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Planning for a PhD in Engineering Education



Please excuse this LONG post. IF you reply PLEASE DO NOT HIT THE
REPLY BUTTON and thereby transmit your reply and a repeat of this
LONG post to all 6 discussion lists and all 31 "cc's." (WHY CAN'T
DISCUSSION LIST SUBSCRIBERS TAKE THE FEW EXTRA SECONDS TO COPY AND
PASTE ADDRESSES INTO THE "TO" AND "CC" SLOTS?)

Because R & D in education should be of interest to physicists,
chemists, biologists, and educators generally, I hope subscribers
will forgive my cross-posting to discussion lists with archives at:

PhysLrnR <http://listserv.boisestate.edu/archives/physlrnr.html>,
Phys-L <http://mailgate.nau.edu/archives/phys-l.html>,
Chemed-L <http://mailer.uwf.edu/archives/chemed-l.html>,
Biopi-L <http://listserv.ksu.edu/archives/biopi-l.html>,
STLHE-L <http://listserv.unb.ca/archives/stlhe-l.html>,
POD <http://listserv.nd.edu/archives/pod.html>.

Jason Foster of the University of Waterloo, in his STLHE-L post of 4
Feb 2002 16:16:55 -0500 titled "Planning for a PhD in Engineering
Education," wrote:


FOSTER-FOSTER-FOSTER-FOSTER-FOSTER-FOSTER-FOSTER-FOSTER
". . . I am writing to this list because planning for this path . .
.(Jason has an MS in Systems Design Engineering with thesis titled
'Understanding and Improving Undergraduate Engineering Education' and
would like to work towards a PhD in engineering education). . . has
been more difficult than I had anticipated . . . (since there appears
to be). . .

(a) no organized research into engineering education . . . ,

(b) no funding for research into engineering education . . . ,

(c) little research into higher education in terms of teaching and
learning . . . , and

(d) no funding for research into higher education . . . "
FOSTER-FOSTER-FOSTER-FOSTER-FOSTER-FOSTER-FOSTER-FOSTER


It would appear that the level of support for substantive R & D to
improve teaching and learning is as minuscule in Canada as in the
U.S. (see, e.g., Duderstadt 2001). The low support level may be
related to the widespread belief that education research is both
"unscientific" and unreliable. But this need not be the case (Redish
2000, Hake 2002). Could there be some lessons (Hake 2002) here from
the physics education reform effort?

HAKE-HAKE-HAKE-HAKE-HAKE-HAKE-HAKE-HAKE-HAKE-HAKE-HAKE-HAKE
LESSON #4 (see Hake 2002 for the references):

"EDUCATION RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT (R&D) BY DISCIPLINARY EXPERTS
(DE'S), AND OF THE SAME QUALITY AND NATURE AS TRADITIONAL
SCIENCE/ENGINEERING R&D, IS NEEDED TO DEVELOP POTENTIALLY EFFECTIVE
EDUCATIONAL METHODS WITHIN EACH DISCIPLINE. BUT THE DE'S SHOULD TAKE
ADVANTAGE OF THE INSIGHTS OF (a) DE'S DOING EDUCATION R&D IN OTHER
DISCIPLINES, (b) COGNITIVE SCIENTISTS, (c) FACULTY AND GRADUATES OF
EDUCATION SCHOOLS, AND (d) CLASSROOM TEACHERS.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

The education of disciplinary experts in education research requires
PhD programs at least as rigorous as those for experts in traditional
research. The programs should include, in addition to the standard
disciplinary graduate courses, some exposure to: the history and
philosophy of education, computer science, statistics, political
science, social science, economics, engineering (see Lesson 11), and,
most importantly, cognitive science (i.e., philosophy, psychology,
artificial intelligence, linguistics, anthropology, and
neuroscience). The breadth of knowledge required for effective
education research is similar to that required in ecological research
(Holling 1997). According to the Physical Science Resource Center
(2001) and the UMd-PERG (2001b), there are now about a dozen PhD
programs in physics education within physics departments and about
half that number of interdisciplinary programs between physics and
education or cognitive psychology in the United States. in my
opinion, ALL SCIENTIFIC DISCIPLINES SHOULD CONSIDER OFFERING PHD
PROGRAMS IN EDUCATION RESEARCH."

What role can engineers play in the improvement of education?

"LESSON #11 (see the article for the references):

"LESSON 11: INTERDISCIPLINARY COOPERATION OF INSTRUCTORS,
DEPARTMENTS, INSTITUTIONS, AND PROFESSIONAL ORGANIZATIONS IS REQUIRED
FOR SYNTHESIS, INTEGRATION, AND CHANGE IN THE ENTIRE CHAOTIC
EDUCATIONAL SYSTEM.

