Keywords

1 Introduction

Engineering education is viewed as a crucial field throughout the world, with efforts in improving and dissemination of knowledge through various means, which includes conferences and journal publications. These efforts have started even as early as the beginning of the twentieth century; the Journal of Engineering Education, for example, was first published in 1911. By the end of the twentieth century, there were intensive efforts on engineering education in North America, Europe, Australia, and South Africa.

In Asia, particularly in the southeast, efforts to create interest in engineering education started off at the turn of the twenty-first century . While initial efforts were created through conferences in collaboration with associations that include Australia, such as the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) Centre for Engineering Education (CEE) based in the University of Melbourne, Australia, the interest started to take hold through local efforts, especially with the advent of the Washington Accord (WA) membership and challenges of the changing requirements in the twenty-first century.

This chapter focuses on the rapid emergence of engineering education practice and research in Southeast Asia, with particular emphasis on the experience of Malaysia, as one of the early adopters in the region to embrace and integrate engineering education practice with research. Activities that promote engineering education in East Asia, such as Korea, Hong Kong, and Japan, will also be briefly discussed to reflect the extent of interest that has been growing rapidly around the region.

2 Creating Interest in Engineering Education

Interest in engineering education had been slow to start in Asia and likewise in Southeast Asia. While there were sporadic, isolated interested parties, their network would mostly come from those in North America, Europe, or Australia. In the twentieth century, and even now at times, many engineering academics, and sometimes even associations or bodies in Southeast and East Asia, define engineering education simply as the technical engineering content in itself that are taught in universities at the undergraduate or graduate levels. Thus, when engineering education research is mentioned, some would refer to it as research in the engineering field, rather than using educational research methods for improving how we educate engineers. This confusion was manifested in the early emergence of engineering education seminars and conferences, where purely technical papers from various engineering fields were submitted and at times accepted for presentation.

The twenty-first century brought about major challenges through numerous changes in how industries and businesses function throughout the world. The current challenges are marked by rapid development in technology, explosion in information, borderless economy, sustainability and security concerns, and many other complex, novel problems that have never been seen before, causing various sectors, such as businesses, industries, governments, and various entities, to change their modus operandi (NAE 2005; Duderstadt 2008) . The need to change to meet these challenges, and improve the quality of graduates, are also strongly felt, even in Southeast and East Asia, resulting in several nations from the region to become members of the WA in the first decade of the twenty-first century , such as Japan, Korea, Singapore, and Malaysia. This move, as a consequence, affects the accreditation of engineering programs , transforming the programs into the outcome-based approach (OBA) to abide by the accord. The impact of accreditation in enhancing the quality of engineering education in Malaysia is discussed further in one of the following sections.

2.1 Engineering Education Societies and Organizations

Engineering education societies and organizations are spreading the interest and are building a community of practice in engineering education. These societies are normally able to consolidate efforts, at least at the national level, to plan and organize bigger events to garner the support of stakeholders. More importantly, the societies would have more resources and harness the necessary support from the international community to enhance engineering education at the national level.

There are a several engineering education societies in Southeast and East Asia, such as in South Korea, Japan, and Malaysia. Japan established its Japanese Society for Engineering Education as early as 1952 (JSEE 2014). The Korean Society for Engineering Education (KSEE) was established in 1993 (IFEES 2013) and holds annual conferences that gathered academics and industries in engineering education. The KSEE is a platform for the industries and academics in engineering to meet and discuss the direction and future of engineering education in South Korea. The KSEE and the JSEE are members of the Association for Engineering Education in Southeast and East Asia and the Pacific (AEESEAP), which was established in 1970 (AEESEAP 2014). In other countries, however, members of the AEESEAP consist of only certain member universities, usually just one university from one country. For example, in Singapore, the member university is the National University of Singapore, while in Malaysia, the member country is the University of Malaya. China had also established the Chinese Society for Engineering Education (CSEE; IFEES 2014).

In Malaysia, the Society for Engineering Education Malaysia (SEEM) was established in 2007 (CEE 2012e) to promote engineering education in Malaysia. The SEEM was initiated by the Malaysian Council of Engineering Deans through a pro-tem committee in 2005. Activities under the SEEM are done independently, or in collaboration with other groups or centers of engineering education in Malaysian universities. These activities consist of training programs on engineering education for academic staff, engineering education conferences, seminars, and exhibitions. There are also other engineering associations that have engineering education sections or divisions, such as the Institution of Engineers Malaysia (IEM), the Malaysian Society for Engineering and Technology (MySET), the Institution of Chemical Engineers (IChemE) Malaysia, and the Institution of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE) Malaysia.

Many of the engineering education societies form international linkages and cooperation . These are normally established in the form of Memorandum of Understanding (MoU). One such example in the region is the MoU between the KSEE and the SEEM, which was signed in 2012 (CEE 2012d). Through this MoU, representatives from the SEEM are invited to attend the KSEE annual conference and speak at the plenary session while representatives from the KSEE are invited to conferences organized by the SEEM. On a larger platform, engineering education societies from various countries can join and network through the International Federation of Engineering Education Societies (IFEES). The SEEM, KSEE, JSEE, and CSEE are also members of the IFEES.

