An educational researcher sought to collaborate with a classroom instructor to introduce problem-based learning as a new teaching intervention. First, a classroom instructor was approached to consider how a problem-based learning instructional approach might fit with their existing curriculum plan. The researcher and the classroom teacher used a…

Background: A redesigned curriculum for teaching engineering graphics was adopted in an introductory mechanical engineering course. The rollout of this curriculum was staggered, allowing for comparisons of student perceptions across the newly revised and previous instructional approaches. The new curriculum borrows from content and pedagogy…

This paper asks the question: do people with different levels of research productivity and identification as a researcher think of research differently? It discusses a study that differentiated levels of research productivity among English and Australian academics working in research-intensive environments in three broad discipline areas: science,…

This study explores the usefulness of academic research to engineering practitioners. Issues such as knowledge transfer, the research-practice gap and the changing social/political environment are discussed. An empirical survey of practitioners is analysed to better understand the engineering professions use of academic material, such as research…

Based on a 2010-11 study involving senior researchers from seven disciplines, this article explores critically some of the diverse interpretations of impact in different disciplines, sub-fields and modes of research, and researchers' views about how these interpretations articulate with top-down impact agendas and with university structures…

Participants with teaching and research experience across eight disciplinary areas were introduced to the idea of "threshold concepts" and were then invited to identify potential threshold concepts in their own disciplines through small-scale research activities. Participants conceptualized their involvement in different ways: for some it provided…