Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Contents
- Editors
- Contributors
- Foreword
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction
- Chapter 1 Chronological and Ontological Development of Engineering Education as a Field of Scientific Inquiry
- Part 1 Engineering Thinking and Knowing
- Part 2 Engineering Learning Mechanisms and Approaches
- Part 3 Pathways into Diversity and Inclusiveness
- Part 4 Engineering Education and Institutional Practices
- Part 5 Research Methods and Assessment
- Part 6 Cross-Cutting Issues and Perspectives
- Chapter 30 Engineering Communication
- Chapter 31 Use of Information Technology in Engineering Education
- Chapter 32 Global and International Issues in Engineering Education
- Chapter 33 Engineering Ethics
- Chapter 34 The Normative Contents of Engineering Formation
- Chapter 35 Interdisciplinarity in Engineering Research and Learning
- Conclusion Engineering at the Crossroads
- Index
- References
Chapter 34 - The Normative Contents of Engineering Formation
Engineering Studies
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 February 2015
Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Contents
- Editors
- Contributors
- Foreword
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction
- Chapter 1 Chronological and Ontological Development of Engineering Education as a Field of Scientific Inquiry
- Part 1 Engineering Thinking and Knowing
- Part 2 Engineering Learning Mechanisms and Approaches
- Part 3 Pathways into Diversity and Inclusiveness
- Part 4 Engineering Education and Institutional Practices
- Part 5 Research Methods and Assessment
- Part 6 Cross-Cutting Issues and Perspectives
- Chapter 30 Engineering Communication
- Chapter 31 Use of Information Technology in Engineering Education
- Chapter 32 Global and International Issues in Engineering Education
- Chapter 33 Engineering Ethics
- Chapter 34 The Normative Contents of Engineering Formation
- Chapter 35 Interdisciplinarity in Engineering Research and Learning
- Conclusion Engineering at the Crossroads
- Index
- References
Summary
Introduction
Engineering educators will be persuaded to alter pedagogy and curricula only when presented with rigorous research demonstrating better learning outcomes through alternative practices. So goes one justification for the recent rise of engineering education research (EER) as an arena of scholarship (Borrego, 2007; Lohmann, 2005). It builds on the view that engineering educators will be influenced most by educational research that best emulates the high value they place on rational, rigorous, especially quantitative, approaches to their own research. Rigorous EER will increase the frequency through which engineering educators adopt curricular innovations. Although engineering educators of the 1980s and 1990s showed themselves to not be influenced by the many calls for change that lacked supporting evidence, and no one advocates bad educational research, overemphasizing the assumption that engineering educators are rational actors who are most responsive to rational argument may prove, however, to be self-limiting. It fails in particular to place sufficient emphasis on the normative contents of engineering practice and, hence, the normative commitments in engineering teaching and learning. EER must critically examine not only what engineering educators do and how they do it but also why they do it.
What is engineering for? What are engineers for? Engineering knowledge and practices always have normative contents. That is, engineers work in relation to or on behalf of a multitude of broader sociomaterial projects, that is, projects whose participants and implications extend beyond engineers and engineering. Because the education and training of would-be engineers seeks to prepare them for engineering work, a key issue for engineering education researchers to consider is the normative contents of engineering formation. I use the European term “formation” because it helpfully refers and calls attention to both formal education and informal training.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Cambridge Handbook of Engineering Education Research , pp. 693 - 712Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2014
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