A methodological evaluation of an integrative pedagogy for engineering education

This paper is an evaluation of the pedagogy of a five-day co-curricular course, called the “Lead by Design Institute on Leadership, Diversity and Dialogue For Graduate Students in Engineering.” The intentions in the design of the pedagogy were: to include elements that align with the motivations and values that engineering students bring to their work and study; and to enhance the retention of women and other diversities in engineering, and their long-term sustainability in the practice of engineering. The Lead by Design Institute was offered to an initial group of engineering graduate students within a qualitative research project on diversity-attracting integrative pedagogies for engineering education. The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the design and implementation of the pedagogy of the Lead by Design Institute so that we can understand how to improve or alter the pedagogy for future offerings and to more effectively meet the goal of integrative engineering education. To perform the evaluation, a process of key questions based on Lonergan's basic definition of method is used, with the answers to the questions grounded in the qualitative research data collected during the Institute.