A COMPARISON OF THE TEACHING PRACTICES OF NOVICE EDUCATORS IN ENGINEERING AND OTHER POST-SECONDARY DISCIPLINES

There is a perception in higher education that engineering educators teach differently than those in other disciplines. Surveys of student engagement consistently rank the undergraduate engineering experience lowest among ten disciplines, as do faculty surveys of student engagement. These results suggest there is opportunity and need to improve the engineering education experience.  This research sets out to identify differences in the teaching practices of beginning engineering educators from those in other disciplines. Using the Dreyfus and Dreyfus model of skill acquisition as a framework, this study examines institutional data collected during four consecutive terms of mandatory teaching observations of new full-time and selected part-time instructors.  Descriptive statistics found that the performance of novice educators in engineering-related disciplines did rank lowest overall compared to all other disciplines. This analysis also found that there is little difference in the teaching practices of novice engineering educators from those of their more experienced colleagues. Thematic analysis found that traditional engineering classroom practices such as lecture and worked examples are common, and could be enhanced by including opportunities for meaningful active learning.  These results can inform both engineering educators and those responsible for their educational development about the common teaching practices of novice instructors and will be useful in shaping the professional development opportunities offered to engineering educators.