Although more research to develop better strategies for the
enhancement of student learning (Lesson 6) is required, that by
itself will not reform the entire chaotic educational system, as has
been emphasized by Tobias (1992a, 1992b, 2000), Sarason (1990, 1996),
Hilborn (1997), and Wilson and Daviss (1994). In my opinion, an
ENGINEERING approach to the improvement of education (Felder 2000a,
2000b) seems to be required. Bordogna (1997) conveys the essence of
engineering as 'integrating all knowledge for some purpose. . . . The
engineer must be able to work across many different disciplines and
fields-and make the connections that will lead to deeper insights,
more creative solutions, and getting things done. In a poetic sense,
paraphrasing the words of Italo Calvino (1988), THE ENGINEER MUST BE
ADEPT AT CORRELATING EXACTITUDE WITH CHAOS TO BRING VISIONS INTO
FOCUS.' (My CAPS.) It would appear that "engineering" as seen by
Bordogna is similar to "integrative science" as seen by Holling
(1998)."
HAKE-HAKE-HAKE-HAKE-HAKE-HAKE-HAKE-HAKE-HAKE-HAKE-HAKE-HAKE



But how can U.S. engineering education be in need of improvement when
the U.S. is widely acknowledged to possess the world's most advanced
technology? For a view from MIT tune in to the video/PowerPoint
presentation by MIT's Woodie Flowers (2000), especially:

a. Slide 39: Woodie states that "Chalk and talk is dead - we're just
having an extended wake." He thinks passive-student "Chalk and Talk"-
type courses will be closed out by the internet within a few years
(good riddance).

b. Slide 42,43: Videotape "Minds of Their Own" (Annenberg 2002)
showing MIT graduates having trouble getting a flashlight bulb to
light, given one bulb, one battery, and one piece of wire. [This is
the MIT counterpart of Harvard's "A Private Universe," in which
Harvard graduating seniors confidently explain that the Earth's
seasons are due to the seasonal changes of the distance between the
Sun and the Earth! (Schneps & Sadler)]

c. Slide 44: a large percentage of juniors in mechanical engineering
at MIT cannot correctly decide whether a large or small radius pulley
attached to the shaft of a motor will allow more force to be applied
to a string wrapped around the pulley.

d. Slide 45: seniors in 6 of the top 12 mechanical engineering
schools in the country where asked "How much energy in a 9-volt
transistor battery?" Their estimates range over 9 orders of
magnitude. They have "not a clue about a joule."

Modesty forbids mention of my own contribution (Hake 2000) to the
ASME Mechanical Engineering Education Conference.

Richard Hake, Emeritus Professor of Physics, Indiana University
24245 Hatteras Street, Woodland Hills, CA 91367
<rrhake@earthlink.net>
<http://www.physics.indiana.edu/~hake>



REFERENCES
Annenberg/CPB. 2002. Minds of our own. Available online at
<http://www.learner.org/progdesc/index.html?uid=26&sj+SCI>.

Duderstadt, J. J. 2001. Science policy for the next 50 years: from
guns to pills to brains. In Proceedings of the AAAS Annual Meeting,
San Francisco, February, 2001. Available online at
<http://milproj.ummu.umich.edu/publications/aaas_text_2>: ". . . the
development of human capital is becoming a dominant national priority
in the age of knowledge, comparable in importance to military
security and health care. Yet our federal investment in the knowledge
base necessary to address this need in miniscule. In FY01. . .
(Fiscal Year 2001). . . the nation will invest over $247 billion in
R&D . . . . HOW MUCH WILL THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT INVEST IN RESEARCH
DIRECTED TOWARD LEARNING, EDUCATION, AND SCHOOLS? LESS THAN $300
MILLION . . . . most industries spend between 3% to 10% per year of
revenues for R&D activities. By this measure, the education sector of
our economy (including K-12, higher education, and workforce
training), which amounts to $665 billion, should be investing $20
billion or greater each year in R&D, roughly the same order of
magnitude as the health care sector. . ." (My CAPS.)

Flowers, W. 2000. "Why change, Been doin' it this way for 4000
years!" ASME Mechanical Engineering Education Conference: "Drivers
and Strategies of Major Program Change," Fort Lauderdale, Florida,
March 26-29, 2000; on the web at
<http://hitchcock.dlt.asu.edu/media2/cresmet/flowers/>. (One needs to
download the free "RealPlayer.")

Hake, R.R. 2000. "What Can We Learn from the Physics Education Reform
Effort?", on the web at <http://www.physics.indiana.edu/~hake> as a
pdf document at [ASME.pdf, 3/27/00, 436K], and as PowerPoint plus
video at <http://hitchcock.dlt.asu.edu/media2/cresmet/hake/>.

Hake, R.R. 2002. "Lessons from the physics education reform effort."
Conservation Ecology 5(2): 28; online at
<http://www.consecol.org/vol5/iss2/art28>. "Conservation Ecology,"
is a FREE "peer-reviewed journal of integrative science and
fundamental policy research" with about 11,000 subscribers in about
108 countries. Volume 5, issue 2
<http://www.consecol.org/Journal/vol5/iss2/index.html> contains a
special feature on "Interactive Science Education."

Redish, E. F. 1999. Millikan lecture 1998: Building a science of
teaching physics. American Journal of Physics 67(7):562-573.
Available online at
<http://www.physics.umd.edu/rgroups/ripe/perg/cpt.html>.

Schneps, M. H., and P. M. Sadler. 1985. Private universe project.
Available online at:
<http://sao-www.harvard.edu/cfa/sed/resources/privateuniv.html>.