Research
The Department of Engineering Education (EED) is a newly formed unit at The Ohio State University. Our faculty are conducting groundbreaking research in many areas.
Areas of Research
We all hold beliefs that are major drivers of our everyday behavior. Often, these beliefs operate at a subconscious level. Research in this area, led by the Beliefs in Engineering Group (BERG) is working to establish methods to access and understand such beliefs, especially with undergraduate engineering students in the following areas of concentration: beliefs about smartness in engineering, and beliefs about approaches to engineering decision making.
Design in engineering involves a creative iterative process that is informed by constraints and criteria. Many times design is studied with regard to projects that are customer-centered or even industry-sponsored. Most design in engineering occurs as a part of a team where all members contribute to develop a solution to a problem. Research in this area examines processes and structures for leveraging design towards student and professional outcomes in engineering.
Despite decades of initiatives, the under-representation in engineering of women and historically marginalized, chronically under-resourced racial and ethnic group members is an enduring social problem. Current pedagogical approaches have not succeeded in breaking down the barriers to entry for this critical population. Research in this area examines how best to create, disseminate, and assess the impact of interventions that promote diversity and inclusion across multiple stakeholders.
Research in this area examines learners, teachers, and engineering educators as they engage in teaching and learning engineering within P-12. This research goes beyond simply reaching out to or engaging with people in the P-12 space (in classrooms or in professional development workshops) and seeks to understand and evaluate approaches used in P-12 engineering education.
Research in this area examines classroom practices and measures their impact on learning, motivation, and attitudes from various stakeholder perspectives. While much of our research in this area currently focuses on programs housed within our unit (first-year engineering, technical communications, and multidisciplinary capstone), we welcome expanded research opportunities across other departments in the College of Engineering and beyond.
Engineering graduates must be prepared to contribute professionally upon graduation. Accrediting bodies like ABET mandate that graduates master certain professional skills, such as communication and global understanding, upon degree completion. Research in this area examines how best to develop and assess professional skills in engineering students to help them realize their full potential in the workplace and in further learning.
Leveraging partnerships from a broad spectrum of society will drive equally relevant, impactful, and scholarly outcomes. Research in this area examines engineering in a broader cultural and social context with respect to the wide variety of stakeholders impacted (government, education at all levels, industry, non-profits, museums, etc.) and examines the educational practices that instill this understanding in engineering students, professional engineers, as well as a broad public.
Effectively communicating technical information in multiple modes is central to the professional lives of engineers. Research in this area examines technical communications from a multidisciplinary and contextual perspective. Areas of exploration include developing effective and rhetorically-responsive communications; ethics; multimodality; instructor and student learning and perceptions; curriculum development; and diversity and inclusion.