EAGER Collaborative Proposal: Developing Engineering Faculty as Engineering Education Researchers Through Mentorship

这个探索性的项目调查了工程教师如何通过NSF资助的工程形成赠款研究启动通过指导关系学习成为工程教育研究人员。这项研究的结果被用来开发培训材料，并通知旨在配对工程教育研究感兴趣的工程教师与潜在的导师在不同的机构的网络活动。 在工程教育研究中培训工程教师可以扩大在课程中采用基于研究的教学实践的教师数量，并通过缩小研究与实践的差距来改善教学，咨询，规划和政策制定。虽然以前的导师模式侧重于工程教育的内容，这项工作确定了有效的战略，从成功的指导关系，纳入社会和文化的组成部分，成为一个工程教育研究人员。本研究通过对工程教师和工程教育研究者的师生对进行质性访谈，提出了工程教育研究者身份形成的概念模型。该模型阐明了研究人员如何进行范式转变和潜在的职业支点，以扩大他们在相关但独特的工程教育学科中的专业知识。这种新的方法提供了重要的信息，以加强现有的培训材料，并开发额外的培训机会，工程教师谁有兴趣进行工程教育研究。此外，该模型对理解职业再培训和教师参与终身学习的方法有影响。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并被认为值得通过使用基金会的智力价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估来支持。

This exploratory project investigates how engineering faculty learn to become engineering education researchers through mentoring relationships via the NSF-funded Research Initiation in Engineering Formation grants. Findings from this research are used to develop training materials and inform a networking event intended to pair engineering faculty interested in engineering education research with potential mentors at different institutions. Training engineering faculty in engineering education research expands the number of faculty adopting research-based instructional practices in their courses, and results in improved teaching, advising, programming, and policy-making by closing the research-to-practice gap.While previous mentorship models have focused on the content of engineering education as a field, this work identifies effective strategies from successful mentoring relationships that incorporate the social and cultural components of becoming an engineering education researcher. By conducting qualitative interviews of engineering faculty and engineering education researchers mentee-mentor pairs, the study the study develops a conceptual model of the formation of engineering education researchers' identity. This model clarifies how researchers undergo a paradigm shift and potential career pivot to expand their expertise in a related, but distinct, discipline of engineering education. This novel approach provides important information to enhance existing training materials and to develop additional training opportunities for engineering faculty who are interested in conducting engineering education research. Additionally, the model has implications for understanding job retraining and approaches for engaging faculty in lifelong learning.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.