Understanding Australian and United States Engineering Education Research (EER) contexts

Abstract

Engineering education research (EER) is a growing and increasingly globally connected field. Understanding cultural and contextual factors is fundamental to EER and further is critical to enabling fruitful international collaborations. The purpose of this research is to understand how engineering education researchers experience and understand EER in Australia and the United States to better facilitate future international collaborations. This research draws on eight interviews conducted with participants who had significant experience carrying out EER in both the United States and Australia and ranged in their career status. Two key domains of comparison emerged from the data: 1) The landscape: Structure and resources of EER in each context, and 2) How the landscape plays out: Implications on EER studies and collaborations. Our analysis finds extremely different research environments for EER in Australia and the United States, the implications of which can be explained in par by resource dependency theory and institutional isomorphism. Our results can inform and enhance future collaborations across these national contexts and help researchers identify opportunities for symbiotic research relationships.