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Background The emerging discipline of engineering education research is increasingly embracing a diverse range of interpretive research methods, whose adoption is characterized by a lack of coherent ways to conceptualize, communicate, and judge the quality of interpretive inquiries. Yet fields that have traditionally employed these methods do not offer a consensus about research quality. Purpose This article presents reflections on challenges to research quality in an example interpretive engineering education study, and offers a quality framework that emerged from this study as a coherent, discipline‐specific view on interpretive research quality. Design/Method Analysis of the prior study of engineering students' competency formation by the author(s) is combined with a synthesis of the literature from the broad intellectual traditions of the interpretive paradigm to inform the development of a theoretical framework of research quality. Results Drawing on the engineering metaphor of quality management, we propose a systematic, process‐oriented framework of research quality along two dimensions: a process model locates quality strategies throughout the research process, and a typology systemizes fundamental aspects of validation (theoretical, procedural, communicative, and pragmatic) and the concept of process reliability to explicate quality strategies in their fundamental contribution to substantiating knowledge claims. Conclusion The quality framework provides a way to develop and demonstrate overall research quality in the interpretive inquiry by shifting attention away from assessing the research quality of a final product. Rather, the framework provides guidance to systematically document and explicitly demonstrate quality considerations throughout the entire research process.

We came to collaborative autoethnography quite by accident. In this methodological paper, we consider our experiences as we embraced a new methodology, taught and researched collaboratively in an interdisciplinary space, and grappled with how we might nestle our work in a journal with no history of publishing autoethnographies—all while becoming awakened to critiques against and arguments for autoethnographic research. Our discussions are presented along with portions of our lengthy e-mail correspondences written during our research process and center on two prominent facets of our research experience: interdisciplinarity and the research process. Entangled in our methodological unpacking, we highlight “Productive Tensions” that emerged from both our collaboration and reviewer feedback that is presented alongside our discussion. Through seeing these tensions as productive, we argue that embracing diverse perspectives can serve to strengthen the depth of engagement, quality, and potential impact of (collaborative) autoethnographic research.

We summarize the work of the University of Georgia’s Engineering Education Transformations Institute (EETI) in cultivating communities of faculty, staff, and students engaged in educational research. EETI leadership draws upon Donella Meadows’ 14 principles for engineering change from within a system and industry-vetted practices for establishing collective intelligence in teams to create four conditions that have led to successful, enduring, and diverse communities: Value-oriented communication, inclusive relationship-building, collective intelligence development, and process-oriented expectations. In these communities, participants from a variety of academic levels (students; staff; pre-tenure, tenured, instructional, and professional-track faculty) develop ideas and projects together in a collaborative process.

Academic and non-academic expectations contribute to students’ stress and impact achievement and retention. This qualitative study investigates how expectations are socially constructed in engineering programs and internalized by students. Data was collected in focus groups with 38 participants at two universities. Using constant comparative methods, findings identify sources of expectations and mechanisms by which students internalized these. Sources comprise academics, superiors, peers, extra-curricular, and influences from outside the major. The mechanisms of compounding, conflicting, and triangulating show that the interplay of expectations amplifies their emotional impacts. Implications for educators are to communicate academic standards without inadvertently reinforcing problematic social performance expectations.

Water quality and availability are identified as priority areas for outreach and educational programs in many U.S. regions. This project offers a needs assessment tool (survey) that could be used on a state‐by‐state, regional, or national basis to analyze public attitudes, opinions, and behaviors as related to water resource issues. The information collected through the needs assessment can be used to identify objectives, strategies, and delivery modes for extension programs, and to evaluate the programs. The goal was to implement the needs assessment survey at 5‐year intervals to: (1) measure changes in public priorities; (2) evaluate the effectiveness of educational programs; and (3) reprioritize, as necessary, the educational goals. A needs assessment survey template was developed and piloted in the Pacific Northwest. During 2001–2010, surveys were conducted in 41 states and six Pacific Island entities. Almost 11,000 surveys were returned completed for a response rate of 44.5%. Five‐year follow‐up surveys have been completed in five states to date. The results of these surveys have been used to prioritize extension water programs and compare issues and needs across and within regions. It is anticipated that some form of this survey will be conducted at 5‐year time intervals until water is no longer of national concern.

