Jenni Case, Virginia Tech & University of Cape Town
Mike Klassen, University of Toronto
David Knight, Virginia Tech
Xiaofeng Denver Tang, Tsinghua University
Nicky Wolmarans, University of Cape Town

This webinar brings together a panel of higher education scholars who focus on engineering education across a range of global contexts, to identify what value or interest might be offered by engaging with the findings of discipline-based education research for the broader higher education research community. All four researchers take broad questions and theories from higher education and bring these to bear on a range of key issues in engineering education. Four engineering education research studies form the backdrop for this conversation: a global comparison of accreditation systems, a cross-national policy comparison, an exploration of how disciplinary knowledge functions in the real world, and an analysis of systems of transfer across institutions. We find that engineering education as a case has particular features that allow for the emergence of empirical insights, methodological adaptations, and challenges to established theory. These include its global systems for accreditation that nonetheless incorporate significant national variation, its significance in national policy particularly in relation to economic development and national security, its interesting location as a newer profession partly based on a tightly defined scientific knowledge base, and its contemporary recruitment to matters of social justice in the context of broadening access to higher education. More broadly, the webinar makes the case for grounding general theories and debates from higher education in the particulars of one specific professional field.