Engineering Leadership through Problem Definition and Solution

探索性研究的这笔小额赠款的目的是支持纵向人种学研究，评估在多大程度上可以将工程教育中的领导力、多样性和全球化问题理解和解决为知识和课程问题。这项研究测试了描述性假设，即工程知识和实践作为技术问题解决的主导模式可能会产生意想不到的影响，使学生不会重视那些定义问题与他们不同的同事。在多样化的工作环境和全球化的世界中，与定义问题不同的人有效合作是工程领导的一个关键维度。该项目提供了必要的额外知识基础，以评估技术问题解决模式的局限性，并开始扩大工程知识和实践的替代模式，作为问题的定义和解决办法。拟议的研究包括：(A)对多达73名前工科学生进行后续访谈，这些学生是1992-1995年工程教育人种学研究的对象，目的是追踪他们毕业以来的轨迹，并评估他们在确定技术问题方面的经验和策略；(B)整理和分析57次个人访谈和62次焦点小组访谈的约4 000页转录数据以及在先前研究中收集的136小时课堂录音，为了系统地描绘学习工程方法如何倾向于挑战和塑造学生作为人。智力价值：这个项目是探索性的，它将工程教育的研究重点转移到工程课程的核心，即工程科学的教和学。它还通过考察工程工作的知识内容与工科学生作为人的身份之间的关系，扩展了工程教育的研究范围。

The purpose of this Small grant for Exploratory Research is to support longitudinal ethnographic research assessing the extent to which the problems of leadership, diversity, and globalization in engineering education can be understood and addressed as problems of knowledge and curriculum. The research tests the descriptive hypothesis that the dominant model of engineering knowledge and practice as technical problem solving can have the unintended effect of predisposing students not to value co-workers who define problems differently than they do.Working effectively with people who define problems differently is a key dimension of engineering leadership in diverse work environments and a globalizing world. The project provides the additional base of knowledge necessary to assess the limitations of the model of technical problem solving and to begin scaling up an alternative model of engineering knowledge and practice as Problem Definition and Solution. The proposed research includes (a) follow-up interviews with up to 73 former engineering students who were subjects of a 1992-1995 ethnographic study of engineering education for the purpose of tracing their trajectories since graduation and assessing their experiences and strategies in technical problem definition, and (b) organizing and analyzing approximately 4,000 pages of transcribed data from 57 individual interviews and 62 focus group interviews as well as 136 hours of audio class recordings collected in the earlier study, for the purpose of mapping systematically how learning the engineering method tends to challenge and shape students as people.Intellectual Merit: This project is exploratory in the sense that it shifts the focus of research in engineering education onto the heart of engineering curricula, i.e., teaching and learning in the engineering sciences. It also extends the boundaries of research in engineering education by examining the relationship between the knowledge contents of engineering work and the identities of engineering students as people.