Characteristics of Successful Cross-disciplinary Engineering Education Collaborations

This article employs theory to demonstrate the characteristics of successful cross-disciplinary engineering education collaborations. Specifically, we analyzed data from interviews with 24 recent Journal of Engineering Education authors from engineer-nonengineer teams. Theoretical frameworks from education and psychology are used to ground the results and contribute to broader research on collaboration across technology and social science disciplines. The data suggest that the way an individual understands and appreciates the nature of knowledge affects the way he or she collaborates with colleagues in different academic disciplines, especially when the disciplines are fundamentally different. Although the literature criticizes engineers for not understanding or respecting other viewpoints, we found that nine engineers and eight nonengineers articulated awareness of their collaborators' perspectives, worked to integrate these into the research, and noted increased satisfaction and quality of work as a result. Recommendations for fostering this type of interdisciplinary integration in engineering education are offered along with suggestions for future research.