Editorial

Engineering education has come of age. That is not to suggest that engineering education activity over the past years and decades has been insignificant (Baillie and Moore, 2004), it is simply to identify that we are now at a point where we truly have a vibrant, global community passionate about the need for relevant, high quality and engaging engineering education. Never before has this been so apparent in the UK than at EE2010, the Engineering Subject Centre’s biennial conference, which was held in 2010 at Aston University in Birmingham.

This special issue of Engineering Education showcases a selection of papers that capture some of the work being undertaken in the field of engineering education. Each paper clearly aligns with one or more of the ‘threads’ identified earlier, namely relevance to the engineering profession, high quality in terms of the rigour with which the work has been undertaken and engaging from the viewpoint of both students and teachers. Such was the diversity and standard of work presented at the conference, it would not have been unreasonable to select any number of papers for a special issue. With this in mind, I commend to you the conference proceedings as I feel sure you will find much of interest as you explore them (Engineering Subject Centre, 2010).

From both government and industry the message is clear: graduate engineers need to be ‘industry ready’ (Royal Academy of Engineering, 2007; Borri and Maffioli, 2007; Sheppard et al., 2009; King, 2008). What this means is still a subject of much debate across the world. The work resulting in the Engineering Graduates for Industry publication from the Royal Academy of Engineering is reported in the paper by Arlett et al. ‘Experience-led’ engineering degrees are the focus of the discussion, a discussion which is framed within the broader context of change. It is encouraging to note that the research suggests that there is no one change model that will fit all institutions, thus promoting the idea that creativity in curriculum development should be valued. The key questions explored are those of why changes to teaching should be considered and how these changes can be effectively supported. On this count the paper is clear as to the change drivers and the need for senior management commitment that enables learning and teaching champions to thrive and make the change happen.

One of the change drivers identified by Arlett et al. is that of student retention. Far too many students start off on a course of study in engineering and fail to complete their degrees. A pilot study is presented in the paper by Godfrey et al. that starts to explore retention and attrition in engineering education in Australia where only 54% of engineering students completed their studies in the period 2001 to 2006. Essentially a case study focusing on a single institution, the research team used a mixed methodological approach to investigate why students ceased to study engineering. Despite a small sample size, the research highlights a range of academic and social reasons for students ‘dropping out’. The planned larger study will shed further light on reasons and solutions, in particular developing guidelines on curriculum formulation and delivery strategies. A useful and related source in the UK is the current HEFCE / Paul Hamlyn Foundation funded programme entitled What Works? (Paul Hamlyn Foundation, 2010). Although not specific to engineering, the challenges of the student transition into university and what can be done to more effectively support students are the subject of a major programme of work comprising seven different projects, each being led by a different higher education institution. The programme is due to conclude and report in 2011 and will, like the work in Australia, add to the body of knowledge around this critical area of university life.

The two contributions discussed so far are to some extent focused on the two ends of the university experience — starting out in higher education and readiness for work. With the National HE STEM programme (National HE STEM Programme, 2010) and the increasing focus on STEM subjects in schools, the engineering education community continues to increase its reach beyond universities to explore the areas of lifelong learning (Baukal, 2010) and the inclusion of engineering education in the school curriculum (Clark and Andrews, 2010). This is a positive trend as a coherent ‘engineering learning’ journey is in the best interests of everyone concerned.

Within universities, the range of different approaches to engaging students in engineering is developing apace. Project-based learning is an increasingly common feature of engineering courses. A review of best practice within UK project-based learning models is presented by Graham and Crawley. A strong recommendation from an exhaustive study is that taking account of existing practice which is both cost effective and accessible is a good starting point. Again having strong champions is identified as a crucial factor for success. The papers by Adams et al. and Hermon et al. offer insight into specific examples of project-based learning in action. In the case of Adams et al. the focus is very much on problem solving and creativity whilst making use of reusable learning objects, Lego Mindstorm NXT robots supported with online instructional content. CDIO is the basis for the work being conducted at Queen’s University Belfast by Hermon et al. where a new Product Design and Development degree programme has been developed and has received strong endorsement as to the quality of teaching employed. Service learning, a different form of experiential learning, is the subject of the paper by Rodriguez-Falcon and Yoxall. The paper argues that despite the challenges of successfully implementing this approach to learning, the inspirational and social awareness benefits are very relevant for both student engineers as they prepare for work and for the communities in which they are working.

All of these examples clearly link in to the ideas that engineering education should be relevant, of high quality and engaging. If we are then better able to understand how students approach their learning, we are in a much stronger position when it comes to developing the most appropriate experiences for them to undertake. Student perceptions of engineering education is the subject of the final paper by Tudor et al. and it offers not only insight into the student view of engineering education, but also the importance of considering the entire student experience of what being an engineer is all about.

In all of the papers presented in this issue(and across the EE2010 conference proceedings), the methodological approach to the work undertaken in engineering education is becoming much more robust. In seeking to answer the important questions, our community is moving towards more rigorous research approaches. Increasingly we work in multi-disciplinary teams, learning from each other as we gather the evidence to support our arguments. The growing Engineering Education Research (EER) community across the globe is now becoming more coherent in terms of its activity and voice. Whether it’s the UK EER SIG, the SEFI Working Group, ASEE or AAEE communities, the links are becoming stronger and the momentum greater. The recent paper by Jesiek et al. (2010) is evidence of this.

With hard economic times upon us and policy change in the air as a result of the Browne Report (Browne, 2010), the importance of learning and teaching supported by sound research evidence has never been greater. These papers offer an encouraging cross-section of the work our community is producing; the challenge going forward is for us to build on this and ensure our work is recognised and has an impact on future generations of engineers.