Communicating Across the Researcher Practitioner Divide

Virginia Polytechnic Institute And State University, Blacksburg VA

Investigators

Abstract

Despite numerous efforts to transform engineering education, challenges in teaching, learning, and administration persist. Some have argued that one reason for these persistent challenges is because of poor connections between research and practice. Unfortunately, there are no existing tools to measure the extent of this problem among researchers and practitioners in engineering education. The purpose of this study is to design and implement a survey that measures engineering education researchers' and practitioners' views on the role of research in education. The data will be collected at the 2019 CoNECD (Collaborative Network for Engineering and Computing Diversity), which is a conference specifically designed to link research and practice. The findings of this study will generate concrete data that will reveal underlying differences between education researchers' and practitioners' perspectives on one of the thorniest issues in education: how to convert research to practice. Gaining a better understanding of what bolsters the gap between research and practice in engineering education context will lead to the development of tools and professional development resources that will be useful in bridging this divide in engineering education and other STEM education disciplines. Strengthening connections between research and practice in engineering education will improve the impact of publicly-supported STEM education research. It will also contribute to the development of a more diverse and competent workforce that is well prepared to address society's greatest challenges and opportunities. The goal of this project is two-pronged: 1) to develop a valid and reliable instrument for measuring education researchers' and practitioners' perspectives on the role of research in education using a framework Bulterman-Bos; and 2) implement it at an upcoming conference specifically designed to bring together engineering education researchers and practitioners in order to determine if there are statistically significant differences in responses based on the participants' role. The valid and reliable instrument resulting from this work will draw broadly on the perspectives of researchers and practitioners, as well as theories and methods developed by other related disciplines. As such, it will be relevant to a wide variety of stakeholders in engineering education and other STEM education-related fields struggling to bridge connections between research and practice. Deploying this instrument at the CoNECD conference will ensure that the findings are informed by both groups of stakeholders, and the people who are in the best position to offer insights about how to foster connections between research and practice. The existence of dichotomous views, if found to be substantiated by data, could leads to a myriad of practical things that could be done to change how researchers and practitioners communicate with and inform one another's work. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.