Collaborative Research: Reform and Governance in Engineering Education

本项目探讨了工程专业的结构及其机构构成，在美国实践中，既能塑造又能限制重塑工程教育的努力。这项研究既有历史意义，也有当代意义。它考察了改进和法规影响工程教育的不同方式的广泛历史，从早期进步时代围绕最佳实践的调查和报告建立的教育改革传统，到围绕学生学习成果建立的最新形式的认证制度。除了探索这些管理工程教育的不同方法的历史渊源外，该项目还将采访工程教育家、教育政策制定者和专业工程师，以了解当代机构环境中的政策制定和认证功能。该项目将为工程教育工作者和政策制定者提供更好地塑造和控制我们的工程教育体系的能力，从而有助于理解STEM劳动力的发展。这将对我们在竞争日益激烈的全球舞台上有效培养熟练的STEM劳动力的能力产生广泛影响。在进行这项工作的过程中，该项目既借鉴了各种文献，也为其做出了贡献，包括但不限于职业社会学、组织社会学和科学与工程社会学。使用访谈方法和历史记录，该项目将收集不同机构和利益相关者在工程专业协会中占据不同职位的方式的精确描述；授权机构;认证机构;和工程教育机构（公立和私立大学、普通大学、工程学院以及文理学院和少数民族服务机构内的嵌入式STEM项目）。分析面试记录的正式技术（内容分析）将被用来准确地描述不同的参与者如何为美国工程教育的复杂制度生态做出贡献和导航。这种正式的理解将有助于美国工程教育的有效治理。

This project addresses the ways in which the structure of the engineering profession, and its institutional makeup, both enable and limit efforts to shape and reshape engineering education as practiced within the United States. The study is both historical and contemporary. It examines the broad history of the different ways in which improvements and regulations have impacted engineering education, from the early Progressive Era educational reform traditions built around surveying and reporting on best practices, to the latest form of accreditation regime built around student learning outcomes. In addition to exploring the historical origins of these different approaches to governing engineering education, the project will interview engineering educators, educational policymakers, and professional engineers in order to understand policymaking and accreditation functions within contemporary institutional settings. The project will contribute to understanding STEM workforce development by providing engineering educators and policymakers with the ability to better shape and control our system of engineering education. This will have broad impact on our ability to effectively train a skilled STEM workforce in an increasingly competitive global arena.In pursuing this work, the project both draws on and contributes to a diverse literature, including but not limited to those of the sociology of the professions, organizational sociology, and the sociology of science and engineering. Using interview methods as well as historical records, this project will assemble precise descriptions of the ways in which different institutions and stakeholders engage those occupying different positions within engineering professional societies; licensing bodies; accreditation agencies; and engineering education institutions (public and private universities; general universities, engineering schools, and embedded STEM programs within liberal arts colleges and minority serving institutions). Formal techniques for analyzing the interview transcripts (content analysis) will be utilized to bring forth accurate characterizations of how different players both contribute to and navigate through the complex institutional ecology for engineering education in the United States. This formal understanding will be instrumental to the effective governance of engineering education in the US context.