Mapping the Cultural Landscape in Engineering Education

BACKGROUND Calls for culture change as key to systemic reform in engineering education implicitly assume the existence of common elements of a distinctive culture. The landscape for engineering education studies that invoke the concept of culture is complex and multi-faceted, yet still ill-defined and incomplete. PURPOSE (HYPOTHESIS) The aim of this study is to develop a conceptual framework of cultural dimensions that has the potential to guide the understanding of culture in the context of engineering education to demonstrate where we are and how to get where we want to go. DESIGN/METHOD Ethnographic methods within an overarching interpretivist research paradigm were used to investigate the culture of engineering education as manifested ill one institution. Adapting Schein's cultural framework, the data were collected and analyzed to distil from observable behaviors and practices the essence of the culture in the form of tacitly known cultural norms, shared assumptions, and understandings that underpinned the lived experience of staff and students. RESULTS The findings are discussed within six cultural dimensions which emerged from the data as: An Engineering Way of Thinking, An Engineering Way of Doing, Being an Engineer, Acceptance of Difference, Relationships, and Relationship to the Environment. CONCLUSIONS The detailed findings from this study, combined with evidence from other studies, support the view that the proposed six dimensions have the potential to be transferred to other institutions as a practical tool for evaluating and positioning the culture of engineering education.