Evaluation Issues In The Renewal Of Engineering Education: Lessons From Nsf Funded Projects

The field of engineering education is in the midst of reform. Support for these change efforts is available through competitive programs within the National Science Foundation (NSF). The requirement to evaluate funded projects, particularly for program improvement, is an expectation across agency programs, and critical for program development and attainment of program outcomes. Three NSF-funded engineering education projects are highlighted in this paper to illustrate the variety of reform-oriented projects supported by NSF as well as evaluation issues that challenge the success of these efforts. The projects include: (1) an engineering design curriculum development project that specified the design expectations for the first two years of engineering education, (2) a new master’s program in opto-electronics, and (3) an IGERT project in environmental engineering. Evaluation issues faced by these projects are both technical and non-technical in nature and are central to useful evaluation work. These issues are not only present in NSF-funded projects but also within engineering programs more generally and thus, the NSF-funded projects serve to showcase evaluation challenges as engineering education continues its drive for reform. Recommendations are offered for meeting these challenges and improving evaluation capabilities in engineering education programs.