Public participation in a watershed planning process involves reaching out to social groups with very diverse opinions and perceptions about environmental issues. Using responses to a nationwide survey of public attitudes and perceptions related to water issues, we examined the effects of socio‐demographic and residence characteristics on opinions about water quality, agricultural and urban pollution sources, and nutrients and pathogen pollution issues in the southern United States. Significant differences were identified among respondents of different age groups, genders, and educational levels. Opinions also differed significantly among urban and rural respondents and between states. These results can be used by state and local agencies, universities, and extension services involved in the design of collaborative watershed management processes and water resource educational efforts.

In response to state‐level needs assessments, extension services and land‐grant institutions (LGIs) have directed human and financial resources to meet identified public information needs regarding water resource status and management. This study evaluates the success of these efforts by examining the results of a nationwide survey of public attitudes and perceptions regarding water resources, and focusing on participants’ responses to questions related to preferred water information sources, learning opportunities, and topics. Fifteen percent of the adult population in the Southern, Mid‐Atlantic, and Northeast regions received water resource information from cooperative extension services, or in the 16 states sampled, extension reached about 15.3 million adults with water resource information. Older respondents and those living in smaller cities were more likely to indicate receiving water resource information from extension. Survey participants were asked to indicate water resource topics about which they would like to receive further information. Respondents were most interested in protecting public drinking water supplies, watershed management, nutrient and pesticide management, and fish and wildlife needs. Similarly, participants were asked to indicate their three (of possible 12) preferred modes for receiving water resource information. Overall, most respondents preferred receiving information by reading printed fact sheets, watching television coverage, reading newspaper articles, and visiting Internet websites. However, responses varied widely according to respondent's age and the size of the community, indicating that water resource education delivery methods should be selected based on specific target audiences.

Calls for STEAM (STEM + Art) education are anchored in two main arguments. First, art will increase the creativity of STEM students, which in turn will lead to greater economic growth and international competitiveness. Second, art can serve as an on-ramp to STEM, particularly for students from underrepresented groups. Yet when a team of engineering and art educators implemented and investigated an interdisciplinary design studio that enrolled students from engineering, art education, and landscape architecture, they found these goals of STEAM education to be both limited and limiting. Surpassing limited notions of adding creativity to engineering design, students and faculty alike were compelled by this experience to think more deeply and come to a profoundly different appreciation of the contributions that all of our disciplines can make to addressing society's socio-technical challenges.

Co-curricular diversity support programs and structures have an important role in supporting underrepresented students in undergraduate engineering and STEM departments. These programs typically aim to provide a safe space and resources for a primary shared marginalized identity group, for instance, Women in Engineering programs, Minority in Engineering programs, LGBT focused programs (Out in STEM, NOGLSTP). While these programs have an important role in undergraduate engineering and have proven results for retention and academic success, they often take a similar model. Fundamental research to establish theory on the most important elements of diversity support, and to expand on existing models with new approaches, is less often pursued. This paper leverages theory and practice from outside of engineering education in order to note contrasts and imagine new possibilities for diversity support structures. First, from critical legal studies and critical race theory, the theory of intersectionality raises awareness of the multiple overlapping marginal identities, and the particular ways that oppressive social structures affect the individuals. Recent trends in intersectionality have also considered overlapping privileged/dominant and marginal identities. Intersectionality suggests a new attention to the multiple identities of a student group, rather than focusing on a single shared identity. Second, the theories of liberatory pedagogy and critical theorizing suggest that a marginalized individual engaging critically with oppressive culture is a key act of agency, and may be more empowering than other forms of help or support. As a key enactment, Intergroup dialogue is a diversity approach popular outside of STEM, but rarely explored within engineering education. Intergroup dialogue emphasizes establishing a community of trust and dialogue across difference, rather than requiring similarity for the conversation. This paper will use the three theoretical constructs to suggest key challenges within diversity support. It will conclude with possible directions for diversity support which both draw on existing structures and suggest new forms.