Dear Colleagues,
This special issue presents three commissioned and comprehensively reviewed papers, developed over a four-year period, with input from approximately two-hundred members of the engineering education research community. The papers address:
- Improving Student Learning in Undergraduate Engineering Education by Improving Teaching and Assessment (Jeff Froyd and Cindy Finelli)
- Removing Invisible Barriers and Changing Mindsets to Improve and Diversify Pathways in Engineering (Susan Lord and Denise Simmons)
- Using Technology to Enhance Learning and Engagement in Engineering (Milo Koretsky and Ale Magana)Each paper, with its extensive review of the relevant literature, lays out important accomplishments to date and potential areas for needed research with an emphasis on propagation. In fact, the focus on propagation of documented innovations is what distinguishes these papers from others that have proposed future research agendas. A series of Delphi exercises and a special session at the 2015 ASEE National Conference informed each paper’s author teams, while work-in-process results were presented at a second special session during the 2016 ASEE National Conference. Together, these enabled extensive participation and input from faculty, administrators and researchers focused on engineering education. Before publication, as noted, each paper has gone through an extensive peer review process. In addition, we have provided an overview paper that further details the process for developing the three papers from a series of Delphi exercises, presentations at two ASEE National Conferences and expanded reviews.We invite you to critically read the papers, and submit your comments directly to Advances via https://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/advances. We hope to publish your feedback in a future issue as we continue to inform the engineering education community.