The Role Of Chemical Engineering In Engineering Education Research

Chemical engineers have historically played a very significant role in advancing engineering education; however, since research in engineering education has become much more rigorous in the last ten years, it is not obvious that chemical engineers will maintain this significant role. There are many specific questions within the five identified engineering education research areas (Epistemologies, Learning Mechanisms, Learning Systems, Diversity & Inclusiveness, and Assessment) that can be best explored by chemical engineering professors. To maintain a leadership role in engineering education research some chemical engineering departments will have to make engineering education a research specialty and offer Ph.D. degrees based on research in engineering education. This will require that a few motivated chemical engineering professors retool their research from a technical specialty to engineering education. Introduction Despite being a relatively small engineering discipline and despite the conservatism of ChE departments, chemical engineers have been leaders in the push for engineering education reform and in engineering education research. Examples of chemical engineering leadership in pedagogy include the Chemical Engineering Division of ASEE Summer School that meets every five years, the Division’s publication of the journal Chemical Engineering Education, and leadership in teaching professors how-to-teach. Leadership in educational research has included the development of the guided design method, introducing Problem Based Learning into engineering, laboratory improvements and hands-on learning including distance operation of experiments, and the championing of cooperative group learning. One possible reason that chemical engineers have had influence greater than their numbers is, unlike most engineers, they are trained to think of processes, and teaching/learning are processes not products. Research in engineering education has recently become much more rigorous and a new discipline of engineering education is developing. This paper will explore the roles of ChE professors and ChE departments for chemical engineering to retain its leadership role in engineering education research. What research questions should be explored? How can ChE professors who are not trained to do rigorous educational research develop their expertise so that they can successfully compete? Should ChE departments offer Ph.D. degrees for research in engineering education? What types of jobs will be available for graduates whose Ph.D. research is in engineering education? How should engineering education research be disseminated so that it is adopted as part of teaching practice? Background: Engineering Education Research Significant changes are occurring in research in engineering education. Signs of these changes include the Journal of Engineering Education’s (JEE) changing publication requirements 1-3 , the development by NAE of the Center for the Advancement of Scholarship on Engineering Education (CASEE) 4 which developed the engineering education research portal AREE for dissemination of engineering education research, the increased availability of funds for engineering education research from NSF but with a stricter review process, development of a national research agenda for engineering education 5 , the development of engineering education research centers 4 , the development of departments of Engineering Education, Engineering and Science Education, and Engineering and Technology Education department 6 ; and a small but increasing number of chemical engineering departments that allow students to do their Ph.D. research on engineering education 6 . These and other significant changes in the structure of engineering and the development of a new field or discipline of engineering education are reviewed in detail elsewhere 6-8 . Early engineering education research papers were seldom rigorous and often did not contain any data or references 9 . Before 1990 engineering was typical – with a few exceptions disciplinary educational research was not held to a high standard. The rigor of disciplinary educational research started to increase after Boyer’s 1