In support of its mission and objectives, CASEE seeks
- to promote and to facilitate rigorous quantitative and qualitative approaches to education research, and
- to disseminate education research results and to aid their transition into practical use,
As part of our initial taxonomy of the research landscape, we suggest the six topical areas shown below. We expect that through interactions with education researchers, practitioners, and consumers, we can continually determine, for each topical area, a) the landscape of researchable issues, b) a prioritization of researchable issues, c) a synthesis of what we know, and d) identification of what we need to know.
1. Teaching, Learning, and Assessment Processes
This area is concerned with
- Research on instruction, learning and assessment in formal, informal, extracurricular, and lifelong educational settings (e.g, which instructional approaches are most effective under what sets of circumstances);
- Research on student and (faculty and graduate student) instructor assessment; and
- Research on experiential (laboratory, mentored research, and workplace) learning environments and community (service-learning) practice.
2. Teachers and Learners
This area is concerned with
- Research on the behavior and interactions among individual and groups of (faculty and graduate student) instructors and students in educational and extracurricular settings, including motivation, advisement, mentoring, and career development of instructors and students;
- Research on the images (including self-images) of engineers and engineering held by faculty and students, how these images affect the quality of teaching and learning, and how these images can be productively modified; and
- Research on race, ethnicity, gender, physical ability, and social class (of instructors and students) as lenses for performing critical analyses and evaluations of access to, participation in, and success of engineering study and engineering practice.
3. Courses, Laboratories, Curricula, Instructional Materials, and Learning Technologies
This area is concerned with
- Research on the how curricula, instructional materials, and teaching practices interact to affect learning;
- Research on methods and effects of integrating the latest content knowledge into curricula; and
- Research on the use of technologies to structure educational environments and transform educational practice.
4. Educational Management and Goal Systems
This area is concerned with
- Research on the goals, roles, and interactions among and between individual learners, (faculty and graduate student) instructors, departments, colleges, universities, governing boards, advisory committees, accreditors, employers, professional societies, and other stakeholders in higher education;
- Research on and evaluation of theory and practices related to issues of efficiency, effectiveness, and improvement of educational organizations; and
- Research on, development of, and use of educational indicators, including indicators of student learning outcomes, course and curricular quality, staff, academic climate and conditions, demographics, and finance, and the relationship of indicators to accountability.
5. Political, Economic, and Social Influences on Engineering Education
This area is concerned with
- Research on the relationships between education processes and social, political, and economic contexts in which they operate including the community, climate, and culture aspects of educational settings;
- Research on educational finance and its impact on policy for all levels and aspects of education; and
- Research on images of engineers and engineering held by the public and various national constituencies, how these images affect the quality of teaching and learning within engineering, and how these images can be productively modified.
6. Diffusion of Educational Innovations
This area is concerned with
- Research on the nature of diffusion of educational research knowledge, expanding understanding of research results, and the practical application of research results;
- Research on the teaching and proper usage of quantitative and qualitative educational research methods; and
- Research on how education research is used to improve education policy and practice.