Discipline-based views of collaboration in engineering education research partnerships

Views on collaborative relationships vary markedly between technical and social science fields. Engineers' view of collaboration is as an isolated division of labor, in which colleagues are trusted to make decisions with little or no cooperation. Education researchers work more closely and expect to learn from each other. This paper explores what happens when people trained in different research cultures embark on collaboration. Examples of relationships characteristic of both engineering and education were found. In one case, an engineer and an educator viewed the same collaboration through the lens of their respective disciplines, each reporting characteristics of their own disciplinary cultures. What determines the character of a collaborative relationship is not the background of the researchers involved, but the degree of mutual interest in the core purpose of the project. When researchers are invested in an engineering education project, they will work together to overcome disciplinary differences. Recommendations are offered for engineers hoping to collaborate with education faculty.