2.2 Conferences, Seminars, and Symposiums in Engineering Education

Conferences in engineering education play an important role in giving awareness of the importance of engineering education. This can be seen through the annual conferences organized by the KSEE and the JSEE, which gathered big crowds of participants from the industries and academics every year. In 2014, the JSEE is organizing its 62nd annual conference (JSEE 2014), while the KSEE its 21st. International participants were invited to speak or attend the conferences (CEE 2012d). The AEESEAP which was established in 1970 (AEESEAP 2014) also held conferences in several member countries, such as Japan, Malaysia, Korea, Australia, etc. However, sometimes, the papers of the AEESEAP conferences are mixed between technical research and engineering education sessions. The KSEE conference, though, is solely for engineering education papers. Lately, the number of papers submitted has been increasing, showing evidence of growing interest in engineering education among Korean academics.

In Malaysia, among the first conferences devoted solely to engineering education was the Conference on Engineering Education organized by Universiti Teknologi Malaysia (UTM) on 14–15 December in 2004. Although other engineering conferences had papers on engineering education, most were mixed with engineering papers. Realizing the importance of engineering education in the region, the following conference in 2005 was upgraded to become the Regional Conference on Engineering Education (RCEE). To attract audience to the conference as well as provide expert input that was very much needed in outcome-based education, Prof. Richard Felder and Dr. Rebecca Brent were invited to hold pre- and post-conference workshops as well as deliver a keynote address during RCEE 2005. From then on, it became a requirement for the conference to have internationally renowned speakers in engineering education to instill awareness to practitioners in engineering education on the importance of scholarship as well as rigorous research in engineering education (RREE). RCEE 2007 had Prof. Karl Smith from the University of Minnesota and Purdue University, USA, as the keynote and workshop speaker, where the focus was on pedagogies of engagement, especially on cooperative learning. RCEE 2010 had Profs. Karl Smith and Ruth Streveler from Purdue University as the joint keynote and workshop speakers, where the focus was on systematic curriculum design and RREE. To introduce the rigorous research aspect of engineering education, RCEE was renamed as the Regional Conference on Engineering Education and Research in Higher Education (RCEE and RHEd). The aim is for engineering those who do rigorous research in higher education to network and learn from one another, which could hopefully lead to collaboration that involves RREE. RCEE and RHEd 2012 had several invited speakers including Prof. Dr. David Radcliffe, head of the School of Engineering Education, Purdue University, Prof. Dr. Duncan Fraser, from the University of Cape Town in South Africa and also the chair of the Research in Engineering Education Network Governing Board, and Prof. Dr. Susan Oh, from the Korean Society of Engineering Education. Pre- and post-conference workshops were given by experienced researchers in RREE, such as Assoc. Prof. Dr. Johannes Stroble and Assoc. Prof. Dr. Heidi Diefes-Dux, both from Purdue University, and Assoc. Prof. Dr. Elliot Douglas from the University of Florida (CEE 2012g). Thus far, up until 2014, six conferences had been organized in the series, which was held once every 2 years. Since 2012, the conference was held in collaboration with the SEEM and the Higher Education Leadership Academy under the Ministry of Education. The quality of papers has also steadily increased, from experience sharing to scholarly based implementations and research papers in engineering education.

These activities led to higher-quality research-based conferences hosted by UTM and the SEEM, such as the 2013 International Research Symposium on Problem-based Learning (IRSPBL 2013) and the 2013 Research in Engineering Education Symposium (REES 2013), which was held back-to-back in July in Putrajaya, Malaysia. Both these conferences were held for the first time in Asia, after being hosted in the USA, Europe, and Australia . The stringent vetting of papers at the conference ensured high-quality research papers. Though there were many papers from all over the world, 40–50 % of the papers from both conferences came from Malaysia and the Southeast Asian region. This enabled local participants to share and get valuable feedback from other presenters as well as learn and network with those in the international engineering education research community . The REES drew a big community of experts in engineering education research to come to the conference, and it is an eye-opening experience for many new researchers in engineering education in Asia, especially in Malaysia. Further discussion on the impact of REES will be included in Sect. 3.4.

Lately, with interest in engineering education on the rise in the region, there are other conferences hosted solely by local universities and organizations as well as conferences hosted by universities in collaboration with organizations and universities from other countries. Since 2009, the International Conference on Engineering Education (ICEED) was organized annually in Malaysia by Universiti Teknologi MARA under the IEEE Malaysia Engineering Education Chapter. In 2012, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (UKM) collaborated with Sharjah University, United Arab Emirates, to host the 6th International Forum on Engineering Education in Kuala Lumpur. Another newly started IEEE conference in the region is the IEEE Teaching, Assessment, and Learning in Engineering (TALE), which had its first conference in Hong Kong in 2012, and the second in Bali, Indonesia, in 2013. In 2014, UTM and Uppsala University, Sweden, collaborated to host the RCEE and RHEd in conjunction with the Learning and Teaching in Computing and Engineering (LaTiCE), which is a conference affiliated with the IEEE Computing Education Society , in Kuching, Sarawak. In 2012, LaTiCE was held in Macau, and in 2016, it will be held in Taiwan. From the number of conferences happening around this region, there is clearly rapidly rising interest among engineering educators on engineering education.

