A new direction for engineering education research : unique phenomenographic results that impact big picture understandings

As the pace of engineering keeps increasing, new innovations foci in engineering education research are needed. This paper presents one such innovation, away from looking at the skills engineers are to develop to focus on their embodied understanding of practice around aspects of professional practice. It does so through the use of a qualitative research approach known as phenomenography. The results of three a research projects guided by phenomenography are discussed and provide a unique lens for understanding aspects of the world that influence the practice of engineering, namely those of design across disciplines, sustainable design and cross-disciplinary practice. This paper summarizes the results from these three phenomenographic studies, emphasizing the implications these results reveal about the direction engineering education needs to head.