RIGOROUS EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH IN CIVIL ENGINEERING: WHAT DOES IT LOOK LIKE AND HOW ARE WE DOING?

摘要

This document evaluates the quality of papers accepted to the American Society for Engineering Education (ASEE) annual conference by the ASEE Civil Engineering (CE) Division during the past four years (2007-2010) with respect to high quality rigorous research as accepted by the academic and/or professional communities. In total, the complete manuscript for 265 papers accepted to the Civil Engineering Division were reviewed and analyzed relative to a categorization of accepted standards for educational research. The results showed that the vast majority of the papers accepted by the CE Division failed to meet one or more aspects of accepted research standards. Trends in the research standards represented in papers accepted by the Division have also been identified. Understanding the Civil Engineering Division's current level of rigor in scholarly research is useful for establishing and holding the CE Division to measured and progressively higher standards that are necessary to improve civil engineering education.