3 Engineering Education Practice

Engineering education practice is of utmost importance among Southeast and East Asian Nations. The meteoric rise of the economy of nations in this part of the world can be mostly attributed to advancements in industries which require engineering knowledge and expertise. While many of the nations in this region provided scholarships for their qualified and selected citizens to study engineering in countries, such as the United States of America, the United Kingdom, and other European nations, they also developed their engineering programs in parallel while strategically increasing the number of students, and thus graduates, as the capacity to educate engineers increase.

With the increasing importance of engineering education, demand on quality also increased. There is also a need to uphold the sanctity of the engineering profession. This brought in the need for accreditation of engineering programs to preserve and ensure that graduates have the required foundation to practice as engineers.

In the twenty-first century , the shift is now from creating awareness to the need for increasing and ensuring quality of engineering education to ensure that this region has a pool of capable engineers. Many see the need to shift the practice of engineering education from the traditional mode to those that are more fitting in preparing graduates to face up to twenty-first-century challenges. From the formation of accrediting bodies, signing up for WA membership to providing the required training of auditors and engineering educators in the OBA, nations in this region can be seen to actively invest efforts to upgrade their practices to be scholarly and of high academic quality. This section discusses engineering education practice, with particular emphasis on ensuring academic quality and accreditation.

3.1 Accreditation and Accrediting Bodies

Various accrediting bodies were formed at the national level in Southeast and East Asian nations in the first decade of the twenty-first century, with many of them becoming signatories of the WA. This is in contrast to other nations in Asia that take up accreditation by foreign accrediting bodies, such as the American Accreditation Board of Engineering and Technology (ABET) . For example, the Accreditation Board for Engineering Education of Korea (ABEEK) started accrediting engineering programs in 2001 and became a member of the WA in 2007 (ABEEK 2014). The Japanese Accreditation Board (JABEE) was established in 1999 and became a member of the WA in 2005 (JABEE 2014). In Singapore, the Engineering Accreditation Board was established in May 2002 under the Institution of Engineers Singapore (IES). They became a member of the WA in June 2006 (IES 2014).

Engineering accrediting bodies became signatories of the WA to ensure that accredited programs from the country are at par with those of member countries. Japan, Korea, Singapore, and Malaysia are WA signatories in the Asian region. The graduates of accredited programs are recognized in member countries, such as the USA, Australia, Germany, South Africa, Canada, etc., and therefore can practice as engineers globally. A very important requirement under the WA is that the curriculum of accredited programs must embrace outcome-based education, which results in major changes of how programs are designed, implemented, and assessed. While accreditation is voluntary in Japan and Korea, in Malaysia it is compulsory. This is because in Malaysia, graduates from engineering programs that are not accredited are not legally allowed to practice as an engineer. Further details of the history of academic quality assurance and accreditation of engineering programs in Malaysia are elaborated in the next section.

3.2 Accreditation and Quality Assurance: The Malaysian Experience

In Malaysia, the engineering education quality assurance initiatives at the public institutions of higher learning can be traced to as early as in 1957 when the Public Services Department (JPA), a body that was given the mandate to carry out the accreditation exercise, audited engineering programs to ensure that graduates are acceptable for entry into the government service. In 1959, the IEM also carried out a similar exercise following the UK and Australia model. But after the Engineering Act was passed by the parliament in 1967, the Board of Engineers took over the responsibility and carried out joint accreditation with the IEM.

The increase in the number of private institutions of higher learning in the 1990s has led to the formation of the National Accreditation Board (LAN), which was responsible to accredit programs at private institutions. Then in 1997, the Malaysian Qualifications Agency (MQA) was established to accredit all programs both at the public and private higher learning institutions. However for the engineering programs, there is a provision that the professional bodies will continue to accredit the engineering programs. Consequently, in 2000, the Engineering Accreditation Council (EAC) comprising of the Board of Engineers Malaysia (BEM), IEM, the MQA, and JPA was established. The BEM stipulated clearly the attributes that are necessary in preparing for engineering practice such as the ability to apply mathematics, science, and engineering in solving engineering tasks; the ability to understand environmental, economic, and community impacts on development; and the ability to communicate effectively and ethically in discharging duties. However, the main portion of the accreditation exercise was carried out quantitatively such as looking at numbers of credits, number of courses, and students to staff ratio. These are clearly evident in the September 1999 version of the BEM guidelines.

However, as Malaysia aspires to be an educational hub in Asia, international recognition of engineering programs is deemed necessary. Therefore, in 2003, the EAC, which is under the BEM, was admitted as a provisional member of the WA. By being a member, all signatory countries will recognize substantial equivalency of an accreditation system within a country. This assures that graduates of accredited programs in their countries are prepared to practice engineering at the entry of the profession. For the EAC, the route to be a WA signatory was a long and arduous 6-year journey. This is mainly due to the major paradigm shift from the teacher-centered, traditional approach to the student-centered OBA for the institutions of higher learning as well as the shift from quantitative to a more qualitative approach of accreditation exercise that emphasizes on continuous quality improvements. Consequently, major changes had to be made not only at the higher learning institutions, but even the EAC was expected to improve and benchmark with international practice.

