Applying "Cultural Consensus Analysis" To A Subgroup Of Engineering Educators

In this paper, we review the theoretical premises of cultural consensus analysis and offer a detailed description of its methodological components, including data collection and analytical procedures. We demonstrate how this quantitative method drawn from cultural anthropology could be used in engineering education research. Our findings indicate that a measurable amount of consensus regarding beliefs about effective teaching exists among the engineering educators in our study. According to the mathematical criteria of the cultural consensus model, this population constitutes a cultural group. Further, the beliefs listed and prioritized by respondents indicate that a coherent cultural domain exists for “effective teaching”. The wider implications of this research include not only potential applicability of this method within engineering education research but also a critical analysis of variations among engineering educators and a contribution to the emerging discourses of engineering education as a “culture”.