Systematic and Sustainable Reform in Engineering Education

Abstract

In our global society, with its increasing technological demands and opportunities, engineering education plays an undeniably significant role. Professional preparation is a core ingredient for cultivating the engineering and technology talent required for economic and industrial success ~ASEE 1994!. According to the highest levels of leadership in the engineering community, however, engineering education has not kept up with the sweeping changes in engineering practices and, instead, continues to prepare students to be engineers for a world one or two generations past ~Wulf 1998!. This raises a question: How can we, as a community, promote systemic change to the educational process by taking advantage of our profession as promoters of discovery, learning, and engagement? The path to success is just beginning to take shape. A national awareness regarding engineering education reform is driving the need to establish the field of engineering education as a scholarly endeavor. The challenge facing engineering education cannot be met by simply modifying an outmoded curriculum. We need fundamental research that also transforms learning and teaching. As the National Research Council stated so well in 2002 ~Shavelson and Towne 2002!, “No one would think of getting to the moon or wiping out a disease without research. Likewise, one cannot expect reform efforts in education to have significant effects without research-based knowledge to guide them.” The National Academy of Engineering has recently become both vocal and proactive in sponsoring new initiatives to support innovative work in engineering education ~Wulf and Fisher 2002!. Couple this with the adoption of Engineering Criteria 2000 by the Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology ~ABET!, the National Science Foundation’s support for educational research, and publication of The Engineer of 2020 ~NAE 2004!, and the stage has been set to substantively elevate the status of educational research in faculty performance reviews, improve engineering educational research quality by demanding appropriate assessment, attract engineering professors into the field, and increase collaborations between engineering faculty and faculty in other areas including education and psychology, among others.