Decisions About Teaching: What Factors Do Engineering Faculty Consider?

Abstract

This current research paper uses a cognitive science methodology for investigating the phenomenon of teaching decision making in engineering education. We ask engineering educators to identify two memorable, recent teaching-related decisions in terms of pre-active (planning) and interactive (in-class) stages. They then describe the situation, the process of making the decision, the factors that they took into account, and the outcomes of their teachingrelated decisions. In this paper, we focus on time as the one specific factor that emerged across all the participants in this research study.