This drastic jump in the requirement and framework for academic quality exerted by the EAC made the OBA to prevail as a basis for accreditation for engineering programs in Malaysia. Well-established engineering programs in Malaysian institutions of higher learning had to comply strictly to the 2007 EAC Manual that have since evolved several times. These efforts bore the desired fruit, when Malaysia, in 2009, was accepted to be a full signatory member of the WA. Nevertheless, the transition had not been easy for engineering programs in Malaysia. During that time frame, none of the engineering programs was accredited for 5 years, the most was 3 years. As an example, of all the electrical and electronic engineering programs audited between 2009 and 2012, 69 % were only granted a 2-year accreditation, while 19.6 % were granted a 3-year accreditation, out of a maximum of 5 years accreditation (Liew and Puteh 2014). The accreditation evaluation of the engineering programs defined that a program can get 5 years accreditation if it satisfies the minimum accreditation requirement with no shortcomings and has addressed all the requirements effectively. However, in the transition to fulfill the new accreditation requirements, there was a period where the program owners, as well as the auditors from the side of the EAC, were uncertain about the definition of the standards. This confusion results in some accreditors taking an overly strict definition of the minimum standard, causing inconsistencies during the accreditation process, which led to inconsistencies in the outcome of the accreditation. Not surprisingly, this caused an uproar among program owners and within the Ministry of Education. Nonetheless, these are transitional problems that were brought to the attention of the Engineering Accreditation Department under the Board of Engineers and were resolved with the guidance from the various WA mentors. For example, to tackle the problem of inconsistencies, a newly required moderation process is now instituted, resulting in a more moderate and facilitative approach by the EAC auditors in the recent accreditation process.

The current changes in the EAC manual in 2012 to comply the latest WA requirements show that the EAC is in-line with the latest development and practiced continuous quality improvement. These new requirements reflect the needs and challenges of the twenty-first century which engineering programs need to prepare graduates for in the university, which is actually a push towards increasing the quality of engineering programs. While engineering program owners are now well versed in the OBA, the latest requirements include challenging outcomes, such as complex problem-solving skills and complex engineering activities (EAC 2012), and pose another challenge in increasing the quality of teaching and learning for developing students . Consequently, Malaysian institutions of higher learning, which are now wiser after going through the initial changes, are making a lot of effort to comply with the EAC 2012 manual. With the continuous efforts to improve the quality of accreditation required under the WA, the EAC is directly responsible to ensure compliance by engineering programs . Therefore, in Malaysia, membership in the WA, which shaped the current accreditation process, has also managed to exert pressure on institutions of higher learning to change and improve engineering programs to meet the new requirements for accreditation and thus pushed program owners to think, discuss, and implement required measures to enhance the quality of engineering education in the country.

3.3 Engineering Education Centers

During the past decade, centers for engineering education were established across several Asian countries. Some of these countries include Korea, Hong Kong (China), and Malaysia. Although these centers focus on different areas, the main aim is to enhance engineering education, especially in their own respective countries and institutions. Several areas of focus include innovation in teaching and learning in engineering, research in engineering education, engineering service learning, women in engineering, developing the talent pipeline, and engineering faculty development through training and mentoring.

In South Korea, the commitment of the government towards engineering education can be seen in the funding of 65 Centers for Innovative Engineering Education (CIEE) in different universities across the country, which are affiliated to five hub centers. Each hub center has different focus, such as globalization, multidisciplinary design, accreditation, industry driven programs, etc. (Song 2012) . In 2014, however, the number of CIEE in Korea has risen to more than 70. For example, Pusan National University under its Innovation Center for Engineering Education (PICEE) has been organizing international service learning to produce global engineers by collaborating the program with Politeknik Elektronika Negeri Subaraya (PENS), Indonesia, and UTM (CEE 2013a). The hub centers are also active in organizing workshops, seminars, and competitions. Sung kyun kwan University (SKKU) Hub Centre for Innovative Engineering Education organized the International Workshop on Innovative Engineering Education, inviting international speakers and experts with participation among the member centers in November 2011 and January 2013 (CEE 2012a). In November 2013, the Pusan National University Hub Centre organized the Capstone Design Fair (E2Festa), which is a capstone design competition among engineering students in Korea and several partner institutions from other countries. In conjunction with E2Festa, there was also a seminar on engineering design education with a section for invited speakers from all over the world.

In Hong Kong, the Hong Kong University for Science and Technology (HKUST) under the Centre for Engineering Education Innovation (E2I) plays an important role in improving the teaching and learning of engineering for HKUST. Workshops and training are given to engineering lecturers, and resources for engineering education are readily accessible on the center’s website (Centre for Engineering Education Innovation 2014). E2I also carries out research among the students and lecturers of HKUST on some specific areas that can impact the engineering education of HKUST such as team working skills and assessment in engineering education. The center also organizes Workshop on International Innovative Engineering Education, where participation was by invitation only.

