的技术和道德相关性，并给他们一个明确的作用，在工程企业。推而广之，这项研究将有可能修订的理解工程师在social.This研究的假设，即工程教育促进工程师的概念，从他们所服务的公众和妥协的能力，以促进当地可取的和社会公正的方式，以促进社会利益。拟议中的研究启动工程师的公众概念的研究-这些概念是什么，它们是如何形成的，以及它们是如何表达在与不同的公众在边界工作的互动-通过一个单一的案例研究方法。研究设计包括以下数据来源：1）官方工程文件，围绕工程师与社会的关系框架的专业话语，2）与工程专业的学生，教师和执业专业人士的访谈，和3）与动员公众的成员谁拥有丰富的经验-积极和/或消极-与工程师互动的访谈。分析将涉及两种定性研究技术，以确定流行的工程概念，并将最终在数据三角测量，以确定工程师如何看待公众和不同的公众成员如何看待自己之间的收敛点和分歧点。这项工作是探索性的，旨在建立一个更深入的了解工程师的公众概念。我们的目标是建立一个基础，从教育干预，促进工程师和社会之间的相互启发的合作，可以探索，开发和实施。