Community building and identity development through graduate coursework in engineering education

Abstract

The new engineering education graduate degree program at Purdue University is a pipeline for educating future engineering faculty and professionals interested in pursuing careers that support research-based engineering education reform. The first cohort of doctoral seeking students was admitted in Fall 2005. Two courses were developed to address community building and identity development in this new field of study. Emphasis was placed on these two ideas as the field is currently not well defined and the research community is relatively small and fragmented. Such emphasis is also intended to circumvent common doctoral program issues including isolationism. This paper presents an overview of the development of these courses and student evaluation of the course learning objectives. Students' favorable evaluation of the impact of these courses on dimensions of community building and professional identity development are highlighted. © American Society for Engineering Education, 2006.