Research Paper: Where Do We Meet? Understanding Conference Participation in a Department of Engineering Education

Abstract

This research paper focuses on understanding conference participation in a department of engineering education. The Engineering Education community has developed several spaces in the United States and internationally to continuously discuss the trends of the field. However, we wanted to explore if people were participating in diverse conferences beyond the traditional conferences in the field. Nevertheless, engineering educators come from a very broad range of backgrounds, including different engineering disciplines, education, and social sciences. The purpose of this paper is to better understand what type of conferences members of an engineering education department typically attend. Data collected quantitatively in an engineering education department. Results suggest members of the engineering education department are most familiar and attend the traditional conferences in the field (i.e. ASEE, FIE). Among the reasons for making a decision to attend a conference funding and location of the conference were the most important reasons, beyond quality of the conference and speakers participating. This research paper will be presented as a traditional lecture, however, it will include a portion of the conversation focused on the audience (mini-demonstration). To do that, we expect the audience to engage during the talk by using real-time feedback (e.g. Polleverywhere) and paper surveys (for those that don't have access to technology) to gather their preferences on attending conferences and see how those preferences contrast to the findings of our study.