From theory to application and back again: the interplay between research in higher education and engineering education

This webinar brings together a panel of higher education scholars who focus on engineering education across a range of global contexts, to identify what value or interest might be offered by engaging with the findings of discipline-based education research for the broader higher education research community. All four researchers take broad questions and theories from higher education and bring these to bear on a range of key issues in engineering education. Four engineering education research studies form the backdrop for this conversation: a global comparison of accreditation systems, a cross-national policy comparison, an exploration of how disciplinary knowledge functions in the real world, and an analysis of systems of transfer across institutions. We find that engineering education as a case has particular features that allow for the emergence of empirical insights, methodological adaptations, and challenges to established theory. These include its global systems for accreditation that nonetheless incorporate significant national variation, its significance in national policy particularly in relation to economic development and national security, its interesting location as a newer profession partly based on a tightly defined scientific knowledge base, and its contemporary recruitment to matters of social justice in the context of broadening access to higher education. More broadly, the webinar makes the case for grounding general theories and debates from higher education in the particulars of one specific professional field.

CGHE webinars are fully open to participants. They are interactive, enabling attendees to speak directly in the webinar, ask questions of speakers when called in by the chair and see all other participants. At any time you can communicate directly with others, either all together or on a one-to-one basis, through the webinar Chat.