References

A view on theory in education

In the world of engineering there are theories that can be used for building a bridge, designing a chemical reactor or improving the aerodynamics of an aeroplane. It is probably then quite reasonable to assume that education theory will deliver some straight answers on how to conduct teaching or how to improve learning. If this were possible then this guide would offer you a set of rules to apply to your teaching and you could head off happy and secure. However, if you have spent any time working with students, for example giving a lecture and then seeing what students write in a test, you will already have that nagging feeling that improving teaching might in some odd way be more complex than designing an aeroplane.

What are we talking about here?

From this perspective learning involves a new ‘way of experiencing’, something which might sound quite similar to concepts and conceptual change.We are again interested in what learners know both before and after instruction – but there is one key difference that we need to note.With the term ‘ways of experiencing a phenomenon’ .

Who is this guide intended for?

This guide is intended for newcomers to the field:

for engineering teachers who want to be able to use education theory and research findings to inform their teaching; and

for aspiring engineering education researchers who want to launch their own projects.

A note on writing style

I have endeavoured to make this guide as accessible as possible for those who are new to educational research. From my own experience and those of colleagues, I know that it can be difficult to find your way into educational literature.This guide therefore uses a very informal style and is deliberately different to what you will find in the average journal article.Wherever possible, references and further notes on terminology are in the footnotes. For a first read through you can simply ignore the footnotes and stick with the main text.

The structure of this guide

Using a view of a theory as a set of ‘thinking tools’, this guide offers a selection for building up your tool kit. Six ‘tools’ have been identified.The selection is obviously personal and I have picked out those tools that I have found particularly useful in my own research in engineering education. However, these also do follow general trends in education thinking and can be separated into two general groups. Sfard (1998) identifies two broad metaphors which underpin thinking about learning.

Learning as acquisition

In working with tools 1-3 we will be focusing in different ways on ‘what the learner knows’. These tools will help us develop a range of different explanations for student success or failure that go beyond simply labelling some students as able and others as not. We will look at ‘concepts’ and ‘ways of experiencing’ in order to analyse conceptual understanding. With approaches to learning we will develop a theory which explains why some students are developing conceptual understanding and others not. Although these tools have different theoretical underpinnings they all basically build on a perspective which sees learning as the acquisition of something, be it conceptual understanding or a way of experiencing.They offer us a means to get to know our students in order to be able to improve teaching and learning.

What are we talking about here?

In thinking about the learner’s existing knowledge in terms of concepts ((This perspective comes from cognitive science. Much science education research in this area builds on the studies of Piaget, and this is sometimes referred to as a ‘constructivist’ theory of learning we are putting forward an idea of mental structures in someone’s head.The aim of teaching and learning is to change these mental structures, hence the term ‘conceptual change’.

What does this mean for engineering education?

Most of the research on concepts and conceptual change has been in the natural science disciplines of physics and chemistry, some of this work with university students. Given that these are the disciplines which form part of the foundation for engineering studies, there is much here that can be applied directly to engineering education. For example, the Force Concept Inventory (FCI) is a test which can be administered to students both before and after instruction to determine to what extent conceptual change has taken place.

In what ways might this be a useful thinking tool?

The focus on students’ concepts both before and after instruction was a major step forward in education theory – rather than simply stating that a student ‘got it wrong’, one started to take an active interest in the wrong answers.This has proved to be a very productive angle both for research and also for teaching. Teaching which elicits students’ prior conceptions means that instruction can be focused directly on what students are struggling with.

Show me an example

In the context of new requirements for engineers to ‘understand’ sustainability (this was based on the latest accreditation requirements from the Institution of Engineers in Australia, in particular a requirement similar to statement E-3 in UK-SPEC), Anna Carew and Cynthia Mitchell set out to investigate the understanding of a group of third year engineering students who had just completed a module on sustainable development.