In Malaysia, there are two centers that focus on different aspect of engineering education: the UKM’s Centre for Engineering Education Research (CEER) and the UTM Centre for Engineering Education (CEE). The UKM CEER, which was established in 2009, focuses on research in engineering education in various topics since its formation was initially from the engineering education research group (CEER 2014). CEER emphasized their activities on research, publication, and conferences in engineering education. Some research areas of CEER members are action research, quantitative research using the Rasch model, project learning, and topics related to teaching, learning, assessment, industrial training, and curriculum.

The UTM CEE was established in 2011 to consolidate the various efforts in engineering education that had been going on in UTM since the early 2000. CEE gives emphasis on both engineering education research and improving engineering education among engineering lecturers and students through training and educational programs. The tagline for CEE, “Training and Research in Engineering Education (TREE),” aptly summarizes the thrust of the center. To ensure high-quality research as well as train others in conducting research in engineering education, CEE offers postgraduate studies in engineering education that can further strengthen the research in engineering education. CEE promotes the virtuous cycle of research (VCR; Phang and Mohd-Yusof 2013) to ensure that the research is grounded in educational theories and carried out through rigorous educational research methodology. By doing so, the research results can be used to improve the teaching and learning of engineering. These findings are disseminated not only through seminars and publications but also through training sessions with engineering academics. This is in-line with the recommendation by Jamieson and Lohman in the 2012 ASEE report, Innovation with Impact (Jamieson and Lohman 2012) . Elaboration on research in engineering education will be elaborated in the following section.

In looking at all the engineering education centers in the various countries in this region, most are promoting good scholarly efforts in engineering education through seminars, workshops, sharing sessions, and systematic training. Many conferences are also organized by the centers, which aims to disseminate efforts in engineering education to a large audience. However, concerted efforts to offer regular workshops and training, which normally cater to a smaller number of audiences compared to conferences, are necessary to systematically train and upgrade the skills of engineering academics throughout the region to encourage the implementation of scholarly good practices in engineering classrooms.

Currently, training is very much localized at the institutional or national level. As mentioned earlier, there are centers in Korea, as well as in Hong Kong, which conduct regular workshops and training. Similarly, the UTM CEE conducts regular training that can also be offered in-house at the request of specific institutions. In Malaysia, training at the national level is also offered by the Higher Education Leadership Academy, under the Malaysian Ministry of Education, although they are not solely conducted for engineering academics.

Undoubtedly, having dedicated centers for engineering education expedites the promotion and enhancement of quality in engineering education practice. Many of these centers assist their own institutions as well as form part of national level initiatives to provide support for fulfilling accreditation requirements, such as training and multidisciplinary project offerings. The numerous varied activities, plus the linkages among some of these centers, encourage the sharing and dissemination of scholarly practices among practitioners as well as create interest among new engineering academics.

4 Engineering Education Research

The aim of research in engineering education is to improve the practice of engineering education for the betterment of teaching and learning in engineering. Hence, research and practice in engineering education go hand in hand, and it is easier to use the term engineering education to refer to both the research in engineering education (including those that are rigorous) and practices in teaching engineering. Engineering education is now a knowledge discipline of its own where rigorous and meaningful research is conducted through VCR (Phang and Mohd-Yusof 2013) . The VCR is essentially a study on ideas or issues where the research output can be used to inform and improve current practice. This will in turn generate new questions and ideas, which can then be further researched on to further improve the implementation. More elaboration on the VCR is in the following section.

In the Asian region, engineering education research was introduced through various means, namely postgraduate studies in engineering education, research and innovation centers for engineering education, societies for engineering education, conferences in engineering education, and improvement activities related to accreditation exercise. However, the most effective approach to ensuring rigorous engineering education research is through the postgraduate programs in engineering education, such as the master of philosophy and the doctor of philosophy in engineering education. This is because of the academic rigor of such programs would require expert input and reviews as well as the assessment of the research conducted. In addition, most countries, such as Malaysia, have its own quality assurance requirements . Having the postgraduate program is also a productive way of having experts in engineering education research, who can understand and be the middle people in explaining engineering as well as rigorous educational research requirements to those from engineering and also those from education. Further elaboration will be provided in the following section.

4.1 Virtuous Cycle of Research in Engineering Education

Publications in engineering education basically can be divided into two: experience sharing (scholarly and non-scholarly) and research papers. Most of the papers are experience sharing because RREE introduced by Streveler and Smith (2006) is not a common practice among some active participants of the engineering education community in this region. The ASEAN Journal of Engineering Education (AJEE) tried to accommodate the community by accepting both scholarly experience sharing and research papers as a means to encourage engineering educators to publish in engineering education while simultaneously introducing and exposing readers to elements of RREE.

The idea of RREE was first introduced to the Southeast Asian community during the 2007 Regional Conference in Engineering Education in Johor Bahru, Malaysia, by Prof. Karl Smith from Purdue University, USA, during a preconference workshop session. This idea was further expanded to include the VCR during the 2010 Regional Conference on Engineering Education and Research in Higher Education (RCEE and RHEd 2010) in Kuching, Sarawak, Malaysia, during the keynote by Smith and Streveler (2010). Phang and Mohd-Yusof (2013) then further promoted the VCR in engineering education to the Asian community, arguing that innovations and new ideas implemented should be studied to determine their impact and/or other questions that may arise and can lead to improvements. Conducting engineering education research that becomes VCR ensures that the research done is of significant importance in engineering education. This idea of VCR has been encouraged through trainings courses held by the UTM CEE to help enhance the quality of engineering education in the region. The CEE also provides training workshops on conducting RREE, which leads to VCR.

