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There remains a lack of research on professional engineering work practices [1]. This deficiency is troubling because engineering education is organized and reorganized based on claims and assumptions about what professional engineering work is or will be. Without well-researched and trustworthy representations of practice, it is questionable whether engineering educators can adequately prepare future engineers for workplace realities. Although it is important that the preparation of future engineers not be tied solely to the workforce, there is a significant “disconnect between engineers in practice and engineers in academe” [2, p. 18]. If educators want to prepare students for professional success – including by assuming roles as future leaders and change agents – concrete images of engineering work are critical resources for rethinking engineering education [1]. The need for such resources is even more urgent given ongoing changes to engineering work under the forces of globalization, new organizational configurations, and new technologies of communication, design, and production. More research is needed to document images that are often discounted by students and even faculty, i.e., portrayals of engineering practice that emphasize its non-technical and non-calculative sides, as well as its non-individual aspects [3-4]. The aim of this work-in-progress paper is to introduce an exploratory project that will test innovative approaches to data collection and analysis for rapidly generating new knowledge about engineering practice. Traditionally, engineering practices have primarily been studied using in-depth ethnographic field research, requiring researchers to embed themselves as participant observers in the workplace. Yet technical work increasingly involves open workspaces and geographically distributed teams, frequent changes in job roles and team composition, and many layers of digital abstraction and collaboration. It thus may not be feasible or optimal to perform on-site research for extended periods of time. The main aim of this paper is to introduce method innovations for conducting field research which can potentially generate higher quality data more efficiently. Before doing so, we briefly overview prior research on engineering practice. 

Engineering students graduate from their programs with a broad range of skills that are set by professional societies, industry recommendations, and other stakeholders in student success. But when those engineers enter their jobs, how are those skills utilized and nurtured by the organizations they enter? The purpose of this paper is to present a cross-sectional, secondary qualitative analysis of research exploring the experiences of recent engineering graduates as they move from student to professional. Of particular interest were the ways engineers describe their autonomy or sense of choice, the way engineers recognize and make sense of their organizations’ values, and the alignment (or lack thereof) between personal values and those of their organization. To do so, qualitative data sets from three different studies of engineers’ experiences at various stages in their professional trajectories were combined and thematically analyzed, producing four major themes that speak to the ways engineers perceive their sense of agency in their work experiences. Looking across data sets, themes emerged regarding empowerment, organizational fit, and workplace expectations. While these themes were common across the studies included in the analysis, the way the themes manifested across data sets raises interesting questions about the formation of engineers and the socialization experiences that contribute to that formation. As research on engineering practice continues to develop, it is important that researchers consider where engineers are within their career trajectory and how that influences their perceptions about the work they do and the agency they have within organizations. 

This highly interactive special session has two goals: developing a deeper understanding of current research on engineering practice, and connecting and growing a diverse and vibrant scholarly community interested in this topic. There has arguably never been a more exciting time to examine engineering practice. In addition to a strong employment outlook for most engineering specialties, engineering careers are being reshaped and reimagined by rapid technological change, intensified globalization trends, new cross-disciplinary interactions, demographic shifts, and changing organizational structures. Colleges, universities, and organizations such as ABET, Inc., the National Academy of Engineering (NAE), and the National Science Foundation (NSF) are leading the charge to improve the alignment of engineering education with the demands of professional practice in response to these trends, potentially revolutionizing how current and future engineers are prepared as innovators, leaders, and change agents. Yet, not much is known about the diverse and multi-faceted realities of modern engineering practice and how this knowledge can be used to improve the education and training of engineers across career stages. Through presentations, networking opportunities, and group discussions, the special session will focus on using research on engineering practice to transform engineering education and the workforce.