From Problem Solvers to Problem Seekers: The Necessary Role of Tension in Engineering Education

Abstract

In this paper it is proposed that the current focus on problems in engineering education and technological literacy may be more constructively reframed by focusing on tensions. Priyan Dias claims engineering has an identity crisis that arises from tensions inherent in: 1) the influence of the profession on society, 2) the role engineers play, and 3) what constitutes valid knowledge in engineering. These are ethical, ontological, and epistemological tensions respectively, which Dias frames as a tension between identities of homo sapiens and homo faber. Beyond the tensions in engineering there are additional tensions that arise for engineering educators that impinge on identity, but derive from educators' beliefs about the aims of education and beliefs about teaching. With respect to the aims of engineering education the tension arises between utilitarian and humanistic aims and plays out through debates about the importance of diversity (inclusion vs. professionalization), discussion of which courses should be included in a curriculum, and the long simmering debate on four year vs. five year engineering degrees in the United States. Tensions that arise from beliefs about teaching are seen in the discussions on the relative merits of summative vs. formative assessment, student-vs. instructorcentered learning, and the relative merits of inquiry-based and active learning. Given that one aspect of the identity of an engineering education is being a problem solver, faculty may perceive these tensions as a problem or conflict to be solved. An alternative view is to see tensions as both necessary and generative. Tensions are necessary since they are a natural part of human affairs and generative in that tensions highlight dialectics from which new truths or perspectives emerge. From this viewpoint a key element of faculty development is developing a defensible personal philosophy that both lets one navigate and learn from the inevitable tensions that will arise in practice as well as contribute to larger dialogs from which new systems and forms of education emerge. IntroductionIn the United States there is a long history in engineering education of critical self-reflection and focusing on problems. This is not surprising because as early as the nineteenth century the United States possessed a Society for the Promotion of Engineering Education that had sponsored the first of these major reflections, and subsequently several more. Socially relevant issues in engineering education (and STEM education more generally) are often identified by nationally distributed reports from blue ribbon panels. In engineering these date back to the Mann report of 1918, through the 1923 Wickenden study, the 1940 Hammond Report, the 1955 Grinter Report, the Goals of Engineering Education report (1968), Engineering Education and Practice in the United States (1985), The Engineer of 2020Engineer of (2004, to the more recent Rising Above the Gathering Storm reports to name a few. The fact that issues are perceived as problems may arise since ...

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“…Cheville and Heywood (2016) suggested that relative prioritizations and goals of engineering and engineering education are ongoing and omnipresent tensions . Reframed as tensions, diversity and ethics then are not problems for engineering educators to solve; rather, they are topics with “fundamental tensions” that engineering educators should discuss and debate.…”

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