As most of the participants in the engineering education research community in the region are trained in the engineering background, VCR relates the cycle of research using the similar steps in most of the scientific research, which are (Phang and Mohd-Yusof 2013) :

  1. a.

    Identify the problem

  2. b.

    Review literature and established theories to connect the problem with grounding principles

  3. c.

    Design the methodology

  4. d.

    Analyze data

  5. e.

    Find meaning to conclude and generalize

Following the initial idea given by Phang and Mohd-Yusof (2013) , the VCR can be simplified as shown in Fig. 3.1. The research problems must come from the current practice such as problems in learning certain engineering topics and innovative teaching and learning approaches. Some examples are:

Fig. 3.1
figure 1

Virtuous cycle of research (VCR) in engineering education

Full size image
  1. 1.

    Chemical process control (Mohd-Yusof et al. 2011, 2013b; Helmi et al. 2013)

  2. 2.

    Engineering education for sustainable development (Abdul Aziz et al. 2013a, 2013b; Mohd-Yusof et al. 2013c)

  3. 3.

    Problem-based learning, problem solving, and cooperative learning (Mohd-Yusof et al. 2011, 2013a; Mohammad-Zamry et al. 2011; Phang et al. 2012; Helmi et al. 2011, Helmi et al. 2013)

  4. 4.

    First-year experience (Abdul Aziz et al. 2013c; Mohd-Yusof et al. 2014)

  5. 5.

    Thermodynamics (Mulop et al. 2013; Mulop et al. 2014)

  6. 6.

    3-D CAD (Adnan et al. 2013)

After the problem is identified, it needs to be clearly formulated into a researchable framework. This has been explained by Phang and Mohd-Yusof (2013) . The next step is to review the literature of the existing theories from the past and current research or practice reports. This is to ensure that the research is well grounded in strong educational principles or theories (Streveler and Smith 2006) .

The steps of research methodology and data analysis must draw from sound research methodology. This has been explained in Phang and Mohd-Yusof (2013) with a few examples of research methods guidebooks. Research methodology ranged from the objectivist paradigms (e.g., postpositivism, empericism) to the subjectivist paradigms (e.g., interpretivism, constructivism; Crotty 1998) . In the objectivist paradigms, researchers tend to answer research questions through deductive approach and employ research strategies that aim at testing and confirming existing theories, such as survey and experimental research. Usually, statistical analysis is used to analyze the data to accept or reject certain hypotheses, and generalization is made as a conclusion of the research. Sometimes, it is more convenient to label this as quantitative research approach (Creswell 1994) .

On the other hand, the subjectivists favor inductive approach to generate theories that can explain phenomena in an educational setting by using research methodology like grounded theory (Glaser and Strauss 1967) , ethnography (Hammersley and Atkinson 1995) , case study (Stake et al. 2005) , action research (McNiff 1988) , and so on. Usually, in-depth analysis is employed to understand and explore the questions of how and why in order to produce rich description or explanation of a phenomenon. This approach is usually coined as the qualitative research approach.

Despite the debate and competition between the two major paradigms, the selection of a sound research methodology also depends on the research questions and the nature of the research problems. As the research questions stem from the research problems (Phang and Mohd-Yusof 2013) , a researcher should not plan how to do the research (and select the research methodology) prior to the formulation of research problems and research questions. Research questions that require answers using statistical data should be answered using the quantitative research methods, while research questions that require rich and in-depth explanation should opt for the qualitative research methods.

The quantitative research methods collect quantitative data (numbers), while the qualitative research methods collect qualitative data (texts). The quantitative research methods may include close-ended questionnaire survey, test, interview, and observation using checklists that collect quantitative data. The qualitative research methods may include open-ended questionnaire survey, interview, observation using field note, artifact analysis, and so on that collect qualitative data.

Research data collection should follow as close as possible to the research method procedure to ensure the validity and reliability of the data. This should be followed by the correct and appropriate data analysis method. Quantitative data analysis methods usually involve calculation and the use of statistics, either descriptive or inferential statistics. It may be aided with computer software, such as Microsoft Excel, Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS), R Project for Statistical Computing (R-Statistics), Winsteps, AMOS, and so on. In the qualitative data analysis methods, there are constant comparative method (from grounded theory methodology; Strauss and Corbin 2008), Miles and Huberman (1994) qualitative data analysis, content analysis (Krippendorff and Bock 2008) , thematic analysis (Braun and Clarke 2006) , and so on. Some computer software may assist the qualitative data analysis in terms of managing the large quantity of data, such as NVivo, Atlas, Computer-Assisted Qualitative Data Analysis Software (CAQDAS), MAXQDA, and so on.

