Research in Engineering Education Symposium 2011 - rees2009

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education goals. Faculty Early Career Development Program (CAREER) is an early career
award to untenured engineering and science faculty members; all awardees are required
to integrate research and education in some way. This is a very prestigious award, a few of
which each year are selected for Presidential Early Career Awards for Scientists and
Engineers (PECASE). CAREER grants have been awarded to engineering education
researchers since 1999 and PECASE awards since 2007. Centers (Engineering Research
Centers, Nanoscale Science and Engineering Centers, Materials Research Science &
Engineering Centers, Science of Learning Centers and Science & Technology Centers) have
significant education missions which often result in focused K-12 outreach as well as new
graduate and undergraduate courses.
Findings
In addition to many smaller awards, a few very large engineering education coalitions and
centers have been funded since 1990. Centers and coalitions are described first below,
followed by quantitative analyses and trends over time, which exclude large centers and
coalitions because they skew total and average award amounts.
Centers and Coalitions
From 1990-2005, the Engineering Education and Centers Division of NSF funded eight
engineering education coalitions of over 40 colleges and universities ($13-15 million each)
(Froyd, 2005). These coalitions “were intended to catalyze systemic change across the
engineering education community by developing and demonstrating the efficacy of new
curricular models” (Froyd, 2002, p. 1). Much has been written about the engineering
education coalitions, including their contributions (in the U.S.) to reforming engineering
education practices (Froyd, 2005), new ABET accreditation criteria, and developing a new
generation of engineering education researchers (Borrego et al., 2007), laying the
foundation for increased assessment and more scholarly engineering education research
(Borrego, 2007).
Engineering Research Centers usually focus on cutting-edge research within and across
traditional engineering disciplines, but the The Vanderbilt-Northwestern-Texas-
Harvard/MIT (VaNTH) Engineering Research Center for Bioengineering Educational
Technologies was funded in 1999 at $21 million with a focus on biomedical engineering
education. Three Centers for Learning and Teaching ($10-16M) were awarded by the
Directorate for Education and Human Resources in area related to engineering: Center for
the Advancement of Engineering Education (2003, primarily undergraduate, led by
University of Washington), National Center for Engineering and Technology Education
(2004, primarily K-12, led by Utah State University), and NCLT: A Center to Develop
Nanoscale Science and Engineering Educators with Leadership Capabilities (2004, K-20,
led by Northwestern University). These large centers certainly play a major role in
development of engineering education knowledge, capacity and resources, particularly as
most are ending and preparing final reports and dissemination activities at national
conferences. As with coalitions, it may be several years before their full impact can be
articulated and measured.
Proceedings of Research in Engineering Education Symposium 2011
Madrid, 4 th - 7 th October 2011