Background Engaging future engineers is a central topic in everyday conversations on engineering education. Considerable investments have been made to make engineering more engaging, recruit and retain aspiring engineers, and to design an education to prepare future engineers. However, the impact of these efforts has been less than intended. It is imperative that the community reflects on progress and sets a more effective path for the future. Purpose The purpose of this article is to map a new innovation landscape for what it means to engage future engineers. This is a theoretically grounded divergent‐thinking effort to enable a broader space of high impact innovations for engaging future engineers. Scope/Method A multiple perspectives methodology drawing from innovation, cross‐disciplinary, and boundary work frameworks was used to make visible multiple facets of engaging future engineers. Scholars from diverse communities of thought and discourse were selected to present interparadigmatic perspectives, act as boundary agents, challenge and transform current ways of thinking, and illustrate new opportunities for engineering education innovation. Conclusions A new innovation landscape for engaging future engineers is needed, one that emphasizes epistemological development and social justice, new configurations on engineering thinking and connecting to the formative years of development, the entwinement of engineering knowing and being, and mutually informing consequences for opening up a broader space for innovation. We also need to adopt strategies and tools for using a multiple perspectives approach to better understand complex engineering education problems.

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Abstract. As hydrologists confront the future of water resources on a globalized, resource-scarce and humanimpacted planet, the educational preparation of future generations of water scientists becomes increasingly important. Although hydrology inherits a tradition of teacher-centered direct instruction -based on lecture, reading and assignment formats -a growing body of knowledge derived from engineering education research suggests that modifications to these methods could firstly improve the quality of instruction from a student perspective, and secondly contribute to better professional preparation of hydrologists, in terms of their abilities to transfer knowledge to new contexts, to frame and solve novel problems, and to work collaboratively in uncertain environments. Here we review the theoretical background and empirical literature relating to adopting student-centered and inductive models of teaching and learning. Models of student-centered learning and their applications in engineering education are introduced by outlining the approaches used by several of the authors to introduce student-centered and inductive educational strategies into their university classrooms. Finally, the relative novelty of research on engineering instruction in general and hydrology in particular creates opportunities for new partnerships between education researchers and hydrologists to explore the discipline-specific needs of hydrology students and develop new approaches for instruction and professional preparation of hydrologists.

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BACKGROUNDReverse engineering and product dissection, more broadly termed Disassemble/Analyze/Assemble (DAA) activities, have been a regular practice in industry. The systematic analysis of the benefits of these activities for learning and instruction is, however, a relatively recent phenomenon. A number of studies have provided highly descriptive accounts of curricula and possible learning outcomes of DAA activities, but relatively few have compared participants performing DAA activities to a control group doing more traditional activities. PURPOSE (HYPOTHESIS)A study was designed to investigate the relative potential of DAA activities to motivate students and promote transfer, the ability for students to apply or adapt their knowledge to develop novel solutions. It was hypothesized that students who engaged in the DAA activity would be more motivated and would demonstrate greater transfer of knowledge. DESIGN/METHODA within-subjects experiment, counterbalanced for order of treatment, was conducted with 290 first-year engineering students to compare a DAA activity to a more traditional step-by-step laboratory activity for potential effects on learning and motivation. RESULTSThe DAA activity elicited significantly higher ratings of learning, enjoyment, and perceived helpfulness than traditional instruction. On a redesign task, a significantly higher frequency of students showed transfer from the DAA activity than from the traditional instructional activity. CONCLUSIONSDAA activities may offer a potential solution to the challenge of poor instruction, a cited cause of discontentment among undergraduates in STEM. They have the potential to motivate and to facilitate the transfer of knowledge.

Individuals differ in their orientation toward the people and things in their environment. This has consequences for important life choices. The authors review 15 studies on Person and Thing Orientations (PO-TO) using data from 7,450 participants to establish the nature of the constructs, their external correlates, and their predictive utility. These findings suggest that these two orientations are not bipolar and are virtually independent constructs. They differentially relate to major personality dimensions and show consistent sex differences, whereby women are typically more oriented toward people and men more oriented toward things. Additionally, these orientations influence personal preferences and interests. For university students, PO and TO uniquely predict choice of major and retention within thing-oriented fields (e.g., science and engineering).

BACKGROUNDUndergraduate research is a gateway to academic careers. Understanding student perceptions of research, and links to sex differences and personality, may shed light on the small proportion of women in undergraduate engineering programs and academia. PURPOSE (HYPOTHESIS)How do personality variables and beliefs about research influence men and women's intentions to pursue a research-related career in engineering? Specifically, we test the hypotheses that: (1) Thing Orientation will be a significant predictor of intention to pursue a research career in engineering, and will be a stronger predictor of research career intentions for women than men; (2) Engineering students' beliefs and expectations about the research enterprise and researchers themselves will be associated with their desire to pursue a research career; (3) Thing Orientation will influence students' beliefs and expectancies about research. DESIGN/METHODUndergraduates majoring in science, technology, engineering, or math (STEM) fields from a large research-intensive university in the USA (N = 544) reported perceptions and beliefs in a survey. RESULTSSeven core beliefs about research and researchers emerge, two of which predicted interest in researchrelated careers. Thing Orientation influenced students' beliefs and expectancies about research and researchers, which in turn were related to intentions to pursue a research-related career. Thing Orientation was a better predictor of intentions to pursue a research-related engineering career for women than men. CONCLUSIONSStudents' expectancies, beliefs, and Thing Orientation were predictors of planning research careers in engineering, especially for women. Future directions include understanding the malleability of research beliefs and Thing Orientation and applying it to intervention programs.