A good engineering education researcher should have some basic knowledge of a wide variety of research methodologies and methods in engineering education research and master a few of them. Most importantly, a researcher should know how to secure the validity and reliability (Cohen et al. 2007) of the data collection and analysis. Validity refers to the accuracy of measurement, and interpretation of the data represents what the researcher intends to measure. It is the appropriateness, meaningfulness, and usefulness of the specific inferences a researcher makes based on the data collected. For example, if we intend to measure conceptual understanding of dynamics among engineering students , we should ensure that the questions asked in the conceptual test are actually testing their conceptual understanding, not problem solving or factual memorization.

On the other hand, reliability is the consistency of the data obtained. This basically means that every time the data are collected from the respondents, same or similar data should be obtained. For example, a test is given to a group of students today, and x mean score is obtained after the analysis. If the test is repeated to the same group of students tomorrow, the same or similar x mean score should be obtained as well. This shows that the measurement and instrument are reliable and can be used to make generalized conclusion. It should be noted that the research results should yield a certain level of confidence to the practitioners to be able to accept the conclusion of the research. This is because, ultimately, the research conclusion will be used to make educational decisions that may change how engineering should be taught.

Furthermore, in making a conclusion from the data, it should be able to match with the current practice as the problem initially came from the current practice. Sound educational decisions can be made through recommendations that are drawn from the valid interpretation of the data. The conclusion may provide new insights into the existing theories.

4.2 Postgraduate Studies in Engineering Education

UTM is the first university in Asia that offered a doctoral study in engineering education in the year 2008 (Mohd-Yusof et al. 2012). Some of the other universities that offer a PhD in the engineering education program in the world are Purdue University (USA), Virginia Tech University (USA), Utah State University (USA), and Aalborg University (AAU; Denmark). Later, UKM joined the bandwagon to offer a full research doctoral program in the year 2013.

Establishing PhD in the engineering education program is not a simple matter because it is a multidisciplinary program that requires expertise in engineering as well as educational principles and research methods. In addition, there are not that many engineering education programs to learn from and benchmark against. Since the candidates for PhD in engineering education programs are from an engineering- and technology-related background, proper support in learning and understanding the fundamental theories of education and educational research methods must be given. Otherwise, most of them will be overwhelmed in their effort to unravel the mountains of information that they have to digest if no guidance were given. Therefore, offering PhD in the engineering education program requires careful thought and planning; simply offering the program without much thought will make it very difficult for the students, as they try to do their research.

In Malaysia (and Asia), there are two universities offering PhD in the engineering education program: UTM and UKM. UTM have produced more than 12 PhD graduates since its inception. In addition, UTM offers the MPhil study that focuses on engineering education research. UTM’s PhD program in engineering education is conducted in full research mode with some compulsory supplementary courses that help engineers or engineering educators who enroll into the program to cope with the transformation from technical sciences to interdisciplinary sciences (technical and social sciences). Thus far, from the students’ feedback the courses were useful in providing a broad overview that support students with good starting points for understanding at a deeper level. For the program to be truly interdisciplinary, it is governed by the CEE, not by a faculty or school that is usually limited to single disciplinary. Finding the examiners for the students are not that easy because in Malaysia, and even in Asia, there were not that many experts in engineering education research . Having experts in the field as the external examiners is crucial because they reflect the trustworthiness of the quality of research and the graduates. For the first cohort of students, their viva sessions were attended by external examiners who are experts in engineering education from universities that offer PhD in engineering education, such as Profs. Karl Smith, Johannes Strobel, and Heidi Deifus-Dux from Purdue University and Prof. Anette Kolmos from AAU (Mohd-Yusof et al. 2012).

UTM also offers a joint PhD in the engineering education program with AAU, Denmark. Students have to be in both universities for at least 6 months within the normal duration of 3 years and enroll in specified courses. They will also have at least one supervisor from each university. Those who graduate from the program will receive a certificate with the seal of both universities. The strength of this joint program is the cross-cultural experience that students can experience and the support of supervisors and access to facilities from UTM and AAU. In addition, this program can also provide expertise in the development of problem-based learning implementation at various levels in engineering programs, especially in the Southeast Asian region.

The PhD in the engineering education program in UTM has a diverse student body consisting of students not only from Malaysia but also from the USA, Pakistan, Iran, and Nigeria. The students come from a variety of backgrounds, such as engineering academics, engineers, technical education teachers, matriculation teachers, mathematics lecturers, computer scientists, and so on. This PhD research in engineering education contributes to the body of knowledge and serves to enhance implementation in UTM and Malaysia as well as in Asia in general.

The theses are based on RREE that covers a wide range of educational areas, such as self-regulation in learning statics, conceptual knowledge in 3-D CAD, practicing engineers’ training needs, accreditation standards in engineering programs, courseware design for the teaching and learning of thermodynamics, the impact of cooperative problem-based learning towards engineering students’ motivation, problem solving and learning, electrical engineering students’ conceptual understanding of electrical circuits, and so on. The research conducted by the students were also published in international academic journals and presented at engineering education conferences worldwide.

4.3 Publication and Dissemination of Research Findings

The advancement of RREE in Malaysia really took off with the advent of PhD in engineering education programs. The increasing number of research activities as well as funding and the positive outcomes from the research conducted managed to attract engineering academics to not only participate in the research teams but also properly learn educational research methods and the related grounding theories. Nevertheless, there is still a lot to be done, especially in terms of journal publications.

