CAREER: Personal Epistemology in Engineering Education

调查工程师和学生如何理解和使用他们自己的知识美国目前面临着许多挑战，从开发新能源到管理不断增加的医疗成本，这需要新的解决方案。与此同时，技术变革的步伐也在迅速加快，因此，现有的工具和目前面临的挑战与几年后将出现的不同。因此，工程师的教育必须包括教他们以新的方式使用现有的知识来解决意想不到的问题。本研究调查学生和工程师如何理解他们自己的知识，因此我们将能够更好地解决学生现有的知识模型，并帮助他们发展成为未来更敏捷，更高效的工程师。（即他们关于了解某事意味着什么的假设，以及什么算作知识）通过他们在工程教育和实践中的经验发展。 当学生学习，教授教学，管理人员不断改进工作时，他们都是从自己的个人认识论出发，对知识和确定性如何产生，共享和重新形成做出基本假设。 特别是，他们都对工程的认识论和工程的认识方式的特征做出了假设。 目前，关于工程实践的认识论假设在很大程度上是不言而喻的和未经检验的。目前的研究表明，许多教师在不同的假设下运作的知识，这些差异限制了他们的潜力，发展或共同的目标合作。 本计画将使用访谈与主题分析来揭示工程系学生与教师的个人认识论，并协助他们适应工程实务的认识论需求。 至关重要的是，中央利益相关者开发工具和资源，讨论自己和他人的个人认识论，以实现工程教育的目标，并确保这些目标仍然面向实现重大的社会利益。 本计画的实际目标可表述为四个具体目标：（1）描述工程系学生与实习工程师的个人认识论;（2）批判性地分析学生个人认识论在工程教育与实践背景下的意涵;（3）反覆发展、实施与评估工程内容课程中认识论学习的教材与方法;（4）在工程教育者和工程教育研究者中发展对个人认识论的更广泛的理解。

Investigating How Engineers and Students Understand and Use Their Own KnowledgeThe US currently faces a number of challenges, from developing new sources of energy to managing increasing health costs - which require new approaches for their solutions. The pace of technological change is rapidly increasing at the same time, such that the tools available and the challenges now being faced are not the same ones that will be present in only a few years. Thus, it is imperative that the education of engineers includes teaching them to use existing knowledge in new ways to tackle unexpected problems. This study investigates how students and engineers understand their own knowledge, so we will be better able to address students' existing knowledge models and help them develop into more agile, efficient engineers of the future.The goal of this project is to understand how students' personal epistemologies (i.e. their assumptions about what it means to know something, and what counts as knowledge) develop through their experiences in engineering education and practice. As students learn, professors teach, and administrators work toward constant improvement, they are all operating from within their own personal epistemologies and making fundamental assumptions about how knowledge and certainty are generated, shared and re-formed. In particular, they all make assumptions about the epistemology of engineering and what characterizes an engineering way of knowing. Currently, epistemological assumptions about engineering practice are largely unspoken and unexamined. Current research suggests that many faculty members operate under different assumptions about knowledge, and that these differences limit their potential to develop or collaborate toward common goals. This project will use interviews and thematic analysis to bring to light the personal epistemologies of engineering students and faculty, and help orient them to the epistemological demands of engineering practice. It is essential that central stakeholders develop tools and resources to discuss their own and others' personal epistemologies to achieve the goals of engineering education, and to make sure that those goals remain oriented to achieving significant social good. The practical goals of this project can be expressed as four specific aims: (1) Characterize the personal epistemologies of engineering students and practicing engineers; (2) Critically analyze the implications of students' personal epistemologies in the contexts of engineering education and practice; (3) Iteratively develop, implement and assess materials and methods for epistemological learning in engineering content courses, and; (4) Develop broader understanding of personal epistemologies among engineering educators and engineering education researchers.