Contribution in the form of research publications is still very low from the region, although the number of experience sharing papers is on the rise. A lot more high-quality research on significant areas of study must be conducted and published to bring out the Asian experience and perspective of engineering education in scholarly, research-based journals. This will disseminate research findings based on Asian context that will further provide suitable models and frameworks for impactful innovations and advancement in Asian engineering education.

The development of the engineering education research community in Southeast Asia received support from the international community in 2013, when both the International Research Symposium on Problem-Based Learning (IRSPBL) and the REES were held back-to-back in Malaysia. This is the first time both conferences were held in Asia hosted by the UTM CEE in collaboration with the UNESCO Chair on PBL in engineering education, which is based in AAU in Denmark, and the Research in Engineering Education Network (REEN), which is an international network of communities that promote research in engineering education. Known for the close-knit community of practitioners and researchers, both symposiums and the workshops held in conjunction with the events gave a chance for the Asian, and especially the Malaysian, community to learn and network with participants who are passionate in engineering education research and promoting good practices in the area. By having both symposiums in the region, the local community was able to gauge the standard of their own practice and research and thus enhance the quality to be at par with those at the international level. The PhD students who were still learning and developing their research were also able to get their work critiqued and verified; those who participated felt that the symposiums were an immense opportunity and learning experience.

Having the IRSPBL and REES in Malaysia in 2013 was indeed an eye-opening experience for most of the Asian participants. Many of them did not have the opportunity to join the active engineering education research communities in North America, Europe, and Australia. The extent of rigor and the conducive and supportive environment during the paper discussion sessions relayed the passion and commitment of the community on the importance of engineering education research. While other conferences in the region were mostly at the experience-sharing level, the requirements and examples given through both symposiums illustrated the kind of effort, planning, and rigor needed in conducting research in engineering education that can inform and improve practice. Thus, the determination and all the energy invested to host the IRSPBL 2013 and REES 2013 by the UTM CEE were indeed worth the effort because the aim of providing interest and enhancing the quality of research and publication in the region was indeed fulfilled.

5 Bridging Research and Practice

There is a very strong movement within the engineering education community to bridge theory, research, and practice. This is also the aim of the VCR in engineering education . Unfortunately, many of the researches conducted were not translated into practice. On the other hand, many innovations in engineering education are made without proper study of evidence, or even scholarly foundation. For this reason, the 2012 ASEE report by Jamieson and Lohmann , “Innovation with Impact,” highlights the need for a culture of systematic innovation with impact—systematically gathering evidence of impact is highly needed to determine the effectiveness of an innovation in engineering education, and not just simply carrying out the innovation without knowing the impact.

It is clear, therefore, that research and practice should go hand in hand. Implementing the VCR would be ideal within a certain group or institution, but the findings from the research should also be published and disseminated in other manners to have a larger impact, not only on the local community but also at a larger global level.

For this reason, training of engineering academics based on scholarly and research-based knowledge and practices is seen as crucial and is therefore a thrust activity for the UTM CEE. Other than developing research ability of the engineering education students, training is also given as part of continuous professional development for engineering academics who are already teaching in engineering schools or faculties, many with PhD degrees in engineering. Among the variety of training given are those included which impart pedagogical knowledge and skills, problem solving, assessment, course design and research in engineering education. The courses given include sound principles in the area as well as the evidence of impact in engineering education. Participants are also encouraged to share their scholarly experiences through publication and conference presentations, before perhaps moving on to systematic studies. Through writing and sharing of experience, the training workshop participants can also become reflective practitioners, who can continuously improve their practice.

Like other regions in the world, translating research into practice is still elusive in Southeast Asia. With the current approach to research and training embraced in the CEE, it is hoped that this model can facilitate the translation of research into practice in Malaysia and the Southeast Asian region.

6 Conclusion

Formal education of engineers had been taking place in Southeast Asia for more than 100 years. However, interest in engineering education as a field throughout the region has only increased in the early twenty-first century. The advent of outcome-based education as required by the WA and the requirement for accreditation of engineering programs drove more institutional and governmental support for deeper involvement among academic staff into the field. The OBA has also driven some institutions to take a more scholarly approach to move beyond the initial documentation phase.

Since the early twenty-first century, numerous events have been regularly held to disseminate and gain interest in engineering education hosted by different organizations and bodies. While most of the current conferences and seminars consist of experience-sharing papers, there are efforts to increase the quality by requiring scholarly implementation. In fact, some conferences had insisted on proper research papers on engineering education. The increased quantity and quality of activities have contributed to further interest in the area, especially towards enhancing the quality of engineering education in the region.

Nevertheless, the Southeast Asian region has still a long way to go in implementing systematic, scholarly, and evidence-based approaches to enhance engineering education. With the numerous challenges that engineering graduates have to face, engineering education leaders in the region realize that meaningful innovations with impact in engineering education is necessary for the region to remain competitive and rise up to the challenges ahead. Therefore, despite the slow start to embrace engineering education as a field, the realization of its importance is pushing a rapid increase in efforts to organize and participate in engineering education events, ensuring that the region is well poised for producing quality future engineering graduates.